Italian Judge Asserts Getty Has 2 Stolen Greek Statues

An Italian magistrate investigating the theft of archeological artifacts said Tuesday that he believes at least two archaic Greek sculptures stolen from a site in central Sicily have wound up in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu.

Judge Silvio Raffiotta, himself an archeology buff, described the two works as marble statues from the 6th Century BC. He said they were dug up in 1979 by treasure hunters at nearby Morgantina, an important Greek city until its sack by Roman legions in 211 BC.

“We have proof that the Getty, among others in the United States, has acquired pieces illegally excavated at Morgantina and smuggled from the country,” Raffiotta said at his offices here Tuesday.

Details Not Provided

Raffiotta declined to identify the pieces or give details of his investigation, but it was understood that the Italian investigation had successfully traced the two statues from Italy to London, then to New York, and then to the Getty.

Sicilian investigators also reportedly have traced large numbers of valuable Greek silver coins from Morgantina to museums in the United States and Western Europe.

Again, Raffiotta was tight-lipped about ongoing investigations, but if Italian officials could demonstrate incontrovertibly that the statues and the coins came from Morgantina, they would be in a powerful position to demand their return to Italy from the museums that have them.

Raffiotta’s report of the two figures came amid international furor over a larger Greek statue from the 5th Century BC recently unveiled by the Getty. By some reports, it too may have come from Morgantina, but Raffiotta said his investigations have turned up no evidence that is the case.

The larger statue, a dazzling 7 1/2-foot limestone and marble figure believed to be that of the Greek goddess Aphrodite, is about a century younger than the other two Raffiotta is chasing. It is the subject of an Interpol inquiry at the request of Italian police. An art fraud investigator from the Los Angeles Police Department interviewed Getty officials about the statue and forwarded a report to Italian authorities via Interpol, but Raffiotta said Tuesday he has not seen it.

“The two from Morgantina are smaller but older. Historically and artistically they are much more interesting and valuable than the one that is causing all the fuss,” Raffiotta said. “It would be a mistake to let the smoke from one obscure the other two.”

Lori Starr, head of public information for the Getty Museum, released the following statement in Malibu in response to Raffiotta’s comments:

“If Mr. Raffiotta believes that the Getty possesses what he indicated, we would appreciate receiving any information on the matter he might have. We need to have more specific information.”

“The Getty does not own nor is it thinking of acquiring any other artifact we know to be from Morgantina. Anything we would consider for acquisition would be subject to our normal procedure of making inquiries of the appropriate government just as we did for the Aphrodite and any other important acquisition.”

The Getty, which has cooperated with the Interpol query but does not as a matter of policy disclose the source or price of its acquisitions. However, the statue believe to be Aphrodite was valued at $20 million when it was cleared by U.S. Customs for entry into this country.

On Tuesday, Raffiotta deposed Graziela Fiorentini, the Italian government’s director of antiquities in Agrigento, Sicily, whose suspicions about the origins of the Aphrodite triggered the international investigation.

In the hourlong deposition Fiorentini once again asserted she thought that the statue had come from Morgantina but produced no evidence to support her conviction, Raffiotta said later.

“There’s a lot of ‘may be, could be, might be,’ but I am as leery of the big one as I am sure of the other two,” said the judge, who has published a guide to Morgantina and has a summer home near the site.

Since assuming charge early this year of a police investigation into clandestine archeology, Raffiotta has jailed, at least briefly, more than three dozen people for treasure hunting at Morgantina. Part of the site is fenced, but the rest is more or less open farmland, although supposedly patrolled.

Most of those jailed were dig-by-night peasants who are free on bail while archeologists wade through ancient artifacts seized by police raiders at their homes.

Raffiotta said he will not discuss details of current investigations, but there is speculation that local free-lance diggers brought into court for more recent thefts may have provided insights into the discovery of the two statues.

In the agricultural town of Aidone near Morgantina, nighttime archeology has been a municipal pastime since portable metal detectors became affordable in the mid-1970s.

Around 1979 word raced through the town of a big find of marble statues by clandestini, as the treasure hunters are known here.

That prompted a subsequent dig by Italian government archeologists in the area around Morgantina where the treasure hunters were said to have found the statues. The official dig produced no more marble figures but proved rich in Greek terra-cotta figurines and pottery from the centuries before the Romans conquered the city.