©AFP | Roman era artefacts are displayed as part of the largest quantity of archaeological finds recovered by the Italian Military Police cultural and heritage protection unit at the National Roman Museum on January 21, 2015
Posted on 01/25/2015 1:33:45 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The Italian government on Wednesday said police had seized more than 5,000 ancient artefacts in a record 45-million-euro haul after dismantling a Swiss-Italian trafficking ring.
Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said it was the country's "largest discovery yet" of looted works and consisted of 5,361 pieces, including vases, jewellery, frescoes and bronze statues, all dating from the 8th century BC to the 3rd century AD.
The archaeological treasures came from illegal digs across Italy and "will be returned to where they were found", the minister told reporters.
Police said the items were worth around 45 million euros ($52 million) and were sold across the world with forged certificates of authenticity.
The hoard was discovered as part of an investigation into Italian art dealer Gianfranco Becchina, who owns an art gallery in Switzerland, and his Swiss wife.
The probe, which also involved Swiss police, revealed the existence of a sophisticated smuggling network between the two countries and prompted raids on several warehouses in Basel where hundreds of artefacts were recovered.
Carabinieri general Mariano Mossa, who heads a special Italian police unit specialising in stolen art, said the looted works were sent to Switzerland to be restored before being sold in Germany, Britain, the United States, Japan and Australia using counterfeit provenance papers.
Becchina was detained by Italian police while his wife was arrested by Swiss police.
The Italian authorities have promised to put the artefacts found in the raids on display to the public.
(Excerpt) Read more at france24.com ...
©AFP | Roman era artefacts are displayed as part of the largest quantity of archaeological finds recovered by the Italian Military Police cultural and heritage protection unit at the National Roman Museum on January 21, 2015
This stuff was supposedly illegally excavated — based on the great condition, there should be a plea deal and he turns in the excavators, who would then be employed training the supposed experts on how to locate and extract such great stuff.
I was going to post this (or some other one like it), but I’m burned out.
Excavation plans for Exeter’s Roman Baths
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-30081921
They should do like the governments did when they confiscated tons of poached ivory! In RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION they torched the ivory to keep it of the market.
They should take these beautiful artifacts, crush them to dust, mix with asphalt and use as road fill!
(You know I don’t really mean that!)
“This stuff was supposedly illegally excavated — based on the great condition, there should be a plea deal and he turns in the excavators, who would then be employed training the supposed experts on how to locate and extract such great stuff.”
The slowness of the pros is because they care about context. What’s near it? What pollen or burnt wood is with it? Besides I’ll wager that most if not all of these are artful fakes. I recall an old movie where somebody stole the Mona Lisa. He already had a bunch of copies and was busy selling them. As I recall, he kept the original. There have been fake antiques for so long that it was a problem in ancient Rome. If you bought the fake, who would you dare get to authenticate it? This reminds me of when a SWAT team raided one of my tenants and recovered 48 10” pot plants and announced that they were worth $50,000. The authorities tend to exaggerate.
:’) It’s interesting though — some relative of Napoleon III (I think it was) got exclusive license to dig a large Etruscan site in Italy. He found thousands and thousands of intact pottery pieces in no time. The market wasn’t there, as he saw it, so he selected a few hundred and had all the rest of it smashed.
> I’ll wager that most if not all of these are artful fakes.
Then why would the authorities “return” them to the polities where they were “excavated”?
The slowness of the pros is due to the fact that they don’t have funding. Sales to collectors (with priority given to museums and universities) would fund archaeology and site conservation, but that would wrong wrong wrong because it is market-driven.
My first encounter with the Mona Lisa forger story was in the revived version of “Ripley’s Believe it or Not” — the guy stole the painting, had copies made, then on the QT offered the copies (one at a time) to rich foreigners with more money than brains, who were too humiliated by the con to report it after the real painting was returned to the Louvre. The same con man also sold the Eiffel Tower for scrap, twice, and got away clean. Eventually the crook got caught for something else, died in jail, with his death certificate showing a profession as “apprentice salesman”. :’)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yves_Chaudron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_de_Valfierno
“Then why would the authorities “return” them to the polities where they were “excavated”?”
Because that automatically authenticates them making them worth money. Also, imagine how the fact that they’re real will enhance careers. (Yeah, I’m cynical to the bone.)
That Mona Lisa story is AWESOME!! Thanks.
Can’t quite round it up on the web though, darnit.
https://www.youtube.com/results?q=Jack+Palance+ripley’s+believe+it+or+not&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=w1
I read, about 45 years ago, that a copy of the Mona Lisa was in a Virginia bank vault while the owners tried to get it authenticated.
The story was, Da Vinci made several copies of the painting back in his time.
Ripley: Believe It or Not
American Experience
WGBH
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/ripley/player/
Isleworth Mona Lisa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isleworth_Mona_Lisa
First copy of da Vinci masterpiece reveals she had sculpted eyebrows and was more plump
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2095047/Mona-Lisa-copy-painted-Leonardo-da-Vincis-student-unveiled-Madrid.html
Speculations about Mona Lisa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speculations_about_Mona_Lisa
The Isleworth Mona Lisa is probably the one you mean.
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This article says it was hid in a SWISS bank.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isleworth_Mona_Lisa
The article I read back around 1970 said it was in a VIRGINIA bank.
Maybe Da Vinci did more than one study for the painting.
Beautiful! I want that!
Heh, yeah, we think alike.
Quite a haul. That stuff is in great condition.
just a sort of update, links, stuff.
Isleworth Mona Lisa keyword:
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