This one doesn’t seem to have received as much coverage as I thought it would … from the CBC:

Italian authorities and antiquities experts are upset the British government is allowing the sale of about 1,000 artifacts allegedly stolen from Italy in order to pay the debts of a bankrupt collector.

The items are from the collection of Robin Symes, a U.K. dealer who has been linked to a smuggling ring. Symes built up a massive business selling antiquities to major institutions around the world including the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

The Italian authorities charged Marion True, former curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, with dealing in stolen antiquities. She is still facing those charges. The Getty has returned more than three dozen items to Italy.

The far-reaching investigation into the sale of looted items is ongoing and Symes is still under scrutiny by Italian officials.

Symes went bankrupt in 2005 after a legal dispute with the family of his late business partner.

The British government has given the green light for the sale of Symes’s collection which includes Roman bronzes, Etruscan gold, amber necklaces, ancient statues and other valuable pieces. The sale will be handled by liquidators acting for the U.K. government, which is trying to recoup unpaid taxes from Symes.

According to The Guardian newspaper, Paolo Giorgio Ferri, the main prosecutor in Rome, has repeatedly asked Britain to return the antiquities to their “rightful owner.”

Meanwhile, the Home Office — the department handling foreign affairs — has responded by asking the Italian government for details on how those antiquities arrived in Britain.

Colin Renfrew, a professor of archeology at Cambridge University, calls the situation a “scandal.”

“Many of the antiquities are Etruscan and could only have been found in Italy, ” Renfrew told The Guardian. “They left Italy illegally because they would require an export licence. I can’t see how the Home Office can dispute that.”

Sale of the collection is expected to raise more than £100,000 ($155,000). There’s no word yet on when the sale is to take place.

via Italy angered by U.K. antiquities sale | CBC.

See also:

• UK accused over sale of ‘looted’ Italian treasures to pay tax bill | Guardian

Brief item from MSN Italia about a criminal who apparently had a thing for weapons and archaeology:

Una vera e propria santabarbara, che comprendeva anche un proiettile anticarro della seconda guerra mondiale, e’ stata scoperta dai carabinieri a Sassoferrato (Ancona). Arrestato S.V., 37 anni, del luogo, un operaio con l’evidente passione per le armi e anche per l’archeologia. In casa sua, infatti, oltre alle armi (un fucile a canne mozze, una pistola, un grosso quantitativo di munizioni calibro 22, polvere da sparo) i militari hanno trovato ben 300 reperti archelogici, in gran parte di epoca romana.

via Armi e reperti archeologici in casa: arrestato operaio – MSN Italia.

The Thessaloniki Police Antiquities Smuggling department on Sunday announced that it had successfully busted a ring of illegal antiquities traders, who were negotiating with antiquities-trading circuits for the sale of important archaeological finds for very large sums of money.

Police said that an investigation lasting several months had culminated last Friday with the arrest of two Greeks aged 48 and 51 at the Kavala junction of the Egnatia Highway. In a spot search of their car, police found and confiscated a bronze statue dated to the 4th century B.C.

Further searches in the homes of the two suspects in Drama yielded more important archaeological artifacts that were in their possession, including the bronze head of a boy dated to the Roman era, a stone relief of a woman, two bronze coins, 11 gold coins, one silver coin and the bronze head of a youth.

Archaeologists examining the objects confiscated have confirmed that these fall under the statutes of the ‘Protection of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage’ act, while the bronze statue and head of a boy, in particular, are believed to be objects of unique archaeological, historic and commercial value. The two men were apparently negotiating the sale of the statue for seven million euros.

via Major finds recovered in illegal antiquities bust | ANA.

No photos, alas …

The Lebanese Antiquities Department received on Monday a rare sarcophagus and other antique items confiscated from the house of a sheikh in Baalbek.

The judicial police found the antiquities last Wednesday at the house of Sheikh Mohammad Jaafar Suleiman al-Mohajer, who was believed to have dug them out illegally and kept them secret hoping to sell them.

The items included a sarcophagus dating back to the Roman era in the second century AD and two carved stones, one showing the head of a lion and another showing the portrait of an emperor. The sarcophagus is believed to be of great importance because it might be that of a child from a royal family and it is to be soon displayed at the Lebanese National Museum.

However, according to an article published Tuesday by the Arabic-language newspaper An-Nahar, Mohajer claimed that he had previously contacted the department about the discovery but that the latter had failed to recover the items.

Mohajer said he found the antiques on a property he owned and had sent a letter to the Culture Ministry asking them to buy the items.

Nonetheless, the department insisted it was informed of the discovery before receiving Mohajer’s letters, security sources told An-Nahar. It had launched an investigation in the matter because the items were not reported within the legal deadline of 24 hours and they were dug illegally on the property of Hajj Haydar al-Mohajer.

Furthermore, the judicial police arrested on February 2 two men suspected of fraud, who confessed that Mohajer’s son, Ali Ammar, had tried to sell them antique jewelry items for $1.7 million.

The police raided Mohajer’s house last Wednesday and found the sarcophagus in his back yard along with two other antiques. But they did not go inside the house where antique jewelry might be hidden, noting that the sarcophagus was found empty while the dead were traditionally buried with all their jewelry.

via Antiquities Department receives rare sacrophagus | The Daily Star.