Swiss federal authorities indicated on Tuesday that they had returned to Libya a marble head of a young woman from the Hellenistic period, around 2,000 years old, discovered ten years ago in a warehouse in Geneva. It is an "archaeological vestige of great value" and an "exceptional testimony to Hellenistic expansion in North Africa ", according to a press release from the Federal Office of Culture. The sculpture was discovered in 2013 as part of an inspection in a customs warehouse in Geneva and was handed over to Bern on Tuesday by the director of the Federal Office of Culture at the Libyan embassy in Switzerland. Three years after its discovery, the Geneva public prosecutor's office decided to initiate proceedings, considering that the sculpture could have been found during "illicit excavations". However, the criminal proceedings did not make it possible to determine the precise place where the sculpture was discovered or how it arrived in Switzerland.

Source: Libya Today December 06, 2023 11:48 UTC