Wednesday 12 October 2011

Antiquities seized in northern Greece

The Greek press has reported that a number of antiquities have been seized in Macedonia, northern Greece (ANSA October 10, 2011). Two Greek nationals were detained during the operation. The 120 or so objects included "four helmets, golden masks, golden rings, sword fragments and other objects". The finds are reported as being similar to those found in the sixth century BCE cemetery at Sindos.

It was suggested that the two individuals were about to sell the pieces to collectors outside Greece. The report also hinted that objects with "good" recording histories are in such short supply that newly surfaced antiquities are required to top up the depleted "reserves".


  • Report from BBC: "Greek police seize 'smuggled' ancient treasure" (October 7, 2011)


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4 comments:

kyri said...

i have seen the press photos of the helmets,they are illyrian helmets variant 111 type ,exactly the same as the ones found at sindos,6th cen BC.the gold masks are nothing like the one published by the bbc which was found by schliemann.a good catch by the greek police in these troubled times.
ps;i dont know why you have to be so politically corect david,do all academics have to use bce instead of bc now.
kyri.

David Gill said...

Dear Kyri
Yes, the Illyrian helmets do appear to be similar to those found at Sindos. But remember that this style is also found in tombs in FYROM, for example, with the Koreshnica krater. Sindos also has a number of gold "masks" associated with the helmets. (There is an excellent catalogue of the finds.)
There has been much tweeting of late about BC / BCE and AD / CE. I have adopted the housestyle of several academic journals and used BCE / CE. My personal preference would be to use BC / AD.
And thank you for reminding us of the problem of "stock" photographs used by news agencies.
Best wishes
David

Paul Barford said...

Changing the subject (sorry)... David, I really object to this BCE nonsense, WHOSE "common era" is it supposed to be? Moslems too? Its not "common" at all, just common to all those that date things using a calendar relative to the supposed date of the birth of Christ whether or not he is seen as the Incarnation of God. What is the difference between AD and AUC or AH? The common era of various other cultures begins with a different "year 0". I really do not see the problem with using "BC" in the context of Western culture. The PC mob will be wanting us to change the names of the days and months soon and the names of past NASA space rocket series (most named after pagan gods). Rant over.

Anonymous said...

David,

Please make sure your readers learn about the new proposals for Bulgaria and Belize:

http://exchanges.state.gov/media/office-of-policy-and-evaluation/chc/pdfs/2011frnbzbgcpac.pdf

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