Month: diciembre 2021

Restituzione di Beni Culturali italiani- Cultural Heritage Restitution

Posted on by damiandellaqueva

US begins returning $10m of antiquities stolen from Italy

Source: The Guardian

Investigation recovers 200 artefacts including statue unwittingly bought by reality TV star Kim Kardashian West

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, centre left, with members of the antiquities trafficking unit and eight of the recovered artefacts.
The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, centre left, with members of the antiquities trafficking unit and eight of the recovered artefacts.

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, centre left, with members of the antiquities trafficking unit and eight of the artefacts. Photograph: Vincent Tullo/New York Times/Redux/eyevine

The US is returning 200 antiquities, including an ancient Roman sculpture that almost ended up in the possession of Kim Kardashian West, that were stolen and smuggled out of Italy.

The variety of Roman, Etruscan and Greek artefacts, valued at $10m (£7.5m), had been looted since at least the early 1980s before being smuggled out and sold to private collectors, museums or auction houses. Half were found at New York’s Fordham Museum of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Art as part of an investigation led by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance.

A white marble head of the Roman emperor Settimio Severo that had been stolen in 1984 from a museum in Italy’s southern Campania region was found in June 2020 just as it was about to be put up for auction at Christie’s in New York.

Other artefacts include a 7th century BC ceramic vessel called Pithos with Ulysses, and a 4th century BC terracotta image of a goddess known as A Head of Maiden.

Kardashian unwittingly became caught up in the investigation this year after the US government named her in a civil forfeiture claim for an ancient Roman statue, originally looted from Italy, that was confiscated at Los Angeles port in 2016. The statue, known as the Fragment of Myron’s Samian Athena, was bought by the reality TV star from a Belgian art dealer and was part of a shipment in her name that contained 40 antiques. She was not accused of any wrongdoing.

The vast majority of the stolen artefacts are believed to be connected to Edoardo Almagià, an Italian antiques dealer who lived in New York until 2003. Almagià was investigated in Italy for smuggling and selling stolen artefacts, but he will not face criminal charges since the statute of limitations for the crime has expired.

“He is free and living in Rome,” said General Roberto Riccardi, the chief of Italy’s cultural heritage protection squad. “Lots of time has passed and so the crime is no longer pursuable.”

Almagià was investigated for decades by Italy and the US, with Italian authorities alleging his business contributed to “one of the biggest lootings of Italian cultural heritage”. According to the news channel TGCom24, he has defended himself, saying: “There are thousands if art objects travelling the world without documents and in the past it was always like this,” adding that “only now have the Italian and American regulations become stricter”. Almagià said the money spent on the investigation could have been spent “repairing Italian museums rather than on persecuting traders”.

One hundred and sixty of the artefacts will travel back to Rome on Thursday with Riccardi, while 40 others will go on display in an exhibition at the Italian consulate in New York until March.

Italy’s cultural heritage protection squad was established in 1969 and has since retrieved more than 3m stolen artefacts. The team recently recovered more than 2,000 relics looted from Taranto, in Puglia, which ended up in Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

“The thefts create incalculable damage to our heritage and culture,” said Riccardi. “Firstly, a community loses an object of its heritage. Secondly, a whole mine of information for archaeologists disappears when an artefact is removed from its context.”

Italy to return Parthenon Marble to Greece

Posted on by damiandellaqueva

Italy Returns Parthenon Marble to Greece, Piling Pressure on British Museum

Source: Greek Reporter

Parthenon Marbles
Italy will return a fragment of the Parthenon Marbles that Lord Byron left in Palermo. Credit: Urban Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5

The Greek Ministry of Culture and Sports announced this week that Italy will return a fragment of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece, a move which adds pressure on the British Museum to follow suit and return the magnificent Parthenon Marbles to their rightful home.

At a November 30 meeting of Greece’s Central Archaeological Council, journalists were informed that the return of the fragment of the Parthenon Marbles would be initiated at its next meeting, scheduled to take place before the end of 2021.

This is the second time the fragment will return to Greece. In 2008 Italian President Giorgio Napolitano and his Greek counterpart Karolos Papoulias were present at the Acropolis Museum in Athens to witness the joining of the fragment with its frieze.

The resolution of these delicate, year-long discussions represents a breakthrough for Greece and Italy, both aggrieved by the theft of great numbers of their antiquities over the centuries. Greece has gone to great lengths to return the Parthenon Marbles, even building a magnificent state-of-the-art museum, to guarantee their return.

The fragment, from stone VI on the eastern frieze of the Parthenon, can currently be seen at the Museo Archeologico Antonio Salinas in Palermo, Sicily. The sculptural piece, depicting the robe and right foot of the hunting goddess Artemis, has spent two centuries in the Palermo museum. Under conditions dictated by Italian law, the piece will travel back to Greece on a four-year loan, with the intent to extend for a further four years.

Statue of Athena to Be Exchanged for Fragment

In return for the fragment of the Parthenon Marbles, the Acropolis Museum will send the Palermo institution a headless statue of the goddess Athena, according to the blog Archeology.wiki. The statue will be replaced by a vase after a four-year period, matching the amount of time the fragment of the Parthenon Marbles remains in Greece.

The two museums, the Regional Government of Sicily and Minister of Culture and Sports Lina Mendoni began negotiations for the long-term loan of the fragment of the Parthenon Marbles in January 2021, the Greek Ministry’s announcement states.

Palermo fragment Parthenon Marbles
The Palermo fragment of the Parthenon Marbles will be returned to Greece before the end of 2021. Credit: John Kolsedis Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5

The fragment, depicting the right foot of the goddess Artemis, has had its own odyssey. After Lord Elgin detached the piece from the Parthenon, along with the rest of the Parthenon Marbles, he embarked on his voyage to London by sea in 1806.

Elgin made a stop in Palermo and met his friend, the British consul Robert Fagan, who was also known for his love of archeology and art. Elgin offered Fagan the fragment of the Parthenon Marbles before leaving for London in order for Fagan to add it to the collection of antiquities he already had from excavations in Sicily.

Following Fagan’s death, the piece was transferred to the Royal University of Palermo and ended up at the Salina Museum. It has since been known since then as the Palermo fragment of the Parthenon Marbles.

Greece offered a similar deal to the UK in November, seeking the return of the Parthenon Marbles. Amid the long-running and contentious debate over repatriation for pieces of the Parthenon held by the British Museum, the UK Prime Minister’s office announced that the decision will be delegated from the government to the museum’s board of trustees.

Without any legislative update to existing deaccessioning laws, the board is powerless to return anything at all, especially pieces the museum maintains were obtained legally, not looted. However, documents that emerged recently suggest that the UK may have more discretionary power than it publicly admits: they establish that official policy at the time of their writing, in 1991, was to obfuscate, because the government didn’t want to return the ancient items to Greece.

To pressure the British Museum, this action could be the model for the Parthenon Marbles to be exchanged on a temporary loan of other significant Greek antiquities.

In November when Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson the Parthenon Marbles dominated the discussion. Athens proposed reuniting the Parthenon Marbles in exchange for a long-term share of Agamemnon’s golden burial mask and the Artemision Bronze.

The exchange of the fragment with Italian cultural authorities could provide the model for the British Museum to follow a similar path for the Parthenon Marbles reunification.