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The
Daily Gyro August 14, 2006 Major Haul of Greek Antiquities Seized from Display at Aegean Island Restaurant Did someone suddenly turn a vase upside down and checked the bottom and noticed the lack of a barcode or that the words, “Made in the EU” were missing? With all the news recently of Greece’s attempts to take back their antiquities
from overseas museums, it is nice to see it focusing on the low-lying fruit in
its own backyard. Last week, police from the special antiquities squad (the
baddest dudes from your junior year Art History class) on the Aegean island of
Koufonissi busted a restaurant for harboring and displaying more than 100
ancient vases and marble fragments. (Wait, a special antiquities squad on an
island? I thought “special antiquities” were only found in the villages on the
mainland. The last time I went to the islands, I didn’t see anyone over the age
of 35.) Among the items seized were dozens of pots, include ten large amphora
as well as a rare bronze double ax and four marble column bases. Maybe it is the rise of museum quality copies that desensitized patrons and police from noticing that these were in fact authentic antiquities. Did someone suddenly turn a vase upside down and checked the bottom and noticed the lack of a barcode or that the words, “Made in the EU” were missing? Did someone find a little too much 3000 year-old bronze in their lamb and realize that the double ax the waiter was using to carve the meat tableside may not have been stainless steel made to look like bronze after all? Certainly the four marble column bases tipped no one off, because you know that if the restaurant owner had a wife, those bases were certainly being used to support a flower pot or were used for some other functional purpose so that no one would have appreciated the original stand-alone beauty or uniqueness of the columns. Other Servings of The Daily Gyro
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