Melissa Golden for The Chronicle

Dear Commons Community,

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting this morning that after years of criticism over its collecting practices, Emory University’s Michael C. Carlos Museum is repatriating to Greece three antiquities that are widely regarded to have been looted.

The Atlanta museum said on yesterday that it had arranged with the Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic to return a Minoan larnax, or coffin; a statue of the muse Terpsichore; and a statue of a seated figure. The returns follow a Chronicle investigation last summer that reported that the three items, plus more than 500 of the Carlos’s artifacts, had passed through owners and sellers linked to the illicit antiquities trade, including some convicted or indicted on charges related to antiquities trafficking.

The three artifacts being returned were purchased in the early 2000s in the museum’s effort to bolster its holdings and to rival behemoths like the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

I was in Athens in the Fall and removal of Greece’s antiquities  is a very hot issue there.

Tony

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