ATHENS, 16 Dec: The United States on Friday returned to Greece 30 ancient artifacts, including marble statues, armor helmets and breastplates, found to have been illicitly removed from the country, authorities said.
\nThe pieces handed over to Greek officials in New York date back from as long as 4,700 years ago to the Middle Ages. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said the \u201cexquisite\u201d works were collectively valued at $3.7 million (3.39 million euros).
\nNineteen of the artifacts were voluntarily surrendered from New York gallery owner Michael Ward, the DA\u2019s office said in a statement.
\nThree others were seized from British art dealer Robin Symes, the statement said, while one was seized from a storage unit belonging to an unspecified New York-based private collector.
\n\u201cThis is an exquisite set of 30 antiquities that represents the extraordinary depth and beauty of Greece\u2019s cultural heritage,\u201d Bragg said.
\nThe works include a Roman-era headless marble statue of Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of love. Bragg\u2019s office said it was recovered from a storage unit that belonged to Symes, where it had been hidden since at least 1999.
\nThere were also seven bronze helmets dating from 6th century B.C. to 3rd century B.C., two bronze and two iron breastplates for soldiers, a medieval silver platter, a marble Cycladic figurine dating to 2,700-2,300 B.C. and Mycenaean and Minoan Cretan pottery.
\nGreek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni praised in a statement the \u201cstrong cooperation and hard work\u201d by U.S. and Greek experts that led to the antiquities\u2019 return.
\nThe return follows two similar operations earlier this year, involving 29 antiquities, and last year, when 55 works were returned from New York.
\nGreece has for decades been targeted by criminal networks engaged in the trafficking of illegally excavated antiquities that command high prices worldwide. By law, all ancient artifacts found in the country are state property. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ATHENS, 16 Dec: The United States on Friday returned to Greece 30 ancient artifacts, including marble statues, armor helmets and breastplates, found to have been illicitly removed from the country, authorities said. The pieces handed over to Greek officials in New York date back from as long as 4,700 years ago to the Middle Ages. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-230789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}