Trove of ancient artifacts stolen by ‘tomb raiders’ sent home to Italy from US

A treasure trove of historic artifacts that had been pilfered by tomb raiders and bought by way of shady auctions and artwork offers have been shipped again to Italy from the USA.

The 266 relics, that are value tens of millions of {dollars}, embody gadgets seized from a New York storage unit as soon as owned by disgraced British antiquities seller Robin Symes and artifacts returned by red-faced collectors who had been duped into shopping for the ill-gotten items.

About 65 of the gadgets had been provided on the market to Houston’s Menil Assortment however had been turned down.

“The Menil Assortment declined these works from the collector they usually have by no means been a part of the museum’s assortment,” Tommy Napier, a spokesman for Menil, advised the Related Press in an announcement.

The looted artifacts — a lot of them seized by the Manhattan District Lawyer’s Workplace within the Large Apple earlier this 12 months — embody an Apulian krater, or vase, that dates again to 335 BC.

The pilfered vase landed in Symes’ palms, who then “laundered the piece by way of Sotheby’s London,” the Manhattan DA’s workplace stated in an announcement.

Additionally within the assortment shipped to Italy are two Etruscan tile work from 440 BC that had been looted from Cerveteri in northwest Rome, which has been a frequent goal of archeological crooks.

These tiles had been stolen within the Eighties and ended up in Symes’ possession, who bought them to famous New York collectors Shelby White and Leon Levy in 1992 for $1.6 million — with the collectors returning them to Symes a number of years later after they realized their illicit origins.

In one other case final 12 months, an unnamed collector sought to donate a number of the historic gadgets to the Menil Assortment solely to study that they had been stolen and being sought by officers in Italy.

Italy has been making an attempt to get well the stolen antiquities for many years.

With Submit wires