An ancient Attic black-figure lekythos was ceremonially repatriated to Greece in an event held at the Embassy of Greece in Washington, D.C. The ceremony was attended by the Greek Minister of Culture, Lina Mendoni.
The lekythos, standing at 12 centimeters tall, features a black-figure depiction of a battle between Athena and a Giant, flanked by two hoplites on either side of the combat scene, set against a white background. The artifact was handed over by Wendy Closterman, the curator of the Glencairn Museum.
According to ANT1 News, the lekythos originates from the excavation of tomb 14 in the Kerameikos cemetery of Athens. It was removed from Greece under unknown circumstances between 1936 and 1976, as revealed by research conducted by the Glencairn Museum and the Greek Ministry of Culture through the Directorate of Documentation and Protection of Cultural Goods.
After its removal, the lekythos surfaced in a Sotheby’s auction in New York in December 1973, part of the liquidation of the assets of the Hagop Kevorkian Fund. A private individual purchased the vessel at the auction and later donated it anonymously to the Glencairn Museum, as reported by LIFO.
“With great joy and deep emotion, I stand before you today at this simple but particularly significant ceremony for the repatriation of an ancient Greek artifact from the Glencairn Museum in Pennsylvania,” Mendoni said, according to Proto Thema.
“It is particularly important that this repatriation did not arise from an official claim by the Greek authorities. Instead, it started from the Glencairn Museum itself, as part of the process of rechecking the provenance of its collection items,” stated Mendoni, according to Naftemporiki.
Further research established that the lekythos had been published as early as 1936, when it was part of the archaeological collection of Kerameikos. “The identification is indisputable, as the ancient vessel bears the original excavation registration number,” Mendoni explained, according to Naftemporiki. “This suggests that the object was stolen sometime between 1936 and 1976 and then trafficked abroad, before finally being included in the collection of the Hagop Kevorkian Fund and, from there, in the Glencairn Museum,” she added.
The Glencairn Museum’s decision was based on an internal investigation conducted with the assistance of Professors Bald and David Gilman Romano. “Their research revealed that the lekythos, which was originally acquired by the museum through anonymous donation, had been purchased in 1973 at a Sotheby’s auction in New York,” Mendoni noted.
The lekythos, dating back to the late archaic period, was originally discovered in 1910 during the excavation of a tomb in the ancient cemetery of Kerameikos in Athens. Its return marks a moment in the ongoing efforts to repatriate cultural artifacts to their countries of origin.
The article was written with the assistance of a news analysis system.
This article was originally published at www.jpost.com
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