Greek Police Seize Two Rare Statues From Two Farmers
ATHENS (AP).- 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 €10 million
($12.43
million), authorities said. 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. 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.
