Greek, Roman, Egyptian & Other Antiquities

Bronze Age golden jewellery and a Roman goddess kept in a margarine tub are among the discoveries dug up across the UK.

The London auction calendar in early December offered a busy schedule of antiquities, sculpture and works of art sales running side-by-side with the Old Master series. Overall the sales were relatively well-received with improved selling rates on previous years. Here we select five highlights from the series.

A Roman bronze foot from a monumental statue topped an auction of Antiquities held by Bonhams in London when it sold for a hammer price of £160,000, far in excess of its £10,000-15,000 estimate.

Workers charged with the demolition of the former Cressoni Theater in Como, Lombardy have unearthed a hoard of 5th century Roman gold coins.

A replica of the largest Roman mosaic to be found in Britain could return home to Gloucestershire where it was made.

A 3000-year-old Assyrian relief unearthed from the royal palace at Nimrud will be offered at Christie’s New York on October 31. It is expected to exceed $10m.

A Persian limestone relief sculpture is to be returned to Iran, a New York court has ruled.

A coin and antiquities dealer has been arrested as part of an international investigation into a £35m crime network dealing in looted artefacts.

A small bronze figure of a horse from ancient Greece is at the centre of a New York court case after Greece’s ministry of culture demanded its return and stopped its sale at auction.

Two Attic black figure vases that formerly belonged to Lucien Bonaparte, the younger brother of Napoleon, were acquired by the Louvre from an auction held at Drouot in Paris by Pierre Bergé et Associés (PBA).

A Cambridge auctioneer has negotiated the return of a pre-Columbian artefact to the Bolivian government.

Antiquities looted from archaeological sites in Libya have been seized in Spain by police and two art dealers have been arrested.

The British Museum is to hold an exhibition on money and medals in a tie-up with specialist London coin and stamp auction Spink.

Antiquities looted during the Lebanese civil war in the 1980s are to go on display at the National Museum in Beirut after they were identified in Europe as stolen objects.