From an ancient Egyptian coffin covered in gold to an international crime ring busted,
here are 10 priceless artifacts that were stolen and their surprising rediscovery.
10.
1,200-Year-Old Bible
Recently, Turkish police arrested six people who got caught trying to sell what authorities
believed was a stolen ancient Bible.
Suspected to be members of a smuggling ring, the individuals were seen trying to sell the
1,200-year-old artifact in southeastern Turkey’s Diyarbakir province.
It is decorated with gold leaf and has a large star and cross motif on the cover.
Made from leather pages adorned with gold motifs, the 34-page Bible fits the profile
for an item that may have illegally traveled from war-torn Syria to Turkey, which has become
a hotbed for looted Syrian and Iraqi artifacts.
Somebody saw them and called the police, who were actually able to catch the thieves red
handed.
The suspects were apprehended amid heightened efforts to try to stop the illegal sale of
ancient artifacts.
Bibles are actually a common item of interest on the antiquities black market in Turkey.
Acting on a tip last year, Turkish investigators in southeastern Anatolia seized a Hebrew Bible
that was stolen from a museum in Aleppo.
Made from gazelle skin, the ancient text reportedly dates back to the time of the Virgin Mary
and is worth around $1 million.
In 2018, anti-smuggling authorities recovered six Hebrew Bibles in the western city of Usak
after two suspects’ vehicles were seen traveling close to the Syrian border.
While law enforcement often refrains from identifying suspects and is quiet about their
legal proceedings, the number of arrests in recent years reflects the vast amount of resources
and dedication Turkey’s government is pouring into combating the opportunistic criminals
who are profiting from the ravages of war in the Middle East.
9.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS LETTER
In 2003, an antiquities collector unsuspectingly bought a stolen copy of a letter that Christopher
Columbus wrote in 1493 describing his journey to the New World.
He wrote the letter to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.
The letter was then published in cities and countries across Europe, helping spread the
news of his journey throughout the continent.
This letter had vanished decades earlier from the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, a public
library in Venice, Italy.
Someone probably stole it, then sold it.
Bad luck for the buyer!
Known as the Plannck I edition, the letter is named after Stephan Plannck, the Rome-based
printer who translated it from Spanish into Latin and published two editions over 500
years ago.
The Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana acquired a copy of the first edition in 1875 and had
it until it disappeared sometime between 1985 and 1988, according to the U.S. Attorney’s
Office.
There are only around 30 known surviving copies of the first edition, putting its estimated
value at around $1.3 million.
Detectives finally traced the extremely rare letter’s whereabouts in 2019 and contacted
the owner, who cooperated with the investigation and willingly relinquished the artifact once
it was deemed to be the stolen copy.
After more than 40 years, the letter was finally returned to its rightful owner last year.
This wasn’t the first time one of these copies has gone missing either!!
A copy of the Plannck II version of the same Columbus letter was returned to the National
Library of Catalonia in Barcelona, Spain just two years earlier, in 2018, following a seven-year
investigation by ICE.
Acting on a tip that someone had stolen authentic texts from museums and replaced the originals
with forgeries, investigators tracked down the genuine copy, which had recently sold
for around $1 million.
After verifying its authenticity, the letter was repatriated to Spain.
8.
African Funeral Pole
Sometimes, it’s not the authorities who handle stolen artifact cases, but ordinary
people who believe that cultural heritage items ended up in the wrong hands.
In June 2020, five activists from the group Unity, Dignity, and Courage (UDC) filmed themselves
removing a Bari funeral pole from the Quai Branly Museum in Paris, claiming that the
French had looted it from the modern-day African country of Chad.
The group, which advocates for African freedom from all forms of domination, declared “we’re
taking it home” as they marched toward the museum’s exit.
But their mission was short-lived as security stopped them, arrested the individuals, and
promptly returned the staff to its display.
Congolese activist Mwazulu Diyabanza and his co-conspirators were charged with the attempted
theft of a registered artwork, which carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years and fines
of up to $176,000.
This is just one of several court cases Diyabanza found himself caught up in stemming from protests
where his group tried to recover artifacts from museums.
He later argued that he did not intend to steal the funeral staff, but that the group
meant to convey the “injustice of pillaging in Africa” and the French government’s
lack of efforts to return these items to their places of origin.
Diyabanza avoided prison and received a fine of up to $1,175 for aggravated theft.
Meanwhile, controversies over the rightful ownership of artifacts taken from other countries,
especially those seized during violent encounters and conquest, have gained traction in Europe
in recent years, with activists increasingly advocating for the return of such items to
their homelands.
7.
Herculean Mosaic
The stolen antiquities trade stemming from Syria is far-reaching, as detectives from
the FBI and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) discovered in 2018, when an investigation
led them to a massive mosaic depicting the Roman god Hercules that they believed was
smuggled all the way to California.
Measuring 18 feet (5.5 meters) long and weighing around one ton (0.9 metric tons), the 3rd-
or 4th-century artwork was recovered from the Palmdale home of Mohamad Yassin Alcharihi,
who was suspected of using false documents to import the mosaic.
An expert verified that the mosaic is an authentic Byzantine era piece and that it matches similar
pieces found in Syria, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Alcharihi reportedly admitted to filing papers undervaluing the shipment’s worth at $2,200
and misrepresenting the mosaic’s quality.
In reality he paid around $12,000 for the artwork, and its estimated value is much higher.
The feds also accused Alcharihi of concealing the artifact at his residence.
The 53-year-old was charged last year with one count of entry of goods into the United
States falsely classified as to quality and value, and he is reportedly fighting to reclaim
the mosaic.
Who do you think will win?
US Government or Mr. A?
Let me know in the comments below!!
6.
Massive Crime Ring Steals 10,000 artifacts
In one of the biggest stolen artifact busts in recent years known as “Operation Achei,”
350 police officers across five countries and from numerous agencies seized around 10,000
cultural items stolen from the Calabria region in southern Italy.
The large-scale investigation began in 2017 in an effort to combat widespread looting
near the “toe” of the boot-shaped peninsula, with Italian authorities receiving help from
France, Britain, Germany, and Serbia.
Detectives uncovered a sophisticated operation being run by an organized crime group.
They would wear masks and go to archaeological sites with excavators to dig everything up
and then comb through the area with sophisticated metal detectors.
Then, the items were trafficked abroad and sold at high-end auction houses.
Law enforcement’s first clue to the masked culprits’ identities came when one of the
criminals’ license plates appeared on drone surveillance footage.
Once all the clues added up sufficiently, investigators raided 80 homes and recovered
hoards of valuable artifacts dating as far back as the fourth century B.C.
And of course worth millions of dollars.
Two suspected leaders of the crime ring were arrested and jailed; 21 others were put on
house arrest.
Authorities believe that the criminals robbed archaeological sites for years.
Shockingly, the massive seizure barely puts a dent in the estimated one million artifacts
that are still missing in Italy.
In 2014 alone, officers recovered around 130,000 artifacts worth more than $500 million.
5.
Hobby Lobby Smuggling Scandal
The Evangelical Christian-owned Hobby Lobby craft store chain prides itself on its wholesome,
family-friendly values.
It’s the perfect place to go if you want to get craft supplies!!
But they do a lot more than just help you with hobbies.
The company at least partially tarnished its virtuous reputation when it found itself entangled
in a contentious tug-of-war with the federal government over some stolen artifacts it had
imported for the Museum of the Bible, which is funded by the store’s owners.
In 2010, Hobby Lobby paid $1.6 million for an array of Iraqi artifacts from dealers based
in the United Arab Emirates.
The collection consisted largely of cuneiform tablets, clay bullae, and cylinder seals,
most of which lacked provenance (records proving their history ownership), leading authorities
to suspect that the artifacts had possibly been looted and sold illegally.
It’s speculated that some items were taken from the National Museum of Iraq following
the U.S. invasion of the country in 2003, and the customs declarations misrepresented
some of the artifacts.
After customs agents seized several shipments in 2011, Yale archaeologist Eckard Frahm determined
that several hundred 4,000-year-old clay tablets originated from the ancient Sumerian city
of Irisagrig, where proper excavations have never been carried out.
These were just some of several thousand artifacts that authorities ultimately determined were
smuggled into the U.S.
A years-long legal battle ensued, and in 2017, Hobby Lobby agreed to forfeit the collection
and pay a $3 million fine, and the objects were returned to Iraq.
When artifacts are removed from archaeological sites, they not only become physically lost
and therefore unavailable for public benefit, but this also causes experts to lose their
ability to glean information from the items by examining them in their original context.
Even if the objects are recovered, a lot of what they first stood to teach us is lost,
and in this case, so are thousands of years of cultural heritage.
4.
GOLDEN COFFIN
In 2017, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City paid almost $4 million for a
golden-sheathed Ancient Egyptian coffin dating back to the first century B.C. Acquired from
a Paris-based art dealer, inscriptions on the casket indicate that it belonged to the
remains of a high-ranking priest from Herakleopolis.
The following year, the museum put the gilded coffin on display.
Less than a year after that, in 2019, investigators determined that the coffin was actually looted
from Egypt, and the Met closed the exhibit and agreed to forfeit the artifact.
As it turned out, the institution had been furnished with fraudulent provenance materials
making it look as if the coffin had been exported from Egypt long ago.
But in reality, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office found compelling evidence that it was
unlawfully taken from the country in 2011.
Writing for the New York Times, Colin Moynihan pointed out that this is one of a shocking
number of artifacts that the Met has either given up or had seized on suspicions that
the item might have been stolen.
In 2017, the DA’s office seized a 2,300-year-old vase featuring the god of wine Dionysus that
was plundered from Italy back in the 1970s.
The following year, the museum returned an eighth-century statue depicting a Hindu goddess
and a third-century limestone sculpture to India.
These and other instances of the museum having possibly looted artifacts in its possession
have caused some to question the thoroughness of its vetting methods.
The Met responded to such criticisms by asserting that it would learn from these blunders and
revisit its acquisition policies.
They have to do a lot more detective work because thieves and forgers are getting better
and better at faking documents and the history of where artifacts come from and they are
getting paid millions!!
3.
SAINT MARK MOSAIC
When Turkish forces invaded the island nation of Cyprus in 1974, Byzantine-era mosaics and
religious artifacts were ripped from the walls of the Panayia Kanakaria church.
The government and church worked tirelessly to recover the items from the underground
antiquities market.
Most of the pieces were retrieved between 1983 and 2015, but some are still missing,
according to Maria Paphiti, a former department head at Christie’s auction house.
One of the final missing pieces was recovered in 2018 by renowned Dutch art investigator
Arthur Brand following a two-year chase across Europe.
Dubbed the “Indiana Jones of the art world” for his uncanny ability to track down lost
and stolen works, Brand traced a sixth-century mosaic of Saint Mark through intermediaries
to an upscale home in Monaco, where it was in the possession of a British family who
had bought it decades earlier.
Horrified to learn that the mosaic was stolen, the family readily agreed to give it back
to Cyprus.
It was one of the greatest honors of Brand’s career to return the artwork, which has an
estimated value of $5.7-11 million but is considered priceless as a heritage artifact.
2.
Gargantuan Treasure Trove
Earlier this year, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced that it had recovered
thousands of museum-quality stolen artifacts not only from ancient sites within the country,
but also the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Africa, and South America.
Working with the Israeli police and tax authority, the agency carried out a coordinated set of
raids at three sites in central Israel, including storage rooms and private homes.
The cache includes hundreds of coins, jewelry, statues, and bronze, stone, and glass items
from various periods.
Many of the local artifacts, including coins, date back between 312 B.C. and 63 B.C. to
the Seleucid Empire.
Authorities also seized fifth- and sixth-century pottery from Italy and Greece and Egyptian
sarcophagi.
Everything in the collection comes from sometime between the first millennium B.C. to the 11th
century A.D.
Oddly, much of the pottery was repaired, suggesting that an underground expert was commissioned
to restore it.
It’s believed that the looters acquired many of the goods from ancient graves throughout
the world.
Three suspects were arrested for dealing the stolen wares, but the original thieves have
not yet been apprehended, and the investigation is ongoing.
1.
Etruscan Vase
For over 30 years, the Metropolitan Museum of Art claimed ownership of one of the finest
Etruscan vases in the world while the Italian government fought for the return of the 2,500-year-old
artifact and several other items it believed were stolen and smuggled into the U.S.
Known as the Euphronios Krater, the vase was crafted around 515 B.C. by Euphronios, one
of the greatest artists of ancient Greece.
Fewer than 30 are known to survive.
It came into the Met’s possession in 1972 with no solid records of its provenance.
The Italian government pressured the museum to provide proof of where it came from while
conducting its own investigation and determining that the krater was likely looted near Cerveteri,
a town located northwest of Rome in Italy’s Greppe Sant’Angelo area.
From there, the vase passed through the hands of a corrupt Italian antiquities dealer, then
to American dealer Robert Hecht, who sold it to the Met.
In 2006, the museum made an offer to Italy: it would return the krater and 19 other items
in exchange for being able to keep some of the artifacts on long-term loan.
The parties eventually reached an agreement and in 2008, the krater was returned to Italy.
Thanks for watching!
Are you surprised of all the trafficking that goes on with artifacts??
Did you know it was such a huge problem??
If you’d like to learn about more incredible stolen artifacts that have reappeared, let
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Bye for now!