Rome: Six frescoes hacked off from the ruins of ancient Roman villas years ago have been returned to the Pompeii archaeological park, Italian police said on Tuesday.Three of them one depicting a cherub, another a female dancer and the third the head of a woman came from two ancient Roman houses in Stabia, a site a few kilometres from the main.
Wanted in Rome
19 May, 2021
Six fragments of Roman frescoes dating from the first century AD are returned to Pompeii villas.
Pompeii s archaeological park has welcomed the return of six fresco fragments stolen from the ruins of Roman villas, recovered thanks to an investigation by the Italian
carabinieri unit tasked with cultural heritage protection.
Three of the fragments were stolen, probably in the 1970s, from the Villa Arianna and Villa S. Marco in Stabiae, an ancient city located about four km south-west of Pompeii.
The looted artefacts were then exported illegally and purchased in the 1990s by American, British and Swiss antique dealers, according to the press release from the archaeological park.
Stolen Frescoes Returned to Italy
ROME, ITALY The
AFP reports that six frescoes from the walls of ancient villas in southern Italy have been handed over to authorities in Pompeii. Three of the frescoes, including an image of a cherub, a female dancer, and a woman’s head, were stolen from two Roman houses in Stabiae as early as the 1970s and sold to collectors in the United States, Britain, and Switzerland. Like the city of Pompeii, the coastal city of Stabiae was buried in ash by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. These frescoes were recently recovered by Italian police as part of a wider investigation into artifact trafficking. Police found the other three frescoes in 2012 at Civita Giuliana, which is located nearly one-half mile northwest of Pompeii. Looters had uncovered the ancient artworks but had not yet removed them from the site. To read about the recent discovery at Civita Giuliana of the remains of two men who perished in Mount Vesuvius eruption, go to
Six Ancient Frescoes Stolen From Roman Villas Over the Decades Have Been Returned to Pompeii
Italian police recovered three of the frescoes last year, while the rest were found during the bust of an illegal excavation in 2012.
Italian authories with two recovered frescoes. Courtesy of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.
Fragments of six frescoes once stolen from the walls of ancient Roman villas were returned to Pompeii in a ceremony at the archaeological site on Tuesday morning.
Three of the frescoes were recovered by a local Italian cultural heritage protection unit last year as part of a larger investigative effort to crack down on the illegal trafficking of ancient artifacts. The objects were believed to have been taken from Stabia, an archeological site located near Pompeii, in the 1970s, before being promptly smuggled out of the country. By the 1990s, they had been sold to collectors in America, Switzerland, and England.