THE DIRECTOR of the Antiquities Department Pavlos Flourentzou said yesterday that people smuggling artifacts from the north were not just smuggling but stealing.
A story, published on the front page of Simerini yesterday, stated that the Department of Antiquities had located various items in the south such as religious artifacts from churches like icon stands and liturgical wood carvings.
“This is a very serious problem because what they could be smuggling from the north could belong to their ‘neighbour’. These people trying to smuggle the artifacts are committing a grave crime because some of the items could be things like church grails or other expensive items that at one time or another could have belonged to a Greek Cypriot. However, there have been some cases where people have returned back to us various antiques,” he told the Cyprus Mail.
Flourentzou said he was pleased with the police presence at the checkpoints adding that antique smuggling would be continuously sought and stamped out by his department and the police.
However, police spokesman Demetris Demetriou told the Cyprus Mail that the cases referred to were nothing new and that the discovery of antiquities smuggling across the Green Line that Simerini spoke of had actually taken place last year.
“The case that the newspaper is referring to happened last year and it is not something new. I cannot understand why they re-ran the story.”
In 1997, a huge collection of over 100 pieces of ancient and Byzantine artifacts looted from churches and archaeological sites in the north were discovered in the Munich home of Turkish art dealer Hikmet Aydin.
The icons, frescoes, ancient pottery, statues and coins in Aydin’s possession, which were being illegally sold on the international market, had an estimated value of almost £20 million.
More recently in 2003, Turkish Cypriot police arrested 24-year-old Fahri Tilim for attempting to smuggle one amphora and other utensils belonging to the geometric period, two icons belonging to the years 1861 and 1934 and one embroidered covering made of claret red cloth used in the church, depicting Jesus Christ and Virgin Mary, in his car.
