Greece recovers hundreds of stolen artifacts
Greece claims to have recovered hundreds of looted items, including a bronze statue of Alexander the Great. from the 2nd Century.
Officials said that the trove of antiquities was recovered following a legal dispute with a British antiquities company.
Robin Symes, as part of an illegal trading network, had amassed thousands of pieces.
Greece has fought for years to recover stolen artifacts that have been looted from museums and private collections worldwide.
Lina Mendoni, the Greek Culture Minister, announced on Friday that 351 items from Symes’s collection would be repatriated following a 17-year court battle.
Ms. Mendoni did not say if the artifacts were linked to the discovery by Italian and Swiss police in 2016 of a haul of archaeological treasures said to have been stored by Symes at the Geneva freeport in Switzerland.
Arguably the most high-profile artworks in the debate about whether museums should return items to their countries of origin are the Parthenon Sculptures.
They were removed from the Parthenon temple in Athens in the early 19th Century by the British soldier and diplomat, Lord Elgin. The sculptures were then bought by the British government in 1816 and placed in the British Museum.
Talks about their return are said to be advancing.
In March, the Vatican returned three fragments of Athens’ Parthenon temple it had kept for centuries.
