Antiquities returned to Greece from New York City

[guy]

 

Manhattan District attorney Melvin Bragg ordered the return 30 antiquities to Greece:
 

 

Quote

 

Some of the key pieces being returned include:

• Marble Aphrodite: this marble statue is based on the famous Aphrodite of Knidos and was recovered from a storage unit that belonged to the convicted trafficker Robin Symes, where it had been hidden since at least 1999.
• Cycladic Marble Figure: originally illegally excavated from the Cycladic Islands in the Aegean Sea, this four-thousand-year-old marble figurine was seized from a storage unit belonging to a New York-based private collector by the ATU earlier this year.
• Corinthian Helmet: this bronze Corinthian helmet is an example of popular helmet style for Ancient Greek warriors, particularly in the Archaic and Classical periods (c. 700 B.C.E-350 B.C.E). It was smuggled out of Greece, given false provenance in Germany, and put on consignment with the New York-based art dealer Michael Ward who pled guilty to Criminal Facilitation in the Fourth Degree and admitted to purchasing stolen antiquities on consignment through his gallery as part of money-laundering scheme allegedly orchestrated by Eugene Alexander.

 

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https://news.artnet.com/art-world/us-repatriates-30-artifacts-to-greece-2410036

 

https://manhattanda.org/d-a-bragg-announces-return-of-30-antiquities-to-the-people-of-greece/

 

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been involved in other repatriations: 

 

 

 

Edited December 24, 2023 by guy

[guidoLaMoto]

I check out this site https://www.archaeology.org/news every week or two, and it seems each update lately has included another report of more artifacts being "repatriated" from some museum in another land to their land of origin....

...At what point should artifacts become part of the  "domain of civilization" or "the human domain," comparable to a work of literature becoming part of the public domain?

All of humanity should have been incensed, for instance, a few yrs ago when Isis went about destroying antiquities in Iraq. These thing belong to all of us.

[caesar novus]

4 hours ago, guidoLaMoto said:

more artifacts being "repatriated" from some museum in another land to their land of origin....

...At what point should artifacts become part of the  "domain of civilization" or "the human domain," comparable to a work of literature becoming part of the public domain?

Great point. While the above examples seem justified, there are others with little proof of wrongdoing snagged up in a recent massive witchhunt. Most of this seems to be from one NY prosecutor for whom we have noted gets pushback from museums. And this isn't due to selfishness of museums, which are mostly woke and would be proud to give stuff away except when there is no justification.

In an enlightened world, different regions should have displays of each others artifacts. Instead we gravitate toward fortress mentality where nobody is allowed to export artifacts, museums are underpatronized since they just show local stuff, and entire classes of artifacts are subject to wipeout from disasters like earthquakes, floods, war.