Yemeni Antique lions and ibex in international museums

Abdullah Mohsen, a specialist researcher interested in antiquities, revealed a number of Yemeni bronze lion statues distributed in European museums and in the United States.

He pointed out that the most famous ones are those located in the Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art in the United States of America, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in Britain, and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

He explained, in a post on his Facebook page, that more than 27 centuries ago in the city of Nashan (Nashan), the Kingdom of Ma’in, industry and metal casting were aspects of the mental image of Yemen’s civilization.

He continued to say: “Bronzes of all kinds were popular, including statues of lions, and from there came the lions of the collection of Shlomo Musayev, an Israeli antiquities collector and jewelry dealer.”

As for the lion of the Fitzwilliam Museum “Cambridge,” he added, “It is one of our antiquities in Hadhramaut, and it has a famous story,” and he mentioned it in the context of comments through a story that took place between Sultan Al-Quaiti and a Western orientalist.

Mohsen confirms that the other lions were donated to the Smithsonian Museum by the American Foundation for the Study of Man, the Wendell and Merlin Phillips Collection, which is one of the most famous archaeological missions in Yemen, as he put it.