Category: Crime and Trials

Mithras in the News

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

A couple of items of interest relating to the worship of Mithras. First, remains of a Mithraeum have been found in Iraq’s Duhok province. Here’s the incipit of a piece (ultimately from Bloomberg, it turns out) in St. Louis Today:

A temple built by followers of Mithraism, a mystery cult that flourished throughout the Roman Empire from the second to third centuries A.D., has been discovered in Iraq’s northern Duhok province.

The temple, which consists of three parts, lies in the Badri Mountains in eastern Duhok, and includes a place for prayer facing the sun, the province’s antiquities director, Hassan Ahmed Qassim, said in a statement to the website of President Jalal Talabani’s Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party.

“This discovery is important in helping to understand and learn the region’s history, and the important stages it passed through,” Qassim was quoted by Aswat al-Iraq newspaper as telling a news conference at Duhok University.

The other big news regarding Mithras was the recovery, by Italian police, of a very impressive relief depicting the divinity. The incipit of the AdnKronos coverage:

An 2000-year-old marble monument featuring the pagan god Mithras has been found outside Rome by Italian police who believe it was to have been illegally sold abroad. The large marble bas-relief which dates from the 2nd century AD was recovered by authorities in a house north of the capital, according to a report in the Italian daily, Il Messaggero.

Police said the monument was to be sold to China or Japan and transported via the United Arab Emirates.

The relief, made of white Carrara marble and weighing 1,500 kilogrammes, comes from Vejo – a former Etruscan city that flourished in the 5th century BC – and shows the god Mithras slaying a bull.

Agents from the Italian tax police or Guardia di Finanza said the piece was recovered from an old house in the Roman countryside.

According to a statement by Italian tax police, the operation “allowed us to also discover an archaeological site previously unknown to authorities.”

Police said the tomb robbers were four Italians who planned to ship the piece to the UAE and then sell it on the Chinese or Japanese black market.

Oddly enough, the only decent photo of the relief is in a Finnish newspaper:

from Suomen Kuvalehti
from Suomen Kuvalehti

Criminalita from the Italian Press

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

I’ve got a major backlog of items from Italian sources, so I’ve decided to break them up a bit and treat all the ‘busts’ in a single post — besides being an organizational principle, it does highlight how the marketing of illicit antiquities continues to be a major problem in Italy, despite recent successes (some of these date back to May). Ecce:

We’ll begin with an item detailing the outcome of four major operations which resulted in the recovery of some stolen Byzantine frescoes stolen from Caserta in 1982, the return of some 250 items from Switzerland (apparently out of goodwill by a pair of dealers whose names aren’t given), a pile of items recovered from a villa, and some Egyptian-related items which some tombaroli had taken (value – some 3 million euros):

Not sure if this is the same as the ‘pile of items recovered from a villa’ mentioned above; a pair arrested at Salerno:

A man from Orta Nova was found in possession of 18 coins dating to the 3rd/4th centuries, as well as a pile of amphorae and other antiquities with a value of some 400 000 euros:

Brief/vague item on the recovery of a pile of fourth century items:

Brief/vague item on the recovery of some amphorae from some villas (not sure if this is the same as mentioned in the first piece):

700 items found in various tombaroli homes in Foggia after some information from Germany (not sure if this is connected to the Orta Nova thing above)

Discovery of a 50m long tunnel at Pompeii and the arrest of a tombarolo who was apparently using it are raising concerns about the security of antiquities there:

Arrests in Taranto arising from attempts to sell ancient/medieval coins and jewelry on the Internet:

An ongoing archaeological dig was hit by thieves in Montebello:

Police at Messina recovered five amphora taken from an unknown (nearby?) shipwreck:

A couple of metal detectorists were found working on the archaeological site of Torre Mordillo:

A seventy-year old at Torino was arrested with a pile of ancient coins:

… and another 70-year-old from Ivrea was similarly arrested with a pile of ancient coins:

… while a seventy-two-year-old from Frosinone was arrested with a couple of hundred Etruscan artifacts:

I guess they need to keep a closer eye on the pensioners in Italy … what’s sad, of course, is that the above only represents those who managed to get caught …

From the Italian Press 05/03/09

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Scanning the Italian ‘papers’ …

A Roman bridge is being excavated in Parma:

Plans to build an archaeological park at Tivoli (about time!):

… and plans for Pompeii (I don’t quite understand what’s new in this one):

Assorted small finds recovered from a house in Taranto:

Somewhat larger finds from a bust at Matera:

Similiter at Tarquinia:

… and at the Grotta di Entella (Sicily):

Complaining (it seems) about the inaccessibility of assorted (interesting) Roman tombs beneath the Chiesa dello Spirito Santo:

Very brief account of a conference on Ostia Antica:

In the wake of the damage to the Baths of Caracalla in that earthquake, politicians are pointing fingers and blaming each other:

… and the site of Amiternum has reopened:

They’re trying (it seems) to incorporate the Colosseum somehow into the Champions League final on May 27, but it’s controversial:

Another Resort in Bulgaria … Another Bust

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Wow … it seems every time a hotel is built or expanded in Bulgaria, there’s some archaeological find. Here’s the latest coverage from Novinite:

The regional unit for combating organized crime in Bulgaria’s Burgas have seized a hidden treasure dating back to 3rd century BC.

The treasure was discovered in October 2008 during the construction of a new hotel in the Black Sea resort of Nessebar, which is also an ancient town with many ancient and medieval monuments.

Instead of turning it it, however, the hotel owners decided to keep the priceless treasure for themselves, and tried to conceal it.

The police learned about the treasure through its own local sources, and seized the treasure, which is now transferred to the Nessebar Archaeological Museum, and will be on display there starting May 15.

The treasure in questions is exceptionally elaborate and consist of several pieces of jewelry and decoration. It was discovered in what was the burial site of a women from a well-off family who lived in the town in 3rd century BC, during the Hellenistic period. Only the gold parts of the treasure weigh more than 200 grams.

Nessebar was initially a minor Thracian settlement but was later turned into a Greek colony to become part later of Rome and Byzantium, and was later conquered by the First Bulgarian Empire.

Echoes, somewhat, of previous finds of a thracian priestess burial or that statue of Cybele find from Balchik …

Cleveland Museum of Art Returns

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Getting a smattering of coverage this past week was the announcement that the Cleveland Museum of Art would be returning 14 items (13 from the period within our purview) to Italy which were considered to be of dubious origin. In return, the CMoA will be receiving a loan of items of similar value. There don’t seem to be many photos of the items, but this red figure askos is one of my faves:

From the Cleveland Plain Dealer
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer

An excerpt from the coverage in the Plain Dealer:

Italian authorities used evidence collected in a police raid in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1995, which exposed a network of “tombaroli,” or tomb robbers, who passed the works to middlemen who sold them to museums.

Among the most significant objects being returned to Italy from Cleveland is a fourth-century B.C. Apulian red-figured volute krater — a large wine vessel — by the Dorias painter, which stands roughly 4 feet high.

Other works include Etruscan silver bracelets; a Neolithic bronze warrior from Sardinia; an Attic rhyton, or drinking vessel, in the shape of a mule; and a large, Corinthian-column krater.

Rub said the condition of the objects was inspected both by Italian and museum officials Tuesday before they were crated and sealed for transfer today.

The museum turned down requests from The Plain Dealer to observe and photograph the packing of the artworks, in part out of concern for security and in part because museum views the transfer as less important than the agreement reached with Italy last fall.

“I look upon this as a kind of mechanical thing,” Rub said. “The big news for me was the signing of the agreement.”

Of equal (or perhaps greater) interest is a little excerpt tucked into a sidebar photo:

The Cleveland Museum ofArt and Italy have created a joint committee to examine the museum’s “Victory with Cornucopia (Chariot Attachment),” purchased in 1984, plus a large bronze statue of Apollo Sauroktonos, or “Lizard Slayer,” to determine whether the works were looted in violation of modern laws.

I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about that.

As always in such things, David Gill’s  blogposts should be consulted: