Italian art cops have recovered Etruscan artefacts of what they say is an "exceptional" value.
    The trove includes two sarcophahi and eight urns which had been taken by tomb raiders in an illegal dig, said the Carabinieri Unit for the Protection of the Cultural Heritage (NTPC).
    The sarcophagi with their related funerary objects date from the Hellenistic period of the 3rd century BC while the urns come from a clandestine excavation in Città della Pieve in southern Tuscany.
    The urns, all intact, are in white Umbrian travertine, partly decorated with high reliefs with scenes of battles, hunting and friezes, some of which preserve polychrome pigments and gold leaf coatings, while others depict the myth of Achilles and Troilus.
    Of the two sarcophagi, one is currently represented only by the covering and the other complete with the skeleton of the deceased.
    The funeral trousseau is particularly rich, consisting of furnishings and pottery, both earthenware and metal, including four bronze mirrors, one of which with the ancient deification of Rome and the she-wolf suckling only Romulus, a balsamarium still containing organic traces of the perfume used in antiquity, a bone comb, bronze situlae and oinochoe, commonly used by Etruscan women during banquets and symposiums.
    The recovery operation of these finds, and in particular of the urns, considered by experts to be one of the most important recoveries of Etruscan artefacts ever carried out during an investigative action, was illustrated by the chief prosecutor of the Perugia Public Prosecutor's Office, Raffaele Cantone, with his deputy Annamaria Greco, by the commander of the Carabinieri for the Protection of Cultural Heritage, Francesco Gargaro, with the Minister of Culture, Alessandro Giuli, and the head of the Department for the Protection of Cultural Heritage of the ministry, Luigi La Rocca.
    The activities were started last April, following a communication from the Carabinieri of the Cultural Heritage Protection Command which reported a possible illegal excavation in the area between Chiusi and Città della Pieve.
    Giuli, the culture minister, said: "Today the Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage is returning to Italy and to the knowledge of its thousand-year history some very precious Etruscan finds, even if this discovery still has to tell us part of its truth.
    "I hold back my instincts as an Etruscanology enthusiast and leave to those who will intervene after me the technical-scientific information that will allow us to place these finds, but it is already evident to the naked eye that we are in front of something extremely significant".
    Giuli went on to praise the art cops for their "exemplary work" in this and other operations over the last year.
    "There have been many recovery operations conducted in the last year: from the 750 archaeological finds repatriated from London to the 60 archaeological finds with an estimated value of over 20 million dollars repatriated from the United States, without forgetting the return of the precious incunabulum of 1493, in which Christopher Columbus, returning from America, describes his journey to the Spanish royals and which the US government, thanks to the work of diplomacy, has agreed to return to us", said the minister.

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