None of the 161 antiquities were registered as stolen from Greek territory in the ministry’s records, which had no evidence of their export from Greece, nor of when and how, nor of their movement until they ended up in New York.
“As part of our national strategy, we actively participate in the formulation of international policy to prevent and combat the illegal trafficking of cultural goods and in the process of repatriation to their countries of origin” said Lina Mendoni, among others, during her speech yesterday at the opening of the “Return” exhibition, made by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
We participate in wide-ranging initiatives in international organizations, fora, cooperative schemes for the transfer of know-how and the promotion of good protection and management practices”.
The Ministry of Culture and Sports, as the competent State Authority, implements an extremely broad set of measures at the institutional and operational level and intensifies efforts for international cooperation, by concluding bilateral and multilateral agreements. These agreements open new avenues of cooperation and, above all, guarantee new practices, which are gradually being adopted by more and more countries.”
“The 161 Cycladic antiquities will return to Greece and all 161 will return. The collection already always belongs to the ownership and jurisdiction of the Greek state and will return in its entirety. And not just some objects, for which we could possibly manage to collect evidence of claims capable of standing up to the legal burden”, emphasized Lina Mendoni.
“With the Agreement, a process and method is established that encourages other collectors of Greek antiquities to make similar moves, which will lead to the repatriation of antiquities, without the disadvantages of legal involvement.”
In her speech, Lina Mendoni underlined that “Each case of repatriation has its particularities and is examined ad hoc, as in addition to the Greek institutional framework, the legislation of the country where the repatriated cultural property was located is also involved, while a decisive parameter is also the collection of the evidentiary material, defined by the rules of international law, as required for a country to claim, as its own, a cultural asset. I point out, in order for everyone to understand, that a crucial parameter in the choice of tactics, which is followed each time, is the evidentiary material available to the competent Directorate for the Protection and Documentation of Cultural Properties of the Ministry of Culture”.
As the minister said, “if it is an artefact that has been stolen from an archaeological site, museum or warehouse, the claim is well-planned, as both the ancient work and the theft can be easily documented. Things are clearly more difficult, in cases of claims, due to clandestine digging. In this case, the judicial authorities require specific evidence that the ancient came from the country that claims it as the product of a specific clandestine excavation, declared in space and time. As it appears, from the Ministry’s records, the permanent tactic followed is the out-of-court resolution, a process which has led to the return to our country of hundreds of cultural goods”.
Lina Mendoni underlined that “in the case of the collection Leonard Stern, of the most important international collection of Cycladic antiquities, the constant tactic of the Ministry, that is, extra-judicial claims, was a one-way street, due to a lack of evidentiary material. According to the competent Directorate of the Ministry of Culture, none of the 161 antiquities was registered as a product of theft from Greek territory in the records of the Ministry, which did not have any information about their export from Greece, nor about when and how, nor about their movement until they ended up in New York.
From September 9, 2022, with the ratification by the Greek Parliament of a ground-breaking Agreement between the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports, the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York and the Museum of Cycladic Art, the 161 works of Cycladic Culture -mainly figurines- were recognized as property of the Greek State. With the agreement, which is already a law of the State, the gradual return to our homeland of 161 rare Cycladic antiquities was achieved, with the solemn recognition that they are and have always been the property of Greece. This was achieved after assessing and exploiting the special circumstances of the case, through the agreement, without the uncertainty of legal involvement, without any expense of the Greek State and without waiving any of its rights, existing or future”.
RES-EMP
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