Looted Etruscan Sarcophagi Recovered

News November 22, 2024

Looted Etruscan urns recovered by the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage
© Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage/Emanuele Antonio Minerva
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ROME, ITALY—Italian police seized an array of third-century b.c. Etruscan artifacts that looters had found on their own land in the Umbrian town of Città della Pieve and had attempted to sell on the black market, according to a report in The Straits Times. Two sarcophagi, eight stone urns carved with Greek mythological scenes, a perfume bottle, and bronze mirrors are among the finds. The urns, some of which were inscribed with the family name Pulfna, were topped by lids featured sculptures of reclining women whose lips and jewelry still preserve traces of paint. In 2015, a farmer in Città della Pieve plowing land near the findspot of the recovered artifacts uncovered a hypogeum that also belonged to the Pulfna family. To read about a noble Etruscan family buried in a necropolis in Vulci, go to "The Tomb of the Silver Hands."

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