LEBANON'S LOOTED ANTIQUITY

COLLECTORS agree to lift objection after learning sculpture was stolen.

At Colorado couple has dropped a federal lawsuit that sought to stop the Manhattan district attorney's office from returning to the Republic of Lebanon-

An ancient marble bull's head that prosecutors said had been looted during the country's civil-war.

The 2,300-year-old sculpture had been on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art until July, -

When the museum turned it over to the authorities after a curator raised concerns about its provenance to Lebanon officials, who requested its return.

The collectors, Lynda and William Beirwaites, had argued that they bought the artifact in good faith for more than $1 million in 1996.

But last week, the couple's lawyer, William G. Pearlstein, released a statement that said, ''After having been presented with incontrovertible evidence that the-  Bull's head was stolen from Lebanon,'' his clients-

''Believed it was in everyone's best interest to withdraw their claims to the bull's head and allow its repatriation to Lebanon.''     

in an unusual twist, though prosecutors said they were also pursuing the return to Lebanon of a second work that they discovered while recently reviewing a profile of the  Beierwaiteses in an old issue of House & Garden magazine.

In a June 1998 special issue, Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos spotted an antiquity:

''An archaic marble torso of a calf bearer,'' in a photograph of the Beirwalteses home.

Mr. Bogdanos said in a court filing that it had been stolen from Lebanon,