The Greek Culture Minister, Lisa Mendoni, has announced that 351 objects are to be restituted to Greece after a drawn-out legal battle that has plagued the Greek Ministry of Culture. The artefacts, which include statues, figurines, sculptures, vases, jewellery, utensils and accessories, date from the Neolithic period to the Byzantine era, and include important objects such as a second century bronze statue of Alexander the Great.

The objects had been in the possession of disgraced British antiquities dealer, Robin Symes. Symes illicitly acquired thousands of antiquities and was part of an international network of criminals illegally trading cultural objects. Symes was found guilty and imprisoned of these activities in 2005 and since this date Greek authorities have been investigating his now liquidated company, Robin Symes Ltd, trying to ascertain what objects he had and how they could be repatriated.

Mendoni described how this was “a difficult case which has beset the Culture Ministry for more than 17 years”. Her work on the return of these objects intensified in recent years. She stated that, “in the last three years, we worked systematically, we intensified our efforts to reach the final result. The repatriation of illegally exported cultural goods is a priority.” This hoard of artefacts may be related to the 2016 discovery by Italian and Swiss police of a sizeable group of treasures owned by Symes and stored in the Geneva freeport.

The announcement that these objects are to be returned to Greece has coincided with another repatriation case pertaining to Symes, this one based in New York. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office has announced that two antiquities will be returned to Iraq, one of which was owned by Symes. According to a statement, the objects were looted from the ancient city of Uruk and were “stolen from Iraq during the Gulf War and smuggled into New York in the late 1990s.” Only last year Symes’ name appeared in another restitution case, this time concerning the return of 27 looted antiquities which were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Eight of these objects were found to be connected to Gianfranco Becchina who owned a gallery suspected of trafficking antiquities, while another – a terracotta statuettes dating to about 400 BCE – had been gifted to the museum by Symes.