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3 min read<\/p>\n3 min read<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what you\u2019ll learn when you read this story:<\/p>\n
A Tunisian national looted coins that were over 2,200 years old and attempted to sell them to an antiques dealer in Oslo, Norway.The dealer teamed up with local police to organize a sting and recover the 30 bronze coins, which had been minted in ancient Carthage.While the coins were returned to the Tunisian government, tens of thousands from the same hoard are still unaccounted for, including many that are likely for sale right now.<\/p>\n
When a Tunisian national smuggled more than two dozen 2,200-year-old bronze coins<\/a> into Oslo with the intention of selling them to an antique coin dealer, the local police were waiting. The success of sting led not only to the return of the 30 coins to the Tunisian government, but to the discovery of their history by experts at the University of Oslo\u2019s Museum of Cultural History. But though this is a happy ending for the small collection, thousands of similar coins\u2014many from the very same hoard as those recovered in Oslo\u2014remain for sale across the world.<\/p>\n \u201cCombating looting and illicit trade in cultural heritage artifacts requires coordinated efforts and cooperation,\u201d the authors of a recent report published<\/a> in Libyan Studies wrote. \u201cThe restitution of illegal artifacts plays an important role in diminishing the harm done to such communities. Tunisia has suffered, and continues to suffer, serious consequences from looting and trafficking in cultural materials<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n The story of the recovered coins starts in 2022, when a Tunisian citizen contacted a coin dealer in Oslo via email claiming to have over 440 pounds of ancient bronze Punic coins that originated from an underwater<\/a> find off the Tunisian coast. Pictures appeared to back the story. Instead of engaging in the illegal exchange, the dealer contacted the police, who tracked the seller on his way to Oslo via Paris and arrested him with a sample of the smuggled hoard\u2014a total of 30 coins.<\/p>\n That\u2019s when the University of Oslo got involved, researching and documenting the coins before they were returned to Tunisia\u2019s government in March of 2023. The experts confirmed that the coins were indeed Punic bronzes, minted in Carthage during the Second Punic War sometime between 215 and 205 B.C.E. Each of the 30 pieces showed similar wear, indicating that they were likely all minted at the same time, and were traded and stored together. The alloy<\/a> contained silver content, likely making them more valuable to hoard, rather than spend.<\/p>\n The batch of 30 contained two denominations. Twenty-four are large coins, weighing between 14 and 18 grams, known as \u201ctrishekels.\u201d The six smaller pieces, about six to nine grams each, are \u201cshekels.\u201d Each one had the head of the goddess Tanit on one side and a horse<\/a> standing in front of a palm tree on the other.<\/p>\n \u201cThe similar depiction of the horse\u2019s body and its front legs on the reverse of each denomination indicates that the dies with which they were struck were cut by engravers working in the same workshop<\/a> of the Carthage mint,\u201d the authors wrote, \u201cand that these coins were issued concurrently.\u201d<\/p>\n Inspection confirmed that the coins spent centuries underwater, likely in a shipwreck or harbor ruins. Photos of the original find discovered on the phone of the smuggler<\/a> geotagged it to a coastal area of Tunisia, allowing investigators to conclude that the full hoard likely contains tens of thousands of coins.<\/p>\n Researchers praised the coin dealer, the police, the museum, and the governmental bodies who worked together on the case, but noted that the recovery of 30 coins represents a minute fraction of the full hoard. The study highlighted at least three examples of coins for sale\u2014likely from the same exact hoard\u2014in antique<\/a> catalogs, and noted that more than 500 examples of the same types of coins have appeared in online auction catalogues over the past decade. Charges against the smuggler were eventually dropped, and the man returned to Tunisia.<\/p>\n
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