Auction House Acts over Illegal Artefacts

This week auction house Bonhams withdrew ten items from sale after being informed by the Italian embassy that the objects had possibly been looted by real life tomb raiders and illegally moved out of Italy. All dating from antiquity, and including a 4th century Greek Vase, the objects are believed to have been stolen in the 1970s and held in private collections since, although there is no suggestion that the current owners knew of their “origins”. The trade in black market antiquities is a constant problem for both governments trying to safeguard their cultural heritage and archaeologists trying to gather evidence of the past.