Heritage Displaced: U.S. Museum Houses 5,000-Year-Old Iranian Kneeling Bull

Date: 10 September 2025 - 21:44

News ID: ۱۴۳۳۸۶

NEW YORK (Dispatches) -- A rare 5,000-year-old silver statuette known as the Kneeling Bull—a unique blend of human and animal features—offers a remarkable glimpse into Iran’s ancient Proto-Elamite civilization.
This exquisite artifact, discovered in southwestern Iran, was crafted between 3100 and 2900 B.C. and is now housed in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Kneeling Bull depicts a bull in a human-like kneeling pose, holding a spouted vessel. Made from 98.5% pure silver and standing 16.3 centimeters tall, the figurine was created by the Proto-Elamites, who represent the earliest known civilization in Iran during the Copper Age. This culture is credited with important innovations such as cylinder seals used for administrative and ritual purposes.
According to studies by Met conservator Kate Lefferts in 1970, the hollow statuette contains five small limestone pebbles that may have been placed inside to produce a rattling sound during ceremonies. Animal fibers adhering to the figure suggest it was wrapped or decorated with organic materials, reinforcing its likely role in religious rituals.
Art historian Donald Hansen described the piece as a stunning hybrid: a bovine head with curved horns perched on human-like shoulders, clothed in a decorated robe, with arms ending in hooves gripping a vessel. Notably, the statuette lacks a flat base, implying it was not intended to stand on its own but was possibly buried as a “foundation figurine” in ancient temple construction to mark sacred ground.
Despite being an irreplaceable property of the Iranian nation, this priceless artifact currently resides in the United States—alongside countless other cultural treasures from Iran and beyond that are held in Western museums.
Much like similar cases in France and other former colonial powers, its presence abroad is a stark reminder of a historical legacy marked by cultural appropriation and unequal power dynamics. Many argue that such artifacts should be repatriated to their countries of origin, where they rightfully belong, to restore cultural sovereignty and respect for the nations that created them.