THE CULTURAL WORK OF ART AND SCULPTURES OF ANCIENT GREECE SHOULD REMAIN IN THE BORDERS OF GREECE.www.Apodimos.com
The precious rests of his Greek past and this past is big should they remain in his borders and no thieves they put outside from our country. Our History has taught many one our and cultural residues, him have stolen many and it is difficult him we recover again. Greek Sculptures and statues exist in all the Museums of World. It should all know from Italy what it tries it recovers once again and it can us give an example.
Except the foreigners of that are thieves ancient objects and in Greece exist many that with a instrument in the back try they open ancient graves in order to they find golden objects or golden currencies or even residues of before so many seasons and with theirs equipments they make big destructions not only in the objects but also in environment space one and the space it offers a lot of elements in the archaeologists they appreciate the social and cultural makes of this of distant season.
Below you we give the possibility of reading the below article «Italy Trial Giving Museums Wakeup Call» By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer and we appreciate that you will also contemplate if in Greece existed also similar cases how much good it was also for Greece, the Greek culture and for the friends o Hellenism that they wish work of artist should they remain in their place so as to they can him visit.
Italy Trial Giving Museums Wakeup Call.
By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer
Italy, Greece and other countries steeped in antiquity have long tried — and failed — to keep precious remnants of their past within their borders. Now museums around the world are getting a wakeup call from the trial of two Americans.
Marion True, formerly antiquities curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, is accused of receiving stolen antiquities from Italy. She resigned last month after museum officials confronted her about a personal loan she secured with the help of one of the museum's main suppliers.
Art dealer Robert Hecht allegedly acted as an intermediary between art thieves and museums.
The Getty has defended True's work, and she and Hecht have denied any wrongdoing.
The trial, which resumes in Rome on Wednesday after a four-month recess, grew out of the probe into the activities of Italian antiquities dealer Giacomo Medici. He was convicted in Rome last year of conspiring to traffic in looted antiquities and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He remains free during his appeal.
Italy has strict laws stipulating that antiquities belong to the state and cannot leave its territory, except on loan for exhibition. Other countries rich in ancient history have similar restrictions.
"The near totality of the international market — not just in Italy, but also in Mesopotamia, South America — is illegal," said Giuseppe Proietti, an archaeologist with the Italian culture ministry.
Still, museums long got away with illicit trafficking of artifacts from clandestine digs, said Colin Renfrew, a fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge, England.
The problem for investigators is coming up with hard proof of where and when the objects were excavated, said Richard M. Leventhal, director of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, in Philadelphia.
Police searching Medici's office in Geneva found photographs of artifacts still in the ground, strongly suggesting they came from a clandestine dig. Italian prosecutors also got crucial cooperation from Switzerland, which two years ago ratified the 1970 UNESCO treaty allowing countries to reclaim illegally acquired antiquities.
Like Britain, which signed the treaty in 2002, Switzerland was long considered a hub of illegal trafficking in artifacts. Now antiquities dealers there are required to record every item entering their shops.
Italy has a police squad devoted to recovering illegally excavated artifacts. The University of Pennsylvania museum helped train the FBI's new Art Crime Team in Philadelphia.
"Illicit trade today is very dangerous for museums," Dimitris Pandermalis, a prominent Greek archaeologist, said in a telephone interview from Athens.
Italy is seeking the return of a 2,600-year-old Greek vase from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met confirmed an invitation by Italy's culture minister to discuss the demand but declined to elaborate.
Defense lawyers said that the prosecutor in the True trial has been pressing Medici to help Italy recover antiquities from the Metropolitan, the Getty and other U.S. museums. Cooperation could shave several years off his sentence.
In Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts said it was in contact with Italian authorities about news reports that they have pictures suggesting a statue, a vase and a jar obtained by the museum had been legally acquired.
"We knew we had purchased things from Hecht," Dawn Griffin, the museum's director of public relations told The Associated Press. "We obviously saw the red flag."
Greece is seeking four prized pieces from the Getty for which the museum paid $5.2 million in 1993, including a gold funerary wreath dating from 400 B.C., Mary Pandou, director of museums for the Greek culture ministry, told the AP.
"We are observing the Italian case very closely," Pandou said. "I think the entire world is watching."
In Ankara, Turkish government officials said Turkey was planning a fresh initiative to recover antiquities.
A decade ago, Turkey appealed to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts to return the top half of an ancient statue of Hercules. The bottom half is in Turkey.
