The tiny Guennol Lioness was sold at Sotheby’s antiquities auction the first week of December by one private collector to another, with reports referencing but not naming a British archaelogist as the person who paid more than $57 million for this piece found near Baghdad and believed to have been made in Elam, what is now Iran, in about 3000 B.C.

Certainly there will be whines and complaints if the lioness is not displayed in public (she had been on view at a museum in Brooklyn), but it’s hard to imagine who in the world will be sympathetic to these gripes as the Axis Against Evil continues to park its tanks and bombs atop whatever other treasures may reside in the rubble of the library and other sites in the Cradle of Civilzation.

I wouldn’t blame the new owner for keeping the Guennol Lioness in a quiet, private place. She is an amazing creature and it’s enough for her to be safe and protected.