John Gomperts, who lives in Washington, realized that ancient pieces worth up to £80,000 – including two Cypriot vases from the 7th and 8th centuries – which he had inherited from his grandmother could come from illegal excavations because they have no collection history . He wanted to do the right thing legally and morally by returning the items to Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Pakistan respectively. After an agreement with his two brothers, he has returned them. He said: “It seemed like the right thing to do… I read stories about repatriation and I thought: we have these pieces that are 2,500 years old from other countries. we will have to investigate whether we can return them.” But with no idea how to repatriate the antiquities, he initially worried he might run into trouble with the authorities for potentially looting the items in his possession. In these Guardian reports, he noticed that Professor Christos Tsirogiannis, a former senior field archaeologist at the University of Cambridge and an expert on antiquities and trafficking networks, had been mentioned and so contacted him for advice. Based in Cambridge, Tsirogiannis is the head of antiquities trafficking research at the Ionian University in Corfu, Greece. Over 15 years, he has located more than 1,600 looted objects in auction houses, commercial galleries, private collections and museums, alerting police authorities and governments and playing an important role in the repatriation of antiquities. They include an ancient Greek bronze horse, which Sotheby’s in New York was due to sell in 2018 until Tsirogiannis alerted authorities to his ties to a disgraced British antiquities dealer. In 2020, Sotheby’s lost its legal challenge and Greece’s culture minister hailed the court decision as a major victory for countries fighting to recover antiquities. Tsirogiannis said Goberts sets a great example. “He reached out to me, which is a first for an owner of unproven antiquities, asking for advice to do the right thing,” he said. “It’s a wonderful case of a person who did it because he had read the Guardian articles. It shows how such posts raise awareness and bring real results. He sent me photos of the antiquities, which were clearly authentic.” He identified each antiquity, indicating the country to which it was to be returned. “Twelve objects belong to Greece, four to Italy, one to Pakistan and two to Cyprus. I advised him to return them,” he said. “I told him: ‘If you follow my advice, then you will have no problem and you will also become an example for other people. You wrap them in a box for each country and go to their embassies. Please use my name – it will protect you. The most honest way is the straight way.” The objects included two 4th-century ceramic plaques decorated with acrobats by southern Italian painters – an “unusual subject,” he said – a lebes gamikos, a fourth-century vase used in ancient Greek wedding ceremonies and a stone relief fragment showing followers of Buddha , carved in the 2nd or 3rd century. The plaques depicting acrobats. Photo: Christos Tsirogiannis/leaflet Gomperts is a consultant to non-profit organizations. His German-Dutch grandmother Gisela Schneider-Herrmann died in 1992, aged 98. He was active in various excavations, particularly in Italy and Greece in the 1950s and 1960s, and published scientific papers. Her grandson said: “I have no idea how she actually got these items. He was a good and proper man. But there were different standards of the day. These objects were her obsession, her whole being.” Some of the objects came with proof, but Tsirogiannis realized their links to well-known Greek illegal antiquities dealers in the 1950s and 1960s. “So that alerted me even more to repatriate them immediately,” he said. Gomperts said: “I knocked on the embassy doors and said, ‘I have a delivery.’ I said, “I want to repatriate these things.” The countries showed their appreciation, with thanks to Goberts and Tsirogiannis. Tsirogiannis said: “This case will show others who want to do something that they can protect themselves when they do the right thing.”
