Italy
celebrated the return of hundreds of its antiquities from the United States last
May. The property included ancient bronze statues, gold coins, mosaics and
documents valued at $65 million.
The
pieces were stolen years ago. They were later sold to American museum, galleries and
collectors. Their return came after a successful criminal investigation.
Officials
of Italy’s Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage
presented the returned objects at a press event in Rome.
A
team of American officials attended the presentation. They included U.S.
Ambassador Jack Markell and Matthew Bogdanos, chief of the antiquities
trafficking unit of the New York district attorney's office.
It
marked the latest presentation of property return in Italy’s long effort to
recover antiquities stolen from its territory. The thieves, called tombaroli in
Italy, sold to dealers who often lied on ownership records to
resell the antiquities.
Among
the most valuable pieces presented was a fourth-century Naxos silver coin.
The coin has an image of the Greek god of wine, Dionysius. It was taken from an
illegal dig site in Sicily and transported to Britain. It was found in New York
last year as part of an investigation into a noted British coin dealer. It was
being offered for sale for $500,000.
Other
objects were returned from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The
returned objects also included a life-sized bronze statue of a person, several vases from the ancient Etruscan
civilization and paintings from the 16th and 19th centuries that once belonged
to Italian museums, religious centers and private homes.
