The Administrative Control Authority announced on Friday the recovery of an artifact from France’s Louvre Museum in Paris. The Authority said the artifact – a 4th century torso of a marble funerary statue -was stolen after the 2011 revolution.
The Head of the Authority, Abdullah Gaderbou, who visited Paris this week, said that the piece returned from Paris via Mitiga Airport in Tripoli, adding that the handing over ceremony took place at the airport between Gaderbou and the Head of the Antiquities Department, Ali Shalak.
Gaderbou hailed the special envoy of the French President, Paul Soler, for his role in facilitating the statue’s recovery. Meanwhile, the Libyan embassy in Paris said that the artifact was from the Hellenistic (Ptolemaic) period.
The piece has been illegally smuggled from Libya’s Shahat city. It is a large funerary statue, and since 2016, it has been in the Louvre Museum.
