Etruscan treasures returning to Italy

(ANSA) - Rome, March 22 - Part of a priceless collection of Etruscan-era treasures that police discovered in a Geneva repository in 2014 is returning to Italy, including temple paintings, sarcophagi, friezes, statues and busts. The collection, which authorities believe disgraced British art dealer Robin Symes locked up in the repository, is estimated to be worth around 9 million euros in total. It consists of treasures believed to have been stolen by tomb raiders in the 1970s and 80s from excavations in Lazio, Campania, Calabria, Sicily and Puglia, art crime specialist General Mariano Mossa said at a news conference on Tuesday.
    Illegally exported and acquired by Symes, the pieces were destined for markets in Britain, the U.S. and Japan. Instead they remained hidden in crates for decades.
    Colourful Etruscan paintings recovered among the haul are "exceptional and unique", according to superintendent for Etruria Alfonsina Russo. She said their restoration could help shed new light on Etruscan art and the decoration of temples at the time.
    She is convinced that the decorated fragments and paintings of divinities derive from the raiding of an Etruscan temple in Cerveteri, north-west of Rome. They point to two phases of painting of the site: one in the middle of the sixth century BC and a refurbishment at the end of the same century.
    "In terms of the paintings of Etruscan temples we previously had only the fragments conserved in the Villa Giulia Etruscan Museum," she said.
    She added that she hoped their restoration would only take about a year, and that it could be open for the public to follow.