Ancient Tyre Coffins Seized in New York Are Coming Home to Lebanon

Lebanon is set to recover a collection of ancient lead coffin panels that were illegally excavated around Tyre and smuggled out of the country, after the pieces were identified in sales catalogues in New York.

Minister of Culture Ghassan Salame announced that the artifacts would be handed over to Lebanon’s Consul General in New York, Talal Daher, following efforts by Lebanon’s Directorate General of Antiquities to secure their return in cooperation with U.S. authorities and the FBI.

The artifacts were discovered in sales catalogues issued by Arte Primitivo, a New York-based auction house specializing in antiquities.

According to Dr. Salame, the lead panels display artistic, decorative, and technical characteristics considered typical of the workshops that produced lead coffins in ancient Tyre. Their designs also bear similarities to examples discovered in an intact Roman underground burial chamber, or hypogeum, in Debaal, a village located around 14 kilometers southeast of Tyre. The comparison provides further archaeological context for the recovered pieces and their possible connection to the Tyre region.

Salame said the case is particularly significant given the extensive archaeological wealth of the Tyre area, which has suffered severe destruction in recent times due to indiscriminate enemy bombings. He added that available evidence indicates that the coffin panels originated from the Tyre region and were removed during illicit excavations.

The recovery is part of Lebanon’s broader efforts to protect its archaeological heritage and combat the illegal trafficking of cultural property. “Any piece that is illegally removed represents a loss to the national heritage,” Salame said, stressing that the Ministry of Culture and the Directorate General of Antiquities would continue working to recover Lebanese artifacts proven to have been taken out of the country unlawfully.

We are happy that pieces of Tyre’s ancient history are coming back to where they belong.

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