The Ministry of Culture and Sports, in its announcement, welcomes the happy outcome of a long-standing case, which was investigated by the Manhattan Public Prosecutor’s Office in New York and has resulted in the return of 47 ancient objects to Greece. In the context of this case, it was documented that among the thousands of objects of different cultures in the Collection of Michael Steinhardt, one of the largest collectors of works of art in the world, 180 objects were products of illegal trafficking and export from their countries of origin.
“I thank the competent American authorities, their executives, and especially the prosecutor Mr. Matthew Bogdanos, as well as the competent executives of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, who assisted in the project of documenting and recovering the antiquities illegally exported from Greece, which included in the Steinhardt Collection.
“I especially thank the Directorate for Documentation and Protection of Cultural Property of the Ministry of Culture, which fights daily and incessantly against the illegal trafficking of our country’s cultural treasures, a goal that is our consistently high political priority,” said Minister of Culture and Sports.
According to the announcement of the ministry, the ancient movable monuments that were documented and will return to Greece in the near future come from Central Greece, Crete, the Cyclades (Paros, Naxos), Samos and Rhodes. Among them stand out a Minoan shrine, a kouros trunk, a bronze bust of griffin, Cycladic vessels, figurines and bronze swords.
For the past three years, the competent Directorate for the Documentation and Protection of Cultural Property of the Ministry of Culture and Sports has been continuously assisting the American prosecutorial authorities in the investigation of the case and in the documentation of the origin and illegal trafficking of objects from Greece.
He searched for information in a number of archives at his disposal, collaborated closely with specific Ephorates of Antiquities and successfully coordinated this difficult task. The result fully justifies the effort of the services of the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
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