{"id":11850,"date":"2026-05-02T14:31:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T14:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/11850\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T14:31:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T14:31:20","slug":"u-s-returns-hundreds-of-looted-antiquities-to-italy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/11850\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Returns Hundreds of Looted Antiquities to Italy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Italy\u2019s Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli is making a point<\/a> to skip this year\u2019s Venice Biennale opening. Nevertheless, Giuli did make sure to attend a ceremony held at Rome\u2019s La Marmora barracks yesterday. There, U.S. officials formally returned 337 looted antiquities, archival materials, and artworks back to Italy. The newfound treasures bear Etruscan, Greek, Italic, and Egyptian influences, and date from the Villanovan era (900 to 700 B.C.E.) through the Hellenistic period (323 to 31 B.C.E.).<\/p>\n

Officials from Italy\u2019s Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage worked alongside America\u2019s Federal Bureau for Investigation and Department of Homeland Security\u2014as well as the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.\u2014to bring these relics home. Neither Italy\u2019s Ministry of Culture nor the office of U.S. ambassador to Italy Tilman Fertitta returned my request for further details regarding precisely when and how these works vanished. But, press materials <\/a>issued yesterday stated many \u201coriginated from clandestine excavations or were stolen from cultural institutions before subsequently being introduced into the international market.\u201d All have been declared found since December.<\/p>\n

Some 221 of these 337 rescued antiquities have arrived in Italy courtesy of the Manhattan DA, including an array of sculptures, bronzes, ceramics, and goldwork artifacts all hailing from the fifth century B.C.E. through third century C.E..<\/p>\n

Bragg\u2019s office also partnered with the FBI, Homeland Security, and even Christie\u2019s to recover the remaining 116 objects on April 10. The subsection that the FBI helped with spans bronzes and terracottas from the Iron Age through Hellenistic times. Homeland Security, meanwhile, assisted with relics like a rudder, a vase from ancient Greece\u2019s southern Italian colony of Canosa di Puglia, plus a cache of Roman coins.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

More of the repatriated relics. Photo by Agnese Sbaffi \u00a9 Ministry of Culture<\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s Ministry of Culture claims that the most important items to turn up from the whole endeavor include a marble head depicting Alexander the Great made during the first century C.E. that first turned up at the Roman Forum, a bronze sculpture once taken from the Herculaneum<\/a>, and a pair of Egyptian basalt sculptures.<\/p>\n

In yesterday\u2019s release, Fertitta noted that this repatriation marks 25 years since the U.S. and Italy signed their first Memorandum of Understanding to jointly combat antiquities trafficking. The agreement, which has since been renewed four times\u2014most recently in December\u2014has since become the longest-standing Cultural Property Agreement in continental Europe.<\/p>\n

Italian authorities have said that since 2022, this partnership has brought tens of millions of euros in treasures back to the country. These include 600 statues, paintings, and vessels collectively worth about \u20ac60 million ($65 million) that the U.S. restituted in 2024, and a Pompeii fresco fragment that returned to its rightful home<\/a> last year. At least one Italian archaeologist, however, has argued<\/a> that a sizeable percentage of the objects returned are actually fake.<\/p>\n

According to Giuli, these latest artifacts \u201cwill now be the subject of study, preservation, and enhancement, ensuring they may eventually return to their places of origin and be made available for public enjoyment.\u201d The Ministry of Culture added that their repatriation stands to yield \u201csubstantial economic and cultural benefits\u201d for this 165 year-old nation with notably ancient roots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy\u2019s Minister of Culture Alessandro Giuli is making a point to skip this year\u2019s Venice Biennale opening. Nevertheless,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11851,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7661,3917,4739,3485,7500,4224,547,8760,436,8766,7768,1338,8764,8762,327,8759,8763,5,522,2906,8756,8758,5205,7657,356,8391,1339,8761,8757,8765],"class_list":{"0":"post-11850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-italy","8":"tag-alessandro-giuli","9":"tag-alvin-bragg","10":"tag-antiquities","11":"tag-archaeology","12":"tag-art-crime","13":"tag-artnet-news","14":"tag-carabinieri","15":"tag-christies","16":"tag-crime","17":"tag-etruscan","18":"tag-fbi","19":"tag-greek","20":"tag-hellenistic-period","21":"tag-herculaneum","22":"tag-history","23":"tag-homeland-security","24":"tag-iron-age","25":"tag-italy","26":"tag-law","27":"tag-law-enforcement","28":"tag-looted","29":"tag-manhattan-da","30":"tag-memorandum-of-understanding","31":"tag-ministry-of-culture","32":"tag-politics","33":"tag-repatriation","34":"tag-roman","35":"tag-roman-forum","36":"tag-tilman-j-fertitta","37":"tag-trafficking"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}