Italy is said to have repatriated 266 ancient artifacts from the United States, where they had been brought and sold by a global network of artifact smugglers in the late 1990s, worth tens of millions of euros.
The oldest of the items date back to the 9th century BC, and they include artwork from the Magna Graecia, Imperial Rome, and Etruscan civilisation periods.
The return of the artifacts, according to a statement from a specialized unit of the Italian carabinieri police on Friday, was made possible by the collaboration between Italian and US judicial authorities.
The artifacts, which were displayed at a restitution ceremony earlier this week in New York, included several painted pots, the head of a statue, and a few coins.
According to the statement, 145 pieces were retrieved as part of bankruptcy proceedings against an antiquities dealer.
A further 65 artifacts, according to the Italian statement, were brought from Houston, Texas’s Menil Collection museum.
A spokesperson for the museum, however, claimed that although it had been given the artifacts as a gift, it had instead directed the donor to the Italian Minister of Culture, who had informed the institution that Italy had already claimed the items.
“The Menil Collection declined these works from the collector and they have never been part of the museum’s collection,” the spokesperson said.
Source-CNN
