An ancient bronze griffin head, stolen in the 1930s, was returned today, March 21, to The Archaeological museum Of Ancient olympia, from Where it had been removed. Its return came almost a month after it was repatriated to greece From the metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York.

The object, which dates back to the 7th century BC, was officially handed over on Friday evening in a special ceremony, in the presence of the Minister of Culture of Greece, Lina Mendoni. The minister described this day as special for ancient Olympia, but also for the Ministry of Culture.

After decades of absence, the griffin's head has returned from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to its natural home, the archaeological museum of ancient Olympia, Mendoni said.

The official return of the ancient artifact took place on February 24 at a ceremony in New York, where the Minister of Culture received the bronze head of the mythical creature, along with its legal title, from the director of the Metropolitan Museum, Max Hollein. The artifact will be returned on loan to the museum in 2026, to be included in an exhibition.

Mendoni pointed out that this particular return is particularly important, as it did not result from an official claim by the Greek authorities, but from an initiative by the Metropolitan Museum in 2018, when research into the origin of the griffin began.

Sean Hemingway, curator of Greek and Roman art at the museum, said that although there are hundreds of archaic bronze griffin heads from cauldrons, this is one of the largest and best preserved.

The bronze object was discovered at Olympia in 1914 and purchased by the Joseph Brummer Gallery in New York in 1936, through a dealer in Athens. In 1972, it came into the possession of the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a bequest from financier and art collector Walter S. Baker, who had purchased it from the Brummer Gallery in 1948.

Since then, the griffin's head has been permanently exhibited at the museum, while in 1999 it was moved to the entrance of the Greek and Roman art wing. The museum's experts' investigation concluded that it had probably been illegally removed from the Archaeological Museum of Olympia in the 1930s, without the exact circumstances of the theft being known.

The Greek Ministry of Culture provided documents confirming that the object was found in 1914 in the bed of the Kladeos River in Olympia by the curator of the local archaeological museum, Themistokles Karachalios. It was initially kept in the museum’s library, but was not properly recorded before it disappeared in the 1930s.

The available documents, which were examined by the Ministry of Culture and the Metropolitan Museum, confirm that the object could not have left the museum legally. According to a statement from the Metropolitan Museum, the investigation revealed that the theft of the object had taken place under the supervision of the then director of the Archaeological Museum of Olympia, who was brought to justice more than 80 years ago.