Greek police seize 2 rare statues from 2 farmers

AP Associated Press
By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS

ATHENS, Greece - Police in southern Greece have seized a rare twin pair of 2,500-year-old marble statues and arrested two farmers who allegedly planned to sell them abroad for euro10 million ($12.43 million), authorities said Tuesday.

Police said two Greeks aged 42 and 48 were arrested in the Peloponnese area late Friday as they were loading the illegally excavated figures of young men into a truck. Authorities are seeking a third man suspected of belonging to a smuggling gang that planned to spirit the 6th century B.C. works out of the country.

"This is a very important find, of fabulous value, and (both statues) were ready to be taken out of Greece," Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanos said.

Archaeologists said Tuesday the statues are "outstanding works of art" and may have come from a temple or cemetery in a lost ancient city in the Peloponnese region in southern Greece. Both are in excellent condition, but lack sections of their lower legs and were gashed by a plow or digging machinery.

They stand 1.82 meters (5 feet 9 inches) and 1.78 meters (5 feet 8 inches) high, and were probably carved by the same sculptor out of thick-grained island marble between 550-520 B.C, at the height of the archaic period of sculpture.

"They are exactly the same, with a slight variation in hairstyle and a small difference in height," said Nikos Kaltsas, director of the National Archaeological Museum in Athens where the finds were temporarily housed for conservation and study. "The artist may have wanted to produce two similar figures that would form part of a group."

The statues are of the stiff, highly formalized Kouros type widespread in the 7th and 6th centuries B.C. which portrayed gods, heroes or aristocrats and were painted in bright colors. From the 5th century on, Greek sculpture became more fluid and lifelike, culminating in the naturalism of the Hellenistic era.

Such discoveries in good condition are uncommon - about three have turned up during excavations in the past decade. But matching pairs are particularly rare.

Although the precise spot of the find is still unclear, authorities believe it may coincide with the lost ruins of Tenea, a city that according to ancient writers lay between Corinth and Mycenae and was first populated by prisoners of war brought back by victorious Greeks from the Trojan War - recorded in Homer's "Iliad." A similar, but slightly earlier statue discovered in what may have been Tenea's cemetery is displayed in Munich.

Archaeologists hope to find the missing leg sections, because the breaks are recent.

Police chief Lefteris Economou said the arrests followed information from culture ministry officials. He provided no details on the identity of the potential buyers or which country the finds had been heading for.

Antiquities looting is a major problem in Greece, where treasures - by law all state property - can lie inches below farmers' plows or modern buildings, especially in cities like Athens that have been constantly inhabited for thousands of years.

Illegally excavated finds can be impressive to look at, but all the valuable context, which in an organized excavation provides information on their use, date and origin, is lost during hasty looting digs.

"Going after antiquities thieves is our main priority," Geroulanos said. "Work has been done in that direction ... and we are starting to see the first major results."

Dozens of illegally exported finds have been returned to Greece over the past few years, including four masterpieces from the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.



If you want an ancient looking sculpture but don't feel like smuggling the real thing check out some of our replica pieces like our Perseus Slaying Medusa! Check out all our products here.

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Times they are a changin'. The economy and Small Business

The economical downturn has created a difficult situation for everybody, but maybe especially the small business. Spending is WAY down. Debts are way up. Not a good combination for a small business owner that needs those non existent dollars to survive. And, since desperate times call for desperate measures that meant adjusting our business strategy. For the first three quarters of our existence as a foundry direct source for bronze sculptures and fountains we were predominantly a strictly wholesale distributor that catered to the needs of the online store. These are people that have set up a website where people can purchase the items but have no actual inventory of their own. They buy from us and then sell the pieces on their sites for a profit, the definition of a middle man. Since the economical shift however, many of those middlemen either folded or began selling smaller items with less of a mark up. This forced us to change our thinking as well. Since we can no longer rely on our wholesale customers for orders we began positioning ourselves as a foundry direct Retailer with wholesale pricing. Which is true. We are foundry direct and we do offer wholesale pricing, sometimes below wholesale pricing. In fact, probably 90% of our business is now done as a retailer. Adjusting with the times is what has enabled us to continue to survive and sell our items in spite of an economy that dictates otherwise. And it's why we are proud to say we have the best pricing on the web.

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Buying a Bronze Sculpture 101: Understanding the Process

The history of bronze sculpture dates back several thousand years, and was predominately used in Greece, Egypt, Rome and the Near Eastern civilizations. Many of the same techniques used thousands of years ago are still in use today, in fact.

Bronze is an alloy made by melting copper and tin in varying proportions, but the resulting metal is easily worked and melted, does not rust and has a smooth finish. The ability to be colored artistically using chemical treatment combined with the ease of use makes bronze an ideal medium for many artisans.

The earliest method of making bronze sculpture was to use solid masses of bronze, but later artisans developed the lost wax casting method, which enabled the artists of the time to develop larger works of art, and produce the bronze sculptures faster.

About a thousand years ago, artists began using the lost wax casting method to create their masterpieces, and has been used by such renowned artists as Donatello, Rodin, Remington, and Russel, to name a few. The process of lost wax casting allows artists to produce as many works of their art as they feel fit, and while no two pieces of bronze sculpture are the same, all bronze made from the same mold is still original artwork.

Many famous sculptures belong in the public domain, and can be recreated in bronze using the lost wax casting method process to put a piece of history in your home or landscape project, at an affordable cost.

The Process

The first step in creating a bronze sculpture using the lost wax casting method is to sculpt the original piece from which the mold will be made. All the detail is captured in this stage, which is the basis for the rest of the process.

The next step of casting is to pour molten wax into the mold, using layers of wax to form an exact duplicate of the original casting.

The wax is pulled from the mold and detailed, or chased, welded and polished by individual artisans. Each piece may contain some small variation from the original, but the reproductions remain true to the original sculpture.

Wax rods and pouring cups are attached to the wax casting to assure a full pour. Using a temperature controlled climate, the wax casting is dipped into investment liquid (liquid clay, essentially). After the first dip, a powder is applied to the clay, and on subsequent dips a layer of ceramic sand is applied, creating a ceramic mold that must be allowed to dry between layers.

The ceramic shell is then placed into a kiln and fired, the shell is baked and the wax is melted (lost) from the shell, creating a hollow ceramic shell mold and the phrase 'lost wax casting.' The mold is removed from the kiln, and molten bronze is poured into the shell at about 2100 degrees Fahrenheit.

After several hours of cooling, the unfinished bronze is carefully stripped of the ceramic shell. The ceramic shell fragments are carefully removed from the bronze, which is carefully inspected at this stage.

If required, this is the time when a master craftsman would weld larger sections together, and chase or re-detail the weld marks. Afterward, the craftsman uses a process called 'glass beading' in which the bronze is sprayed with powdered glass under extremely high pressures to ensure an even bronze finish.

The bronze is now hand polished and heated to await the patina application. The patina is hand applied by the artisan, and a layer of wax is hand applied with heat to ensure a lustrous patina finish. After a final inspection, the bronze sculpture is now ready for delivery and display.

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T-Rex featured at Dino Days in the Delaware Museum of Natural History

We recently donated a lifesize T-Rex skull, and some of our other fossil skulls, to the Delaware Museum of Natural History for their Dino Days exibit. We were pleasantly surprised when they sent us their quarterly program and our T-Rex was on the cover! They also did a little write up about us on the inside. We're one of only a very few companies that makes fossil skulls in bronze, most are made from resin, and we're certainly the only one that makes these sculptures available at the prices we offer. Most resin castings cost more than one of our bronze skulls. We like ours because it allows people to interact and touch them without fear of damage.