Posted on 08/12/2006 8:36:20 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Police confiscated more than 100 ancient vases and marble fragments during a raid on an Aegean Sea island restaurant, authorities said Thursday. Officers from the special antiquities squad seized dozens of complete pots - including 10 large vases used to transport wine and food - as well as a rare bronze double ax and four marble column bases, police said... Several of the antiquities had been on public display, built into the bar's walls, police said. They did not provide dating for the artifacts, but said most appeared to have been fished out of the sea.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
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I have mixed feelings about the governments being able to seize found items...
Ditto to that!!
from the article:
The bar owner was not arrested as archaeologists tried to establish whether certain of the antiquities had been declared to authorities, police said.
Under Greek law, all antiquities found in the country are state property. But sometimes individuals are allowed to retain artifacts after registering them with authorities.
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My view is that this is a ridiculous law, and that eating off ancient stuff would be kinda cool. Particularly on an island I've never heard of. :') It's not as if the restaurant owner spent afternoons skin-diving to find antiquities to sell out of the country.
:') Quite agree.
Published on Saturday, November 3, 2001 in the Guardian of London
UN Shuts Lid on Sunken Treasure Chests
New Convention Aims to Outlaw the Pillage of Ancient Shipwrecks and Drowned Civilizations
by Jon Henley in Paris
Historic shipwrecks and sunken cities will be protected against pillaging by treasure hunters by a convention adopted by UNESCO yesterday.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1103-03.htm
The UN has it's dirty fingers in everything.
Looks like heaven on earth...
These kind of antiquity laws are enforced by government officials all over the world, put in place as to not loose valuable info from the ancient world, given that in most cases, the people who are digging up antiquinties do not know how to perserve or abstract the material and in a lot of instances ruin case evidence for acheology that would give our modern world an inside look to our past forever. Dealers contributing the problem, is a sad case in deed.
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