ROME — Italy wellknown the return Friday of 266 antiquities from the United States, consistingof Etruscan vases and ancient Roman coins and mosaics worth 10s of millions of euros (dollars), that were robbed and offered to U.S. museums and personal collectors.
The returned products consistof artifacts justrecently took in New York from a storage system belonging to British antiquities dealership Robin Symes, authorities stated. In addition, the haul that gothere in Rome consistedof 65 things that hadactually been provided by a collector to Houston’s Menil Collection, however were decreased.
The art system of Italy’s Carabinieri paramilitary cops stated the owner of the collection “spontaneously” provided back the products after detectives identified they had come from private excavations of historical websites, according to a carabinieri declaration.
While the carabinieri stated the works hadactually been part of the Menil Collection, the museum stated they neverever were. The museum stated a collector approached the museum in 2022 about making a present of the artifacts, however the museum manager directed the collector to the Italian culture minister, “who informed the museum that Italy was declaring the items.”
“The Menil Collection decreased these works from the collector and they have neverever been part of the museum’s collection,” representative Tommy Napier stated in a declaration late Friday to The Associated Press.
Italy hasactually been on a decades-long project to hunt down antiquities that were robbed by “tombaroli,” or burialplace raiders, and then offered to personal collec