Police Recover Plundered Roman Artefacts From Madrid Art Gallery
An Ancient Roman plinth and funeral urn have been recovered by Spanish authorities following a several month-long investigation into their theft.
Madrid police confirmed yesterday (8th March) in a statement released that following an investigation that began last October they have successfully recovered the two Roman artefacts.
The authorities report in their statement that the artefacts were stolen from the old quarter of the Andalucian city of Granada.
The artefacts, one of which is a Roman plinth and the other a funeral urn, were bought to the attention of authorities last year by agents who specialise in Cultural Heritage cases.
The plinth and the funeral urn were discovered in a Madrid art gallery earmarked for sale to a buyer in Barcelona for 6,900 EUR but the authorities doubted the legality of the sale.
An investigation was launched and the police contacted the General Directorate of Historical and Documentary Heritage of the Board Of Andalusia to learn more about the sale of the artefacts.
The authorities were able to establish that the vendor did not have the correct paperwork to prove legal possession of the ancient plinth and funeral urn.
The seller, who was not named, claimed that the artefacts had spent years in his parents home.
The artefacts have since been confiscated and are now being kept in the Archaeological and Ethnological Museum of Granada.
The investigation remains open as authorities try to establish who was originally responsible for the theft.
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