“Ten Most Wanted Antiquities” List Spotlights 8000-Year-Old Artifact Presumed Looted During Russian Invasion
Washington, D.C., August 5, 2025—The Antiquities Coalition issued a global alert for the “Mariupol Bull Figurine,” one of more than 2,000 museum pieces that disappeared amid the chaos of Russia’s 2022 siege of Mariupol and the Kremlin’s broader campaign of cultural plunder, today at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council.
The announcement of the addition to the list, attended by Ukrainian First Deputy Minister of Culture Galyna Grygorenko, highlights the continued Russian threat to the Ukraine people and their cultural heritage.
“The war unleashed by Russia against Ukraine is not just a war for territories,” Grygorenko said. “It is not even just a war for political independence. It is a war for the right to remember, for the right to have a separate history, and for the right to remain Ukrainians in this world, both in the eyes of the international community and our children.”
Since Russia’s illegal 2014 annexation of Crimea and its full-scale invasion in 2022, Ukrainian museums, archaeological sites, and other heritage institutions have been systematically plundered. Officials estimate at least 1.7 million artifacts have been lost—part of a deliberate campaign to erase Ukraine’s past while profiting from its stolen heritage. Today’s announcement underscores the urgent need for international cooperation to recover what has been taken—like the bull artifact.
Carved from bone around 6,000 BCE by Neolithic people living along the Azov Sea, likely as a toy or ritual object, the bull was carefully buried in a child’s grave, where it remained undisturbed for some 8,000 years. The palm-sized figurine was excavated in the 1930s by Mykola Makarenko, a pioneering Ukrainian archaeologist, at one of Eastern Europe’s most important prehistoric sites. Until vanishing in the fog of war between 2022 and 2024, it was proudly exhibited at the Mariupol Museum of Local Lore. Its disappearance is a chilling echo of Makarenko’s own fate—in 1934, he was arrested for refusing to cooperate with Soviet efforts to destroy cultural landmarks, exiled, and finally executed in Siberia in 1938.
“This ancient object is more than an archaeological relic—its theft is a deliberate act of cultural aggression, emblematic of Russia’s broader campaign to erase Ukrainian identity,” said Deborah Lehr, Chairman and Founder of the Antiquities Coalition. “By placing it on the Ten Most Wanted Antiquities list, we are calling on the international community to take action—not only to recover this irreplaceable piece of history, but to confront the use of heritage as a weapon of war.”
“The addition of the Mariupol Bull Figurine to the Antiquities Coalition’s Ten Most Wanted list draws important attention to the plight of Ukraine’s cultural objects under Russian assault, and the Kremlin’s plan to erase Ukrainian identity,” said Ambassador John E. Herbst, Senior Director of the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and a former US Ambassador to Ukraine. “To conduct its war intended to subjugate Ukraine, the Kremlin targets what it most fears: the manifestations of Ukraine’s history and culture that form the bedrock of Ukraine’s resilient national identity.”
While the figurine’s whereabouts remain unknown, photographs of it have appeared in Russian museum exhibitions promoting the Azov region as historically Russian—raising concerns that the artifact may already be in Russian hands and used to justify territorial claims.
The Mariupol artifact replaces the Kwer’ata Re’esu Icon of Ethiopia on the Most Wanted list, which was officially identified in Portugal in 2023. The identification of the Ethiopian Icon followed the recovery of another item on the list, Cambodia’s monumental sandstone statue of Ganesha, looted under the Khmer Rouge. These successes demonstrate what is possible when governments, experts, and the public work together to confront the illicit trade in cultural property.
Any information leading to the possible recovery of the Mariupol Bull Figurine should be submitted to law enforcement using the tip lines below:
About the Ten Most Wanted Campaign
The Ten Most Wanted Antiquities list is modeled after the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Criminals list and intended to identify some of the world’s most significant looted, stolen, and missing artifacts from around the world. The intent is to raise awareness about the on-going global crisis of cultural racketeering. Two items on the list have been found to date—successes that stem from engaging the public and the art world in tracking and identifying historic items.
Curated in collaboration with leading experts, the updated Ten Most Wanted Antiquities list now features artifacts from Ukraine, Cambodia, China, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Iraq, the United States, and Yemen. Wanted posters provide snapshots of the pieces’ significance, information about their theft, and their last known whereabouts to help aid in the search for their return.
