Man arrested in Laconia for possession of antiquities

Officers of the cultural heritage and antiquities department arrested on Thursday a 65-year-old man in Laconia, southeastern Peloponnese, for illegal possession of antiquities and for receiving and handling proceeds of crime.

During a raid in two venues owned by the suspect, police found numerous antiquities which were shown to archaeologists of the local ephorate who assessed them and confirmed their value.

Officers seized, among others, a section of a Roman relief tombstone, a piece of a Hellenistic column, a Hellenistic marble architectural segment, two Hellenistic amphoras, two pieces of a Hellenistic marble vase, the base of an Ionic column, three Hellenistic tablets, an intact amphorae of Early Christian times, and 27 pieces of Roman, Hellenistic and Late Antiquities amphorae.

All the objects will be handed over to the Archaeological Museum of Sparta. The suspect was led before a prosecutor in the town of Gythio.