A 2,000-year-old marble skull of a young woman from the Hellenistic period unearthed in a Geneva storage a decade ago has been returned to Libya by Swiss officials.
The 19-centimeter-high sculpture is described as a “archaeological vestige of great value,” as well as a “exceptional testimony to Hellenistic expansion in North Africa.”
According to a news release from the Federal Office of Culture, the relic is said to have originated in the ancient city of Cyrene in modern-day Libya and now serves as a link between Switzerland and Libya.
The Swiss Federal Office of Culture has returned the sculpture to Bern after it was discovered during a customs warehouse examination in Geneva in 2013. Despite a three-year inquiry by the Geneva Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate whether the relic was the result of “illicit excavations,” the artifact’s actual origin and path to Switzerland remain unknown.
At the embassy in Switzerland, the sculpture was officially handed over to Libyan authorities. The marble skull returned to Libya is notable for its peculiar reddish patina, which, according to the Federal Office of Culture, reveals information about its origin. The presence of “terra rossa and marble of such quality” in the Cyrenaica region is emphasized, making it a one-of-a-kind territory in the Mediterranean basin.
“Libya, in particular its UNESCO World Heritage sites like Cyrene, are strongly threatened by looting and destruction,” according to the press release, which recalls that “in 2015, the International Council of Museums published a list of red flags of Libyan antiquities in danger to combat the destruction and illegal trade of cultural property,” as reported by Africa News.
Despite the latter’s internal turmoil after Muammar Gaddafi’s demise in 2011, both Switzerland and Libya are parties to the 1970 UNESCO Convention, highlighting their commitment to preventing the import, illicit export, and transfer of ownership of cultural property.