Italy’s Top Antiquities Cops Fight Back

Home > Magazines > Archaeology Odyssey > January/February 2002

It’s a problem acknowledged by all. There is no room to store them—the piles of antiquities recovered in both legal and illegal excavations in Italy. There is simply too much. “We ought to dump the excess,” said Angelo Bottini, superintendent of antiquities for the region of Tuscany, at a recent conference on the theft of antiquities and works of art. The conference was organized by General Roberto Conforti, commandant of the paramilitary carabinieri charged with protecting Italy’s cultural patrimony. Conforti is Italy’s chief cop for the recovery of illicitly excavated antiquities. I asked him about Bottini’s suggestion that […]

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Footnotes

There are some courageous exceptions; see Avner Raban, “Stop the Charade: It’s Time to Sell Artifacts,” BAR 23:03.

Archaeology, May/June 2001, p. 6.

See the following articles in Archaeology Odyssey: “Bought on the Market: A Gallery,” AO 02:02 and “The Golden Bowl,” in Field Notes, AO 02:02.

See Hershel Shanks, “The Great MFA Exposé,” AO 02:02.

This transaction took place just before the UNESCO treaty of 1970 banning the importation of unprovenanced artifacts was signed.

All quotations from Thomas Hoving are from a series of articles published from June 29 through July 16, 2001, in the online magazine www.artnet.com.