Displaying items by tag: antiquities

The former antiquities dealer Jonathan Markell has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and a year of supervised release for making false declarations in customs documents to smuggle looted archeological artifacts from Southeast Asia into the US.

Markell and his wife Cari ran the now closed Silk Roads Gallery in LA for a decade.

After years of being investigated by Interpol and law enforcement agencies in Mexico, Peru, Spain, Germany, and the US, antiquities dealer Leonardo A. Patterson has been convicted of smuggling pre-Columbian artifacts and selling fake objects.

Patterson developed his trade in New York in the 1960s by selling pre-Columbian antiquities.

A group of ancient frescoed stone slabs have gone on display in Italy for the first time since they were looted by an infamous antiquities trafficker known as “The Captain."

According to Reuters, the artworks, dating from 400 BC, were illegally excavated from the ancient Greek site of Paestum, located near Naples.

Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) yesterday unveiled a large, 1,700-year-old mosaic floor featuring intricate patterns and images of animals, uncovered in the city of Lod, about nine miles southeast of Tel Aviv. The discovery, made last year during excavations from June through November, occurred when archaeologists were preparing the site to build a visitors center to display the famous Lod Mosaic, according to a release published by the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Lod Mosaic, which measures 600 square feet (~55 square meters) and has recently been on view in museums from the Louvre to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, served as the living room floor for the same ancient villa that housed the recently exposed work, which archaeologists believe decorated its courtyard.

The Dallas Museum of Art acquired a marble head of Herakles, the Greek hero the Romans called Hercules, at a Sotheby’s, New York auction of Egyptian, Classical, and Western Asiatic Antiquities in June. The marble head is from the late 1st century A.D. and is set upon an unrelated bust from the mid-2nd century A.D. This ensemble was composed by the 18th-century French sculptor Lambert-Sigisbert Adam (1700–59), who created sculptures for King Louis XV of France and Frederick the Great of Prussia.

The acquisition is a gift of David T. Owsley through the Alvin and Lucy Owsley Foundation, and strengthens the Museum’s collection of ancient art of the Mediterranean, of which a selection is on view in the Museum’s Level 2 Classical galleries.

Christie’s is re-vamping its spring New York sales calendar and introducing a new centrepiece auction. Six sales of mostly pre-Modern art, including the new “Revolution” sale, which includes work made from the 18th to 20th centuries, have been consolidated into the new “Classic Art Week,” which will take place from April 12-14, 2016. Five other sales (antiquities; the two-part Old Master paintings auction; sculpture and the “Exceptional” sale of decorative arts) have been moved into the week from December and January as part of an overall push to cross-pollinate across departments.

ISIS militants have destroyed the iconic Arch of Triumph in Palmyra, the latest cultural treasure of the ancient site that they have reduced to rubble, Syrian authorities said.

The 1,800-year-old monumental arch, which framed the approach to the Roman city, was blown up Sunday, Syria's Directorate General for Antiquities and Museums said, citing witnesses in the local community.

When the Detroit Institute of Arts reopened in 2007 after its sweeping renovation, the Ancient Middle East gallery wasn't ready for prime time. Running short of time and money, the museum defaulted to a cursory display that didn't do full justice to its strong holdings in Middle Eastern antiquities. Now the DIA is upping its game with a significantly revamped, nearly 3,000-square-foot gallery featuring 177 works, heavily reinterpreted and spanning more than 8,500 years (from 8000 BC to 650 AD).

The loss of cultural and artistic heritage from the potential destruction of historic antiques containing elephant ivory and material from other endangered species is an unfortunate potential byproduct of the unrelated poaching of animals living today.* Immediate action is required to support proposed revisions in regulations put forth by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service allowing exemptions for antiques containing

The burgeoning list of appalling acts by ISIS has grown even longer: The Islamic extremist group has blown up a nearly 2,000-year-old temple in the historic ruins of Palmyra, Syria.

UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization, called the destruction of the Temple of Baalshamin a "war crime."

Maamoun Abdulkarim, Syria's director-general of antiquities and museums, said Sunday that sources in Palmyra informed him that ISIS members rigged the temple with large quantities of explosives and detonated them.