ARCHIVED - Police seize Roman pieces plundered from Andalusia in Barcelona
The two pieces, which the vendor claimed had been at his parent’s home for many years, are believed to have been plundered in Granada (Andalusia).
Two ancient Roman items, a marble chapiter and a funerary urn made of glass, have been confiscated in Barcelona by the National Police.
Investigations began in October when two remarkable archaeological pieces at an art gallery in Madrid caught specialist Historical Heritage officers’ attention. They discovered that the items had come from Granada and were to be sent on to Barcelona, where a buyer had paid 6,900 euros for them in a private transaction.
The seller claimed that the pieces had been at his parents’ home for many years, but the Andalusian government’s historical heritage registry had no information about them and there were no valid purchase papers to prove where they had come from. That led the police to believe that the Roman pieces had been plundered.
The pieces have now been sent to Granada’s Archaeological and Ethnographical Museum for safekeeping, and investigations are still underway to determine who was responsible for the original discovery and hopefully to ascertain where the items were first found.