Italy and Us in Antiquities Deal

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York yesterday clinched a landmark deal with Italy to return a 2,500-year-old vase and other allegedly looted treasures in return for the loan of items of "equivalent importance and beauty".

Officials in Rome yesterday said the deal also provided for the Met funding of archaeological digs in Italy. Antiquities found during the digs would be allowed to leave Italy. The deal is the biggest victory so far in Rome’s vigorous campaign to disrupt the market in artifacts looted from Italy by tombaroli, or tomb raiders.

The deal offers an alternative to the legal route pursued by the Italians in another case involving the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Italy’s culture minister, Rocco Buttiglione, said: "Italy has won, but the Met didn’t lose."

The centerpiece of the find signed away yesterday is the so-called Euphronios krater, a bowl painted with a scene from Homer, which is seen as one of the finest examples of Greek vase painting. Bought in good faith by the Met in 1972, it is claimed to have been removed from a site near Cerveteri, north of Rome.

Officials said the 6th century BC krater would not be returned until 2008, while the Morgantina hoard of silver would only arrive back in Italy two years later.

Some analysts hope similar deals could be used to settle disputes in which nations such as Greece and Turkey are seeking the return of their heritage.