Two Greeks jailed for life over illegal antiquities, two more men for 20 and 16 years

THESSALONIKI (AP).- A Greek court has imposed life sentences on two men convicted of dealing in ancient treasure worth an estimated €12 million ($15.85 million), which had been illegally excavated from a cemetery in northern Greece. The court in the northern city of Thessaloniki jailed two more men for 20 and 16 years, respectively, after finding them guilty of digging up and transporting the antiquities. The severity of Friday's sentences was due to the high market value of the loot — more than 70 artifacts from the 6th century B.C. These included gold masks, four helmets, a glass perfume bottle, small clay statues, part of a gold diadem and parts of an iron sword decorated with gold leaf. Archaeologists are currently excavating an ancient cemetery near Thessaloniki where the finds came from. Antiquities in Greece are all state property by law. But smuggling is a major problem in the country, where relics of a rich ancient past often lie just inches beneath the surface. Looting deprives archaeologists of valuable contextual information that would emerge from a proper excavation. Without such clues, finds — however impressive — are little more than pretty artifacts with a high commercial value.

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Man jailed for two years for defacing Rothko work in London's Tate Modern gallery

LONDON (AP).- A Polish man who defaced a Mark Rothko painting in London's Tate Modern gallery with black ink was sentenced Thursday to two years in jail. Wlodzimierz Umaniec, also known as Vladimir Umanets, was arrested after visitors discovered a scrawl across the bottom of Rothko's "Black on Maroon" on Oct 7. The 26-year-old later said he had written the words "a potential piece of yellowism" on the abstract painting to draw attention to Yellowism, an artistic movement he co-founded. He pleaded guilty to criminal damage over 5,000 pounds ($8,000). Prosecution lawyer Gregor McKinley said restoring the painting would cost around 200,000 pounds ($320,000) and take up to 20 months. "Complications to this work include the unique painting technique used by the artist and the fact the ink used by Mr. Umaniec has permeated the paint layers and the canvas itself," he said. Passing sentence at Inner London Crown Court, judge Roger Chapple said it was "wholly and utterly unacceptable" to promote the movement by damaging a work of art that had been "a gift to the nation." Russian-born Rothko, who died in 1970, was a leading figure in American abstract painting, renowned for large-scale works featuring bold blocks of color. The defaced painting was one of a series intended to decorate the Four Seasons restaurant in New York. Rothko changed his mind about the commission and gave the works to galleries, including the Tate. McKinley said auctioneer Sotheby's had valued "Black on Maroon" at between 5 million pounds and 9 million pounds ($8 million and $14 million). This is not the first time an artwork at Tate Modern has been interfered with. In 2000, two Chinese performance artists attempted to urinate on Marcel Duchamp's urinal sculpture "Fountain." Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Italian police recover 2,000-year-old Egyptian sphinx stolen from Etruscan necropolis of Montem Rossulum

ROME (AFP).- Italian police on Thursday said they had recovered a 2,000-year-old Egyptian sphinx statue that was stolen from a necropolis near Rome and was about to be smuggled out of the country. "The investigation began with a random check of an industrial vehicle during which police found a decorative ceramic object from an excavation as well as many photos of the Egyptian sculpture," the police said in a statement. A search of the driver's residence turned up the statue from the Ptolemaic era (4th-1st centuries BC) packed into a crate and hidden in a greenhouse. The statue is believed to have been stolen from the Etruscan necropolis of Montem Rossulum near Viterbo, some 100 kilometres (62 miles) from Rome. The police "prevented the sculpture, as well as a series of ancient objects from being put on the clandestine international market," the statement said. The granite statue measures 120 centimetres and 60 centimetres. Egyptian sculptures began to be shipped to Italy following the Roman conquest of Egypt in the 1st century BC.

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