'This is a story about buried treasure': The 1970s tomb raiders who plundered 'million-dollar pots'

It was one of the finest pieces of art ever bought by the Met. But it had been excavated by an Italian grave robber, then smuggled to the US. In 1975, the BBC investigated the lucrative global trade in stolen antiquities.

In September 1972, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) purchased an ancient Greek vase for $1.2m ($9.6m or £7.1m today). Created around 515BC and signed by the painter Euphronios, it is considered one of the best surviving examples of ancient Greek pottery. "From this moment, histories of art will have to be rewritten," boasted the Met's director after the sale was announced, claiming that the vase was one of the two or three finest works of art ever owned by the museum.

But there were soon accusations that the vase had been illegally excavated and smuggled into the US, giving it the nickname "the hot pot". A BBC reporter, John Percival, followed its trail to the underground tombs of a necropolis just outside Cerveteri, Italy, where a professional grave robber, or tombarolo, was said to have unearthed it. And the excitement generated by its price meant that there was renewed activity in the area. "The Italian robbers are chasing million-dollar pots," said Percival. "The Italian cops are chasing the robbers."

Speaking on the BBC's Treasure Trail in 1975, Percival summed up the situation: "This is a story about buried treasure, about gold, silver and precious things hidden in the Earth long ago. It's about the thieves who dig for it by night, about the dealers who smuggle it across frontiers, about the collectors and the great museums that act as receivers of stolen goods."

"The destruction starts at the place where the object is found," Dr Nusin Askari, an expert at the Istanbul Museum, told the BBC. "It's broken so that it can be sold for a higher price in the end and so that it can be transported and smuggled out of the country easier."

To try and control the stolen antiquities trade in the Cerveteri area, a special team of police was trained in ancient art, attending lectures by an expert at Rome's Villa Giulia Museum. Yet illegal excavations were difficult to patrol, and kept appearing like giant potholes dotted around Italian fields. 

"The whole area is littered with absolutely hundreds of tombs which can be opened up easily," said Percival, crouching next to a freshly dug pit that had appeared that morning. It was an early Etruscan tomb, with grave goods not as rich as those found in some later ones, and........

© BBC