He confesses to priest and returns 200 misappropriated ancient coins to Paestum

The Paestum Archaeological Park has received 200 ancient coins that had been illegally stolen: they were returned in an envelope delivered by a person who regretted his act after confessing to a local priest, whom the anonymous person asked to personally deliver the envelope with the coins to the Park’s director, Gabriel Zuchtriegel.

This is the latest in a series of restitutions by people who, moved by remorse for having committed an act detrimental to the heritage, have decided to hand back what was illegitimately taken from public knowledge and enjoyment (one of the last had been the stone delivered to the National Roman Museum by a girl who had taken it during a vacation in Rome and regretted her act). As an initial analysis of the materials by Professor Federico Carbone, a numismatist at the University of Salerno, revealed, in this case, however, among ancient originals there were also a number of more or less professionally made fakes.

“Of 208 numismatic finds,” Carbone notes, “7 are fakes, while of the 201 originals 5 are silver, one medal is aluminum, and all the others are copper alloy. In addition, there are 7 other objects of various materials. Two rather homogeneous sets can be distinguished among the coins: the first is represented by bronzes from the Paestum mint (mainly specimens from the 3rd century B.C. and up to the Augustan age), and the second is composed of follis and fractions of follis from the mid- to late 4th century B.C. There is no shortage of bronzes from Poseidonia, Velia, and the middle imperial age. Only a couple are modern. A good number (always referable to these same series) are illegible due to poor preservation. In addition, 45 specimens could return more information following cleaning. The composition of the core, therefore, roughly reflects what is generally found in the Pestan territory.”

According to the Park’s director, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, “this is an important restitution of original materials, mixed with fakes, which were misappropriated and are now being reintegrated into a context of legality, research and musealization. Our appeal to those who should hide archaeological finds at home is to follow suit and return, in addition to the objects, the story they tell to our territory.”

Pictured are some of the returned coins.

He confesses to priest and returns 200 misappropriated ancient coins to Paestum

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