Attitudes in Transit: Symes Material from Market to Source

Tsirogiannis, C. (2016), ‘Attitudes in Transit: Symes Material from Market to Source’. Journal of Art Crime. Spring. 79–86.

This article uses two cases of Symes material to observe grounds for both optimism and pessimism in the attitudes of stakeholders in so-called “source”, “transit”, and “market” countries. Representatives of the latter two have behaved better than expected, apparently taking the initiative in repatriation processes. By contrast, the Italian authorities have shown a disappointing lack of transparency regarding concluded repatriation cases, both in not giving due credit to other parties and in not communicating other details which would advance research on the international illicit antiquities networks.