Looted art returned to Iran from Italy

The Italian Culture Ministry yesterday returned 41 archaeological artifacts of Middle Eastern origin to the Iranian ambassador in Italy. The pieces date between the 8th and 14th centuries and were part of a larger haul of 309 objects found by the ministry’s art-theft police in September 2005 at an antiquities fair near Milan. Experts at the National Museum of Oriental Art in Rome studied the artifacts and determined which countries they belonged to. Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli told reporters at a news conference that the Italian government had always repatriated objects it believed had been looted. “It is our moral, political and scientific obligation to do so,” he said.