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Bronze helmet and additional artefacts returned to Italy

In June 2023, at an official ceremony at the Carabinieri headquarters in Rome, the German Ambassador to Italy and representatives of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Bavarian Criminal Police Office returned artefacts to Italy. The artefacts had been illegally removed from Italy and some of them had been stolen or illegally excavated.

Placed on plinths at different heights: Bronze helmet, clay relief black and white box, black bowl, some coins and two black and white vases. Art treasures returned to Italy. Source: BKM

They included an ancient drinking vessel from the 6th century BC, a Corinthian bronze helmet from the 3rd or 4th century BC, a Venetian jewellery box from the 16th century, four ancient gold coins and three ceramic objects. German and Italian investigating authorities conducted a targeted search for the artefacts and were able to secure them in cooperation with the relevant cultural authorities and ultimately return them to Italy.

One of the objects, an Embriachi jewellery box, had been stolen from the Castello Sforzesco museum in Milan in 2006. It was then smuggled via the UK and Belgium to Germany, where it was illegally offered for sale. The Bavarian Criminal Police Office ultimately found and secured the jewellery box. The 16th-century box is artfully adorned with wood inlays and animal bone carvings, and originates from the renowned Embriachi workshop in Venice.

In December 2019, a special unit of the Italian Carabinieri devoted to searching for artworks discovered an additional artefact: an ancient drinking vessel known as a kylix. The kylix displays artistic images of figures from Greek mythology, and is specially protected as national cultural heritage of the Republic of Italy. In 2016, the kylix was removed from Italy without the required licence. It was initially brought to the UK and later to Germany. During the investigations and the process of returning the object under Germany's law on the protection of cultural property, the vessel was secured, identified as an original and ultimately returned.

Six representatives of the authorities involved sit at a long wooden table and give speeches. In the background, two blue screens with emblems hang on the wall. German delegation at the Carabinieri headquarters in Rome. Source: BKM