Operación Tertis against arqueological plundering.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

The Guardia Civil (police of Spain) has realized the major world operation up to the moment, operation Tertis, against the plunder of archaeological deposits. In the operation 52 persons have detained, between collectors, looters and intermediaries. They have recovered near 300.000 archaeological pieces of all kinds.

Among the pieces, I want to emphasize a funeral tomb of a Roman military man, named Marcus Cornelius with representation of his weaponry (a pilum and a pugio). I have not seen yet it directly, only the descriptions.

Again, among the seized material there have recovered molds and tools destined to produce falsifications.

A great news. STOP THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL PLUNDERS.

[Robert Vermaat]

That is GOOD news!

[Praefectusclassis]

Oooh! Tombstones...Good news indeed. It would be interesting to get one in Spain. Tombstones with representations are exceedingly rare there, as far as I know.

[LUCIUS ALFENUS AVITIANUS]

The tombstone could be not from Spain. The criminal organisation have some people working in another countries like Italy and Belgium. So, we do'nt know for sure where the stuff are plundered.

I'm very happy because not only the plunderers have been detained. Collectors too, many of them important members of society (doctors, bussines men, etc.)

[Crispvs]

Good news indeed!

I think it is especially good that people at different levels of the operation were caught - looters, intermediaries, forgers and buyers. People at any one level of this nefarious trade can stimulate the others so the more of them who are identified the better.

The fact that moulds for forgeries were also recovered may also help to trace some of the forgers who are flooding the antiquities market with misleading forgeries.

Hopefully they will also have recovered information on where many of the looted items came from.

I too would love to see a detailed image of that stele.

Good news indeed!


Crispvs

[Jona Lendering]

The Guardia Civil (police of Spain) has realized the major world operation up to the moment, operation Tertis, against the plunder of archaeological deposits. In the operation 52 persons have detained, between collectors, looters and intermediaries. They have recovered near 300.000 archaeological pieces of all kinds.

This is very good news indeed. Still, it would be better if there was a permant, imternational task force for this type of criminality (cf. drugs traffic, for which int'l treaties exist).

Another improvement would be adequate protection for museums and archaeological sites (the site of ancient Osuna was completely unprotected when I visited it several years ago), close cooperation between scholars and metal detector workers (cf. the Spanish Lex Irnitana), and a more positive attitude of the authorities towards private investigators like Michel van Rijn (a former smuggler turned "good guy"; responsible for the coming-to-light of the Judas Gospel).

Finally, policy must not be based on maintaining the law alone. Obviously people want to buy and possess antiquities. This demand creates illegal trade. Perhaps we must create more legal possibilities to buy ancient art. I know many museums which have to take care for more ancient objects than they can expose; many collectors would love to have these objects. I see no reason why this "hidden collection" can not be sold, which might also generate some extra cash flow for the museums. (I think this was proposed by one of our German forum members, but I do not remember by whom.)

[Arahne]

Jona, museums purpose is not just to exhibit objects but to keep them. Maybe this could be done like the Izrael antiquities authority does, that is one solution, but you never now what kind of technology will be invented in the future. Maybe you will gain some extra info from every one of the millions of roman coins, or thousands of roman lamps (these are legally sold in Izrael on Ben-Gurion airport). So the best way is that museums expand their depots.
And there will always be plundering of archaeological sites, like every illegal business. I have to admit that it not clear for me why Interpol-europol does not take some serious actions against whole network of antiquities robbing. Or we are not well informed?