National Police recover two illegally sold Roman artefacts

National Police recover two illegally sold Roman artefacts

CREDIT: Policia Nacional

NATIONAL POLICE have recovered two Roman archaeological pieces sold illegally for about €7,000 in Barcelona.

The pieces are a Roman marble capital and a Roman glass funeral urn

The seller claimed that they had been in his parents’ home for many years, but he did not have any paperwork.

They have been transferred to the Archaeological and Ethnographic Museum of Granada.

The investigation began in October of last year when officers specialized in Historical Heritage located in an art gallery in Madrid two archaeological pieces – the top of a column and a glass container – that caught their attention due to their peculiarity.

After several inquiries, they discovered that the pieces had just arrived from Granada and were going to be transferred immediately to a buyer in Barcelona.

With this information, they contacted the General Department of Historical and Documentary Heritage of the Junta de Andalucia in order to obtain information about the origin of the pieces. The seller had not documents for their identification, description, location or valid purchase title.

The National Police seized them on the buyer’s premises in Barcelona and sent them to the museum in Granada. The operation is still open and steps are still being taken to determine who is responsible for the looting.


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Jennifer Leighfield

Jennifer Leighfield, born in Salisbury, UK; resident in Malaga, Spain since 1989. Degree in Translation and Interpreting in Spanish, French and English from Malaga University (2005), specialising in Crime, Forensic Medicine and Genetics. Published translations include three books by Richard Handscombe. Worked with Euro Weekly News since November 2006. Well-travelled throughout Spain and the rest of the world, fan of Harry Potter and most things ‘geek’.

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