New York's Met and Palermo's Salinas Museum Sign Landmark Agreement to Keep Morgantina Silver in Sicily

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museo Archeologico Regionale Salinas in Palermo have signed a new agreement replacing a 2006 accord. Under the previous deal, the Morgantina Silver—a hoard of 15 Hellenistic silver objects from the 3rd century BCE looted from Morgantina and acquired by the Met in 1984—had to return to New York every four years. The new pact, signed by Salinas director Caterina Greco and Met director Max Hollein, permanently keeps the silver in Aidone, Sicily, at the archaeological site of ancient Morgantina, citing conservation concerns. The museums also launched a multi-year collaboration involving artifact exchanges. The first exchange will see the Met lend four Cypriot archaic Greek ceramics (750–600 BCE) to Salinas, while Salinas sends a terracotta arula, an archaic marble lamp, and a figured relief from Selinunte to New York. This follows the Salinas Museum's precedent-setting return of a Parthenon frieze fragment to Athens in January 2022, which led to a reciprocal loan of a headless Athena statue. Sicilian regional cultural assessor Alberto Samonà, who championed the deal, called it a major result for Sicily, emphasizing cultural exchange as a path forward for research, valorization, and promotion of the island's heritage.