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Fabulous Treasures the Culture Vultures Find
| Article
# : |
11399 |
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Section : |
LIFE
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| Issue
Date : |
11 / 1986 |
2,523 Words |
| Author
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Jane Dolinger
Jane Dolinger is an adventure-travel writer living in Miami,
Florida. She has written for numerous worldwide publications
and is the author of twelve adventure-travel books, including
The Treasure Seekers. Dolinger has produced and narrated three
documentary jungle films for Eurovision (European television)
and has appeared on American television "talk" shows. |
Once grave robbers open a tomb, they steel everything of value, leaving only bones and a few lay pots
GIZEECE: Greek naval authorities charge group of international skin-divers with pillaging ancient treasures from sunken Phoenician ships lying off the coast of Crete.
GUATEMALA: Looters steal and smuggle out of Guatemala an ancient Mayan steal, which was later sold to a European art collector for 100,000.
SYRIA: Ancient panels of Islamic art, estimated to be worth several million dollars; were stripped from the walls of centuries old palaces in Syria and smuggled out of the country in a vegetable truck.
EGYPT: Department of Antiquities in Cairo, Egypt, states that valuable Pharaonic objects of art are being smuggled out of the country and sold to museums around the world for fabulous prices.
ITALY: The Million-Dollar Caper. Italian police officials insist that the 2,500-year-old Greek vase known as the "Calyx Kraier" was actually dug up back in 1971 by a group of professional grave robbers at an Etruscan site north of Rome and sold to an expatriate American, Robert Hecht, Jr., who in turn collected a cool million for it from New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.
ARIZONA: Despite legislation prohibiting the removal of Indian artifacts from designated sites, outnumbered officials are finding it impossible to effectively patrol the vast tracts of the Southwest, where unscrupulous entrepreneurs are selling away the last traces of the ancient cliff dwellers.
These items gleaned from newspapers over the past few years prove that throughout the world, treasure hunting has become a multi-billion-dollar business. There are those who will settle for a few old coins uncovered by their metal detectors during weekend excursions, or are satisfied collecting antique bottles or pieces of ancient barbed wire. But today the world is experiencing a great culture rip off from which professional treasure hunters, who know exactly what they're looking for and where to go to find it, have become multimillionaires in their quest for priceless ancient treasures.
Many of them are Americans, experts in their fields, who live permanently in such countries as Italy, Greece,
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