Photo: Greek lion head dating from 500BC, originally from a sanctuary at San Biagio near the Greek colony of Mentaponto in Southern Italy. Courtesy of Shefton Museum.

An ancient lion’s head is set to become the main attraction at Newcastle University’s Shefton Museum of Greek Art after the sculpture’s two halves were reunited for the first time in centuries.

The find marks the end of a 25-year quest for the museum’s founder, 85-year-old Professor Brian Shefton, to bring together the ancient terracotta pieces.

Professor Shefton first acquired half of the head as a loan for the museum in the 1970s after it was bought from auctioneer’s Christies by Lionel Jacobson; a major benefactor to the university’s Greek collection.

Photo: Professor Brian Shefton, the museum's founder, 1989. Courtesy of Shefton Museum.

Years later the Professor was browsing through the catalogue of an exhibition of ancient animal images from Swiss collector Dr Leo Mildenburg when he spotted what he thought could be the head's other half.

“I knew the curator in Cleveland, Ohio, where the exhibition was taking place and asked her to take a cast of the break line of the image and send it to me. It fitted like a piece in a jigsaw puzzle, it was fantastic!” said Professor Shefton.

When the touring exhibition reached Cologne, Professor Shefton travelled to Germany with the Newcastle half and confirmed the match.

Photo: Andrew Parkin, the Museum Education Officer. Courtesy of Shefton Museum.

Upon his death, Dr Mildenberg left his half of the lion to the Shefton Museum as a bequest in his will, and subsequently, the Jacobson family donated their half to the Museum, where the two halves have now been reunited.

Professor Shefton continued: “The piece now looks magnificent. I had been immensely pleased to get our half of the lion’s head, and I thought that there was absolutely no chance of the other half ever being found.”

Once forming the upper portion of a waterspout on a Greek shrine, it is thought the lion’s head split apart and became buried after the building collapsed – probably centuries ago. The two pieces have never been seen together again until now.

It is thanks to one remarkable man and his persistence that the two halves can now be seen on permanent display in the Shefton Museum in the heart of Newcastle.