Stolen artefacts returned to Spain by British collector and philanthropist

Seven Celtiberian bronze helmets, stolen from the town of Aranda de Moncayo (Zaragoza) in the 1980s, were returned this Wednesday in excellent condition to Spain by their current owner in an official ceremony at the Unesco headquarters in Paris.

The pieces, dating from between the 6th and 3rd centuries B.C., come from the Celtiberian city of Arátikos, built during the Iron Age and destroyed by the Roman army in the 70's BC.

In the next few days they will travel to Spain to join a permanent collection at the Zaragoza Museum, where they will be studied by archaelogists before being put on public display.

The handover of this small collection brings a happy ending to a sorry story after two inhabitants of Aranda del Moncayo, Ricardo Bienvenido Granada and Mariano Florentino Ostale, were  last year found guilty by the Provincial Court of Zaragoza of having looted more than 5,000 celtiberian artifacts from Zaragoza and Soria over the past twenty years.

The helmets' current owner, Briton Christian Levett, a philanthropist, collector and creator of the Museum of Classical Art of Mougins (MACM), near Nice, personally delivered them to the Director General of Fine Arts of the Ministry of Culture, Román Fernández-Baca .

"The city and necropolis of Arátikos was subject to a slow, systematic and constant plundering that lasted for decades and that could unfortunately not be prevented at the time, despite the numerous warning flags raised," said Fernández-Baca.

Levett acquired the helmets at auction at Germany's Hermann Historica auction house in 2008 and 2009, without knowing at the time that they were stolen goods. After having them restored, the collector exhibited them from 2011 onwards at the Mougins Museum, where they have been within visible to both the public and researchers.

However, as soon as the sentence against Granada and Ostale was made public and the origin of the helmets was known, Levett, aided by archeology professor Ricardo González Villaescusa, began negotiations with the Government of Aragon for the return of the artefacts.

"I have tried to apply ethics to my collection of antiques over the years, however I have discovered that collecting antiques is much more difficult and dangerous, both legally and financially, than one could imagine," said Levett , who paid 250,000 euros for the artefacts, a sum he is now claiming back from the auction house that organised the sale.

Levett took advantage of the occasion to call for stricter laws against these criminals and issued a series of recommendations to prevent these works from falling into the wrong hands.

"For years, many people in the antiques world have considered cultural plundering followed by a false sale to collectors to be simply part of the business and not a crime," he said.

The seven helmets were put on show in one of Unesco's exhibition halls during the handover, which was carried out in the presence of the parties involved, as well as Spain's ambassador to Unesco, Juan Andrés Perelló Rodríguez.

An investigation of the seized pieces proved the origin of the helmets and allowed specialists to trace their appearance in various European auction houses, in turn facilitating the ongoing recovery process which aims to return to Spain the remaining eight helmets not yet located.