Ancient Apulian treasures to be returned to Italy

Switzerland is returning 4,400 ancient artifacts stolen from
archaeological sites in Italy, including ceramics, figurines and bronze
daggers dating as far back as 2,000 B.C., prosecutors said Thursday.

[Left - Apulian ceramics, similar to this one depicting Perseus battling a sea monster, are among the grave goods seized in a 2001 raid on a Basel art dealer. Photo by Mary Harrsch]

The transfer will require three tractor-trailers and all but end a seven-year legal battle over the antiquities.

They
were seized in 2001 in storage rooms belonging to two Basel-based art
dealers after a tip-off from Italy, said Markus Melzl, a spokesman for
city prosecutors. The couple have since lost several court battles to
prevent the antiquities from being returned to Italy, Melzl said.

More
than half the objects were from the eastern Italian region of Apulia,
an area that was heavily influenced by ancient Greek culture, said
Guido Lassau, a Swiss archaeologist who worked on the case.

They
include richly decorated vases and so-called kraters, large vessels
that were used for mixing wine with water. The objects were stolen from
upper-class tombs dating from the fifth to third centuries B.C.,
according to Lassau.

One item that looks like a ceramic mask
modeled on a woman's face retains the original water-soluble painting
from about 300 B.C.

"They're very well preserved because they
spent the last 2,000 years in a virtual time capsule until they were
plundered by grave robbers," Lassau told The Associated Press. "But the
tragic thing is that a lot of the archaeological information was lost
when they were removed."

Other items belong to the pre-Etruscan
Villanova culture of northern Italy, and some of the bronze figures
appear to have originated on the island of Sardinia.

The oldest are bronze daggers thought to be about 4,000 years old, said Lassau.

Technorati Tags: Apulia, ancient art, vase, red-figure, Greek, Roman, treasure, loot,

Susan Alcock studies rural Roman Empire with satellite imaging

Susan Alcock is currently one of four co-directors of an archaeological project in southern Armenia called the Vorotan Project. A diachronic study, it focuses on all periods from the Stone Age to the Soviet era and attempts to build an understanding of how and why the landscape has evolved through time, Alcock said.

For Alcock, the site is of particular interest because of its location between the ancient Roman and Parthian empires - the inhabitants of the region would have been caught between two formidable empires, she said.

Alcock, professor of classics and director of the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World, uses advanced technology to study the geography of ancient landscapes for clues into the behavior and movements of ancient peoples.

She uses satellite imaging, aerial photography and geographic information system technology to study landscapes. Alcock's work focuses on the Greek and Roman rural countryside, which she said had been largely ignored in favor of urban areas when she began her work. She said she employs the relatively new methodology of systematic pedestrian survey, or regional survey, which involves walking an area of land and examining the surface for agricultural features, remains of settlements and pottery.

Alcock said she is particularly interested in the collective memory of ancient peoples. Often, she explained, texts from the period aren't representative of the greater part of society - the poor, commoners and farmers - but of an elite fragment.