{"id":25240,"date":"2026-06-17T07:06:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/25240\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T07:06:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:06:08","slug":"italy-returns-seized-loot-to-greece-while-backing-parthenon-marbles-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/25240\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy Returns Seized Loot to Greece While Backing Parthenon Marbles Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Greece<\/p>\n

Italy expressed its support for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece<\/a>. Credit: Alexander Gale \/ Greek Reporter<\/p>\n

In a powerful display of cultural solidarity, the culture ministers of Greece and Italy gathered at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki<\/a> on Tuesday to showcase the repatriation of 145 ancient bronze coins and review the landmark results of their joint crackdown on the illicit antiquities trade.<\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s support for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles<\/p>\n

The event, however, went far beyond a standard return of artifacts, as Italy explicitly threw its diplomatic weight behind Greece\u2019s long-running battle to secure the return of the Parthenon Marbles<\/a> from the British Museum.<\/p>\n

Standing alongside Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni, Italian Culture Minister Alessandro Giuli praised the deep bilateral coordination between Rome and Athens. He voiced firm support for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, expressing hope that the successful Greek-Italian model of protecting and restoring displaced archaeological heritage would \u201cprovide an example to our British friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Greece\"Greece<\/p>\n

Ancient Greek<\/a> coins repatriated from Italy. Credit: AMNA\/Nikos Arvanitidis
\nGreece-Italy cooperation in combating antiquity looting<\/p>\n

The presentation marked the first public assessment of a Memorandum of Understanding officially signed by the two nations in June 2025. To ensure the momentum continues, both ministers signed an extension of this strategic partnership through March 2027. The agreement focuses on tracing, documenting, and physically reconstructing thousands of historic objects violently severed from their original archaeological contexts by international smuggling rings.<\/p>\n

At the heart of this bilateral cooperation is the dismantling of the network surrounding the notorious late British antiquities trafficker Robin Symes<\/a>. The sprawling investigation\u2014sparked originally by a raid on a Cycladic warehouse on the island of Schinoussa in 2006\u2014culminated in May 2023 with the return of 351 intact ancient objects to Greece.<\/p>\n

\"Greece\"Greece<\/p>\n

Italian and Greek Cultural Ministers at Tuesdays\u2019 press conference in Thessaloniki. Credit: AMNA\/Nikos Arvanitidis<\/p>\n

However, the true scale of the devastation left in Symes\u2019s wake was realized in July 2023, when the Thessaloniki Museum received five massive crates containing nearly 300 smaller boxes filled entirely with random, unidentifiable pottery fragments.<\/p>\n

Olympia Vikatou, the new Secretary General for Culture, described the shocking reality of opening those crates, noting that the fragments were completely stripped of context and occasionally stored in cheap hotel soap boxes. Mendoni revealed that the joint team is painstakingly analyzing roughly 70,000 of these shattered pottery fragments. Despite the daunting complexity of the jigsaw puzzle, the collaboration has yielded incredible success.<\/p>\n

Museum Director Anastasia Gadolou announced that over 70 high-quality vases have already been fully reassembled. Luigi La Rocca, head of the Italian cultural heritage protection service, added that several of the newly restored vessels have been confidently attributed to some of the most significant master creators of ancient Attic vase painting.<\/p>\n

As Greece intensifies its international diplomatic efforts to retrieve the remaining Parthenon sculptures currently housed in London, Italy has solidified its status as Athens\u2019 closest ally in the war against cultural theft. The message from Thessaloniki was clear: if Rome and Athens can successfully reverse the destruction of the black market, the British Museum no longer has an excuse to hold onto looted history.<\/p>\n

Related: UNESCO Calls on UK and Greece to Intensify Parthenon Marbles Talks<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Italy expressed its support for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. Credit: Alexander Gale \/ Greek…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17422,4739,17423,7237,5,17424,17425],"class_list":["post-25240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-ancient-coins","tag-antiquities","tag-greece-italy","tag-greek-news","tag-italy","tag-parthenon-marbles","tag-robin-symes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25240","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=25240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}