Ancient gold ring stolen during WWII finds its way back to Greece

ATHENS, Greece -

A greater than 3,000-year-old gold signet ring that was stolen from an Aegean island in the course of the Second World Warfare, crossed the Atlantic, was purchased by a Nobel Prize-winning Hungarian scientist and ended up in a Swedish museum has discovered its approach again to Greece.

It was the newest in a sequence of coups by Greek authorities searching for the return of works plundered from the antiquities-rich nation -- despite the fact that an preliminary effort by the Swedish museum to return the ring apparently fell between the cracks of Seventies forms.

The Greek tradition ministry mentioned Friday that the gold Mycenaean-era work from Rhodes, embellished with two going through sphinxes, was willingly returned by Swedish officers who offered full help with documenting the artifact and its provenance.

Greek consultants confirmed the identification, and the piece was handed over in Stockholm by Vidar Helgesen, government director of the Nobel Basis, to which the ring had been bequeathed by the Hungarian biophysicist. The muse, which presents annual awards for excellent achievement in a number of fields, had given it to the Museum of Mediterranean and Close to Jap Antiquities in Stockholm.

Greek Tradition Minister Lina Mendoni thanked the Nobel Basis and Swedish authorities for the repatriation, saying it "exhibits their respect for contemporary Greece and our fixed efforts to struggle the unlawful trafficking of cultural items."

The ring, which might have been a standing image for an area nobleman within the third millennium B.C., was found in 1927 by Italian archaeologists in a Mycenaean grave close to the traditional metropolis of Ialysos on Rhodes. The southeastern Aegean island belonged to Italy till it was included in Greece after WWII.

The tradition ministry mentioned the ring was stolen from a museum on Rhodes in the course of the struggle -- with a whole bunch of different items of knickknack and cash that stay lacking -- and surfaced in america. It was purchased there in the course of the Fifties or Sixties by Georg von Bekesy, a biophysicist and artwork collector whose assortment was donated to the Nobel Basis after his dying in 1972, and from there, distributed to a number of museums.

The Nobel Basis's Helgesen mentioned there was little doubt as to the place the art work needs to be.

"To us, it was apparent that the ring needs to be returned," he mentioned. "This artifact is of very nice cultural-historical worth for Greece."

The Stockholm museum had initially recognized the ring from Ialysos in 1975 and contacted Greek authorities, the ministry mentioned.

"But it surely remained in Stockholm for causes that aren't clear from current archives," Friday's assertion mentioned. The art work will now be displayed in a museum on Rhodes.