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Currently on exhibit at Rome’s Quirinale Palace are 68 archaeological artifacts returned (or recovered by Carabinieri) to Italy from museums in the United States and elsewhere after being illegally excavated, exported, and sold.

Among the star-studded objects on view is the Euphronios krater (above left – it won’t actually be on view in the exhibit until the middle of January), sometimes known as the Sarpedon krater, an ancient Greek bowl used for mixing wine with water which was created around the year 515 BC.  Formerly in the collection of the Metropolitan  Museum of art, it is considered one of the finest Greek vases in existence. Of the surviving 27 vases painted by the renowned Euphronios, it is the only complete example.  The krater is decorated with two scenes. An episode from the Trojan War is shown on the obverse; this illustration depicts the death of Sarpedon, son of Zeus and Laodamia. The reverse of the krater shows a contemporary scene of Athenian youths from the 6th century BC arming themselves before battle. In the scene of Sarpedon’s death, the god Hermes directs Sleep and Death to carry the fallen away to his homeland for burial.

Also on display is a Attic black figure hydria depicting horsemen by the Antimenes painter in the 4th century AD (above right).

Equally lovely is the ivory face from a sculpture of Juno or Apollo that was made in the first century AD (above left) and the Attic red-figure kantharos featuring a Dionysian mask on one side (that shown in the photo above, right) and a mask of a satyr on the other side.  The vase is sometimes attributed to the Euphronios painter and dates to the fifth century BC.

The marble sculpture shown below is also part of the exhibit.  Dating to the fourth century BC, it shows two griffins attacking a deer and comes from a princely tomb in Ascoli Satriano, near Foggia.

These and 60 other returned and recovered objects can be seen at the Quirinale Palace until 2 March. More than half of the exhibit’s artifacts are pieces returned by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.  The exhibit is titled “Nostoi: Returned Masterpieces,” which refers to a poem referring to the return of heroes from the Trojan War.