Shipment of 4,000-year-old Bronze Age era swords, arrowheads seized by Philadelphia Customs and Border Patrol officers in PA

PHILADELPHIA — U.S. Customs and Border Protection has seized a shipment of ancient weapons intercepted at Philadelphia International Airport, after officials determined the items were likely smuggled cultural artifacts coming from Iran.

CBP officers discovered dozens of swords and arrowheads during a routine cargo inspection in October.

The shipment arrived on a cargo flight from the United Arab Emirates and was headed to Jacksonville, Florida. Initially, officials seized the items and turned them over to a local archaeologist for evaluation, a process that took several months.

Robert Whitman, a former FBI art crimes investigator from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, who helped establish the bureau’s art crimes team, said the discovery highlights the size of the global black market for stolen antiquities. He said federal agencies have specialized teams dedicated to investigating the illicit trade in cultural artifacts.

“In this particular case, CBP was just doing their job, and they may have been looking for drugs or any other type of weapons that had been smuggled into the country,” Whitman said.

An archaeologist from the local Philadelphia University, who did not want to reveal his identity, dated the artifacts to between 1600 and 1000 BC from an area near the Caspian Sea in Iran. These items are believed to have been illegally excavated from ancient burial sites.

Objects of this era and provenance can command significant prices, Whitman said.

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“So you’re probably looking at a value of at least six figures or hundreds of thousands of dollars,” he said.

Whitman emphasized the broader cultural cost of such thefts.

“When you start stealing cultural heritage from other countries, when these materials go out to other countries, they lose their history. They lose their civilizations, and as a result, the whole world loses it,” he said.

CBP officially seized the artifacts in February after an archaeological review concluded they were likely obtained illegally. The United States has agreements with 30 countries to facilitate the return of smuggled cultural property, but Iran is not among them.

The items will remain in CBP custody until a decision is made on their disposition, officials said.

CBP said no charges are currently being pursued.