PROTESTS OVER ELGIN MARBLES; ITALIAN POLICE ARREST FIFTY-TWO FOR ART THEFT

Wearing bright orange jackets inscribed with the words “PARTHENON MARBLES—REUNIFICATION NOW,” about two thousand students and their teachers formed a human chain around the Acropolis in Athens Tuesday, demanding the return by Britain of the twenty-five-hundred-year-old reliefs taken from the monument more than two hundred years ago, reports the New York Times‘ Lawrence Van Gelder. Giorgos Hasiakis, secretary of the Athens tutors union, who helped organize the demonstration, said a similar protest would soon be held at the British Museum.

In other news, Bloomberg‘s Alessandra Migliaccio reports that Italian police arrested fifty-two people and recovered several hundred smuggled archaeological artifacts as part of a “tomb raider” investigation into international art theft. More than three hundred carabinieri of the finance police and paramilitary art squad searched suspects’ homes in eight Italian provinces early Wednesday and found smuggled goods of “considerable worth.”