Thirty antiquities are returning to Greece after being seized by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

As a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs informs, the antiquities were handed over to the Greek authorities on Friday, December 15 by the head of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit Matthew Bogdanos, Deputy Prosecutor at the Manhattan Prosecutor’s Office, in a special ceremony held at the offices of the Prosecutor’s Office, in the presence of the Secretary General of Culture, Georgios Didaskalos. of the Consul General of Greece in New York Constantinos Constantinos and executives of the Directorate of Documentation and Protection of Cultural Properties.

The repatriated antiquities cover a wide chronological range from prehistoric to Byzantine times and are representative examples of sculpture, metalwork and ceramics. Among them stand out, an intact Cycladic marble figurine of the “Spedos” type and three fragmentary surviving ones, two heads and a torso of the “Spedos” type (2700-2300 BC), a clay cup of the Kamaraic style and a bronze figurine of a Minoan bull ( 1900-1500 BC), a Mycenaean pithamphorus and breastplate (1300-1150 BC), an aryballus in the form of a male helmeted head in faience, two aryballos, one in the form of a seated female figure and the other with a figure of a hare from the Archaic period (6th century BC), a red-faced skyphos from the Classical period (5th century BC), a calyx of the “Western Slope” category and a bucket from the Hellenistic period (4th-3rd century BC) , seven bronze helmets (6th-4th/3rd centuries BC), including one Corinthian, five Attic and one Chalcidian, 2 bronze and 2 iron anatomical breastplates from the Hellenistic period, one bronze part of a horse harness from the Hellenistic/Roman period, two marble statues of Aphrodite from Roman times, a silver icon depicting the Virgin from Byzantine times and a silver plaque with plant, animal and geometric decoration. The objects come from seizures in warehouses of British antiquarian Robin Symes and Michael Ward’s gallery in New York.

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The Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni made the following statement: “The fight against the illegal trafficking of cultural goods requires strong partnerships and a lot of work. The head of the Antiquities Trafficking Unit Matthew Bogdanos and his colleagues, the officers of the Department of Homeland Security Investigations as well as the archaeologists of the competent Directorate of Documentation and Protection of Cultural Properties of the Ministry of Culture possess these characteristics and their continuous successes prove it amply. The repatriation of the 30 antiquities from New York follows the return of the 55 antiquities in 2022 and the 29 antiquities in the spring of 2023 that were recovered with the cooperation of the same protagonists, who now form a strong team.”

As the same announcement notes, the happy result was achieved thanks to the actions of the Manhattan Prosecutor’s Office, whose investigations proved their illegal movement from Greece, the Homeland Security Investigation and the competent Directorate for Documentation and Protection of Cultural Property, which provided archaeological documentation for several from those. “This is a close-knit team that works with determination, dedication and method, without timetables and similar restrictions, with the sole objective of cracking down on illegal trafficking,” said Matthew Bogdanos, who also emphasized the exceptional contribution of Homeland Security special agents Investigation.

The Secretary General of Culture expressed the importance of the cooperation and Greece’s deep gratitude to the Manhattan Prosecutor’s Office and the Homeland Security Investigation and stated the will of the Ministry of Culture to continue the close cooperation that has yielded excellent results to date.