Ancient Artifacts Worth $2.2 M. Recovered by Manhattan DA’s Office Will Be Returned to Greece and Italy

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office recently announced the recovery of two groups of ancient artifacts which would be returned to Greece and Italy.

A repatriation ceremony took place on February 25 for eleven ancient Greek artifacts, including a votive figurine from 1300-1200 BCE and a marble funerary relief from 4th-3rd century BCE.

Other artifacts being returned include a Hellenistic statuette of the mythical heroine Atalanta, an aryballos depicting a battle scene from 600-500 BCE, and a Dionysian kantharos from the 4th century BCE.

The collection of items were recovered by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and are valued at approximately $1 million, according to a report by the Athens newspaper Kathimerini.

The news followed the announcement from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. on February 18, of 107 objects valued at $1.2 million that would be sent back to Italy. The artifacts had been recovered from multiple ongoing investigations and were connected to several known smugglers of antiquities, including Giacomo Medici, Giovanni Franco Becchina and Robert Hecht.

Some of the recovered pieces were also connected to London-based art dealer Robin Symes, who was convicted of contempt of court for lying about antiquities he held in storage locations around the world in 2005; and Swiss gallery owner Herbert Cahn.

Among the most notable items were a Terracotta Kylix Band-Cup from the middle of the 6th Century BCE, a Apulian Volute Krater from 320-310 BCE, and a Bronze Patera fropm 4th Century BCE.

The press release said the Kylix, a type of drinking cup “was found and illegally excavated from the Etruscan archaeological site of Vulci in the 1960s before it was smuggled out of Italy by the New York and Paris-based dealer Robert Hecht. It was eventually acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2017 where it remained until it was seized” by the office’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU). The Krater, a terracotta vase from a Greek colony in Southern Italy, was allegedly trafficked by Almagia into New York and sold to a Manhattan based gallery before 1987. The ATU recovered it from a private collection last year. The patera bowl was smuggled out of Italy by convicted antiquities trafficker Gianfranco Becchina, made its way to New York-based antiquities dealer Mathias Komor, and sold to the present owner before it was also seized by the ATU earlier this year.

The announcement also noted that Edoardo Almagià had also been charged and was the subject of an arrest warrant.

On February 24, the Metropolitan Museum of Art also announced it was returning a 7th-century bronze head donated by a former trustee head to Greece following a review internally of it’s provenance records

The museum’s researchers concluded it was likely illegally removed from the Archaeological Museum of Olympia in the 1930s, though details of the removal aren’t known.