The 60 returned pieces had been sold by art dealers and ended up in private U.S. collections without the necessary documentation.
ROME — A fresco depicting Hercules and originally from Herculaneum, a city destroyed along with Pompeii by the 79 A.D. eruption of Mount Vesuvius, was back in Italy Monday, along with 59 other ancient pieces illegally trafficked to the United States.
A Pompeiian-style fresco from Herculaneum titled"Young Hercules and the snake," is seen on display among other archaeological artifacts stolen from Italy and sold in the U.S. by international art traffickers.Under a 1909 Italian law, archaeological objects excavated in Italy cannot leave the country without permission unless they were taken abroad before the law was made.
Italy has been a pioneer in retrieving illegally exported antiquities from museums and private collections abroad. Italian cultural authorities are deciding whether to assign the latest returned pieces to museums near to where they were believed to have been excavated.Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano told reporters that another possibility is having a special exhibition of the returned pieces.
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