LONDON, ENGLAND—CNN reports that a London auction house has handed over eight ancient artifacts to officials at the Italian embassy in London. The items, which lacked verifiable title and provenance, include an Etruscan terracotta mask dated to between the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., a fragment of a marble sarcophagus taken in 1966 from Rome’s Catacombs of St. Callixtus, a second century A.D. Roman marble relief thought to have been taken in 1985 from the Villa Borghese, Greek plates and vases, and a Roman limestone capital. Italy’s culture minister Alberto Bonisoli said Italy’s collaboration with auction houses and other institutions in order to verify the origins of the objects in their collections will help dismantle the traffic in ancient artifacts. For more, go to “Etruscan Code Uncracked.”
