Looted antiquities, right on our doorstep

The Canberra Times

ANU Classic Museum curator Georgia Pike-Rowney outlines how the university discovered the problematic history of a marble portrait head owned by the Vatican.

Transcript

00:00 So this piece on the left, this marble portrait head of a young man, which dates from the

00:05 second century CE, so a little under 2,000 years old, this piece.

00:11 It came to our attention when we were looking through the archives and found that it was

00:16 actually connected to a collection that was on display in the Lateran Museum that was

00:21 owned by the Vatican, but in the city of Rome.

00:25 And that museum closed its doors in 1970.

00:28 However, this was purchased by the ANU in 1968.

00:33 So it's an absolute head-scratcher in terms of how this object, which was part of a collection

00:39 that shut in 1970, actually made its way to Australia in 1968.

00:45 So we're really looking forward to finding out more about this object.

00:49 And it was one that you brought to the attention of the Italian embassy here in Canberra.

00:55 They hadn't really been aware.

00:57 That's right.

00:58 This is an example of what we call a proactive repatriation case, where we are bringing the

01:02 evidence to the Italian government, who we're then able to contact the Vatican on our behalf.

01:07 So we're really grateful to the Italians for acting in that way.

01:10 So now it's going to be a trilateral case between Italy, the Vatican, and Australia.

01:15 And what do we know about the young man?

01:18 We know very little about the young man, other than he's got some fantastic sideburns, if

01:21 you look closely.

01:23 We know very little about him.

01:25 We know that he's a portrait of a young man.

01:27 There's many questions we have, and we're hoping to answer a few of them as this case

01:31 progresses.

01:31 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended