Trafficking Networks
Related Encyclopedia Entries
Euphronios (Sarpedon) Krater
The Euphronios (Sarpedon) krater is a red-figure calyx krater made in Athens circa 515 BC, signed by Euxitheos as potter and Euphronios as painter. It was bought by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1972 for the then record-breaking price of $1 million, and is now thought to have been excavated illegally in Italy in 1971. In 2006, the Metropolitan restored ownership of the krater to Italy.
Gianfranco Becchina
Gianfranco Becchina is an Italian antiquities dealer who has been convicted in Italy of illegally dealing in antiquities.
J Paul Getty Museum Returns to Italy (2007)
Artefacts returned to Italy in 2007 after Italian investigations into illicit trading.
Kumluca Silver
The Kumluca Silver is a collection of more than forty sixth-century AD Byzantine silver artefacts, thought to have been found close to the small town of Kumluca in southern Turkey, and bought by Dumbarton Oaks in 1963.
La Mina
A Moche funerary site in Northern Peru that was looted for spectacular gold objects during the same looting wave that hit following the discovery of the famous lord of Sipán tomb.
Machaquilá Stela 2
Maya sculpture looted from Guatemala and smuggled into the U.S. resulting in a ground-breaking court decision.
Maya antiquities sold at Sotheby’s in 1995
Two pre-Columbian antiquities offered for sale by Sotheby’s New York in 1994, were later found in photographs taken by an admitted artifact looter and smuggler.
Media Investigations
Some of the most informative studies of the traffic in cultural objects have been conducted by investigative media.
Operation Geryon
Operation Geryon was the name given by Italian Carabinieri to an investigation into the armed theft of eight antiquities from the castle of Melfi.
Organigram
The ‘organigram’ is a handwritten organizational chart that was recovered in September 1995 during a Carabinieri raid presenting a view of the antiquities trade within Italy as envisaged in the early 1990s.
Salisbury Hoard
When a London antiquities dealer offered the British Museum rare Iron Age bronze miniature shields, it triggered the tracing of the origins of a unique and archaeologically significant, but illegally looted, hoard.
South California Museum Raids (2008)
In January 2008, US federal agents raided the premises of two antiquities dealerships and four art museums in California on suspicion of dealing in and acquiring illegally-exported archaeological artefacts, and enabling a conspiracy to prepare false tax returns.
Swetnam, Drew, Kelly Smuggling Ring of Objects from Sipán
The following is one particularly well documented incidence of the trafficking of artefacts from Sipan.
Vaman Ghiya
Indian antiquities dealer accused of selling stolen antiquities through Sotheby’s.