The United States is returning 200 antiquities, including an ancient Roman sculpture that almost fell into the hands of Kim Kardashian West. Italy.
Various Roman, Etruscan and Greek artifacts valued at US$10 million (£7.5 million) have been looted since at least the early 1980s, then smuggled and sold to private collectors, museums or auction houses. As part of an investigation led by the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, half were found at the Fordham Museums of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Art in New York.
The white marble head of the Roman Emperor Settimio Severo was stolen from a museum in the Campania region of southern Italy in 1984 and was found at an auction at Christie’s in New York in June 2020.
Other handicrafts include a ceramic vessel named Pithos with Ulysses in the 7th century BC, and a terracotta image of the goddess known as the head of the maiden in the 4th century BC.
Kardashian was unknowingly involved in the investigation this year because the US government called her by name. Civil forfeiture claims An ancient Roman statue, originally plundered from Italy, was confiscated at the Port of Los Angeles in 2016. The statue is called a fragment of Myron’s Samia Athena, which was purchased by the reality TV star from a Belgian art dealer and shipped 40 antiques in her name. She has not been accused of any wrongdoing.
Most of the stolen artifacts are believed to be related to Edoardo Almagià, an Italian antique dealer who lived in New York until 2003. Almagià was investigated in Italy for smuggling and selling stolen cultural relics, but has not been tried since the statute of limitations because the crime has expired.
“He is free and lives in Rome,” said General Roberto Ricardi, head of the Italian cultural heritage protection team. “A lot of time has passed, so the crime is no longer traceable.”
For decades, Italy and the United States have been investigating Almagià, and Italian authorities said his business has contributed to “one of the biggest robberies of Italian cultural heritage.”According to the news channel TGCom24, He defended himself by saying: “There are thousands of works of art spreading around the world without a document. It used to be like this”, adding that “it’s only now that the regulations in Italy and the United States have become stricter. “. Almagià stated that the funds used for the investigation could have been used to “repair Italian museums, not to persecute traders”.
160 artifacts will return to Rome with Riccardi on Thursday, and another 40 will be on display at the Italian Consulate in New York until March.
The Italian Cultural Heritage Protection Team was established in 1969 and has since recovered more than 3 million stolen cultural relics. The team recently recovered more than 2,000 artifacts looted from Taranto in Puglia, which were eventually shipped to Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
“The theft has caused immeasurable damage to our heritage and culture,” Ricadi said. “First, a community loses its heritage object. Second, when a cultural relic is removed from its context, the entire information mine of archaeologists disappears.”
