what secrets lie behind being discovered new adventures in 360 degrees and explore fascinating world heritage sites dw world heritage 360 yeah. now the on may 20 is 20. 23. greece is culture ministry announced the restitution of a trove of looted art. a total of $351.00 objects were to be returned to the country. they had previously belonged to the disgraced former art dealer. robin simes, the among them is a bronze sculpture depicting the ancient macedonian ruler, alexander, the great,

the peace is su, spectacular. did it seem destined to go on display at the acropolis? but there was a problem archaeologist think it's a fake, the archaeologist stuff on lima, and has spent the last 20 years researching fake antiquities. we 1st met him in 2015 when he was still working at the university of how the in germany. here he was just finalizing a catalog listing suspicious bronzes for publication. the artworks had come from

auction houses, galleries and art dealer's as many had been laundered onto the market by robin symes, the art dealer authorities also sees the alexander bust from lima and believes the bronzes are forgeries, the works of an expert forger or ford years known in art circles as the spanish master, their identity remains a mystery to this day. the spanish master often makes bronze is of ancient rulers, like emperor augustus. their faces are covered in a convincing path now and so well preserved. it's almost a miracle. so must the north, the kind of vanish monster is just to make shift named. no one knows who they are or where they're from. it's a name. i've heard a lot in the trade. so the police one was an abundance auction. this head came from robin symes and was on sale in new york and the december auction the it's

involved to own this home. uh, and that was sold over the counter and then you, you can take store if you're teaching level move on to that one was an immunity collection told to him in 2015 lean on was a professor at the university of holla and also keeping a close eye on antiquities that came onto the market, each listed for a considerable sum, screwed up class prices, da says around a 1000000 by whitening they own on the months research often took him to switzerland and important center of our trade. the city of bozza was then home to coast of leon and our dealer, an archaeologist, with over 40 years of experience who had sold many antiquities to international museums. in 2015 leon decided to do something unusual for an art

dealer that he opened up to us about what he was seeing at international options. this in the past, it's only a few of these pieces, a genuine ink for let's go through them quickly. right. this is a fake, as we'll see how blurry it is. no scope through in antiquity was like that a big scoop to me. those are the kinds of for guessing kind and no secret from antiquity looks like that. oh, with those big bulging eyes. it's a joy and that'd be those into closer look at the has they had always gives it away . as a human by. those boxes are okay to learn all packaged things. but this is so fake, it stinks. there's no way it's all fake. and that's true. and they said to some kind of teen, none of these are antiquities that she and izzy this. here's another

here. this made me sick with the organ bulging through the cloth, clicked this is that was never done in ancient times. it was always to sneak about buttons as i, they've all been saw, the few genuine ones and all the facts. yes, even of the $47000.83. that's big money. and because of the fact that everyone keeps the mouth shut and nobody says, hey, what's up, buddy? what you have there is a disaster. you've squandered your money or the oven by 9, by at the office who i've always tried to abide by certain rules in my work. i didn't do all the things other people in my field were doing. because i knew that at some point it would blow up in my face the the

think i'm no saint, but i always kept to limit side set because i came from another side from academia, come from that isn't just in those days, leon was visiting european museums to see collections live with his expert, i, when knew, suspicious ancient pieces appeared to discuss the issue with stuff on lima. the. this is the last video we have of christoph leon. he died unexpectedly in 2017. the new york start market was also under scrutiny. at that time,

archaeologist oscar white mass corolla had tracked how dealers pushed their stakes onto the market. according to him, they were using galleries, art stairs, and a bundle options. the we met must karema in 2015 in his manhattan apartment. he had been a curator at the metropolitan museum of art for many years and was known for his expertise as well as his honesty. he openly criticized the our trade and was seen as a kind of whistle blower by one of my mentors. he is, sherlock holmes. i have learned that both deals inflexible. some things to watch. and i was just because to forgeries, i talked to a deal about this once, he smiled and what they're doing, you see, instead of selling it to a customer from their own shop,

they don't want to sell for which we don't want their self interest. and lot of dealers don't want, don't want to sell for it. they put it up for auction under false name. well, let's say from adult collection the, when it says the, the for the nonce from an old family collection or from an all collection off of a missed your x. and these a deal is, was selling the for what you mean and watching and not being personally involved in who buys that you're seeing in america. because it as so many museums is a prime target for the sale of full address. yes. the bronze bust of alexander, the great, also came from the new york art market from the gallery of dealer robin signs, stuff on lima. and 1st saw it in the year, 2000, not in new york, but in the town of shed in dot, in eastern germany. it was exhibited at the bank among museum without information on where it had come from. lima asked the museum about its prominence,

but got no answers. he concluded the piece was illegitimate either because it was looted art or because it was a fake on helping you on google compute research, find 5 was there and took a look to see what and to me it just scream soldier involved. and i was quite as a donation to it, so i bought the catalog and found that even less convincing if i but then i more or less the groceries again, on the also, i mean there are many forgeries. and even the best of us console for a fake, the speed can happen at the highest level. there's nothing more to say other guy now, but if you could see that was the old test. so i publish the lecture that i gave here in holland, in the form of them using and booklet. and i said that in my opinion, there is no way that the pacing question is from the ancient 12 and organ or not

teachers over in the hospital. and tom mt table and say plastic optics on those dis, goals in order to fade from an internet to non includes 10 lemma shop noon. 14 john, you can find scott, steve, the plastic, the hudson's that soon all school stayed in. thinking about him. we'll see you as like of it and just move on some of this because he's the 1st to out of the faithfulness for both of us. you've been off before the mining we call, but especially for police hope you'd see it as a fuel by well, my new face on conduct on a full, i'm going back and we'll even come on because there for us doing so forgive me of those to i to, to ask you, what are these kinda noon i got along of what it says on. these are fine because with them you can give them time for me to avoid it and decide it's, it's, it's double. don't know if there's like a good leaving peace of mind to ship balls, isn't that so you won't be stuck else to them? 14, got them for showing this isn't just for the cops. it's not just the head is always, it is practically a bust on that being said much more and has been preserved as it relates to bound side 1000. you 2000 prizes were already quite high. i'd say an original piece like

this. right. and alexander in bronze would have gone full between 15 and 25000000 to once once the easily let me things by displaying the bronze of alexander the museum, gave it legitimacy, even though it was acquired through a dealer. and there was no documentation about its provenance, lima, and felt the museum was allowing itself to be used as a kind of money laundry for art specimen. done the less to speak to scientists and miss all fucked to go down the legal route us and see me. that was something new. i must the same on monday in a certain way. it's a form of violence definitely with this other. this is give us a, give us a form for and provide the file that was also the intention. the lawyer for the plaintive told me that the aim was to have me removed from my post in

archaeological circles, forgery as an unpopular topic. but after the trial word got around that lame on was addressing the issue publicly. and a switch collector who wished to remain anonymous since lima a bronze had to investigate. the collector had bought the piece in new york in 1993 and have doubts about whether it was genuine. the, the portrait is the emperor augustus, being able to examine it was a rare opportunity for layman and his colleague, fellow archaeologist, and lake leah by sending the work to lima instead of selling it onto someone else.

this was collect or risk losing a lot of money. interesting pace. if genuine, the head would be worth a good 1000000, a fake. it'd be worth little more than the material, perhaps $500.00 euros. or is it something 0 but certainly very impressive. the 1st thing you say when you see it is that it's a wonderful head ending special because there are very few bronze hazel gust is, which would increase its value. so for this i'll post those to see to all. so that explains why 4 entries are made. you say, unfortunately a sold all over the place and the car step there that there's a bulk and for because museums and collect despite we're talking money, money, money is the underlying factor. and the reason this is the only rich people have

the money to pay for it. and these rich people take get further advantage by donating it, taking a tax deduction, shooting, getting prestige. and this goes on and on and on as we're sitting here, it exists at this very moment lame, unsuspected, that the spanish master could have made the bronze head. his research also provides insight into the forward years market strategies. first of our stuff, this bothers from most of the spanish, most as full jury would shop thinks about which objects it will produce for the market. you know, the, i told in the ranking of ocoee a logical loss of facts, bronze sculpture is a number one community successor. they are very special cases for these trends. so you'd expect them to attract a lot of attention. increased grimace. she has

a grumpy expression, was not the ideal we'd imagine for all gust, as you can tell, the artist is playing with the motions to assume that it's a fantastic piece by processes in the votes of the university and how to there's a collection of plaster casts of original antiquities, these correspond exactly to the genuine ancient portraits. lima and compared the bronze head from switzerland, with this genuine like this of emperor augustus. archaeologists call this method stylistic analysis. it's a centuries old approach, used to identify genuine works of art simply by looking at them. it takes decades of experience. a wealth of knowledge. and intuition

is in the office yet as you can see here, watching the official portrays of old gust as looks like the eyes on very odd. they just have a slight cuz we, the nose is alone and the mouth is oriented towards the vertical axis, because the facial expression is very calm, with only slightly raised condo was moving slice to. there's only very light modeling which conveys a calm, timeless face. so i was diseased from within a little bit, and then we have the jacket edge at the bottom of the honey fentanyl, but allegedly turn off with great force and the

tires of crooked looking at these details, you begin to doubt whether it is a faint it's being made perfectly it's most lily, but definitely lemons. archaeological expertise told him that the head was a fake. and having the object in hand meant he could have the material of a suspected spanish master forgery, analyzed for the very 1st time the phone hoof institute in phillips specializes in carrying out computer tomography or c t scans. usually, the scientists here test industrial products. the disputed alexander bust couldn't

be analyzed during the trial because it went missing. following the exhibition the computers are a patient ready for his scan. let's go ahead. a good now physicist and material scientist hi. mila, will examine another suspected forgery. the head of augustus. this hall is essentially one giant c t scanner, one of the most powerful in the world, the, the scan, the hard, the radiation levels are extremely high. so the scientists leave the hall and seal the doors. the the,

the analysis focuses on the bronze alloy to see if it has the characteristics of bronze created 2000 years ago. but even if it does look for jurors are believed to meltdown ancient coins and use the metal to make new hands check celebration voltage. 9 electronic balls, 90 v, which device on texas and trucking. it's a tucking element detector with 200 micro mae to pick. so pitch pitch it came off. and now this, this quint of a range of the material characteristics correspond with antiquity. so we believe that this sculpture is made of genuine ancient material. i just met tire bus. i'll you could find ancient metal to use for this. so solenoid ok as using old materials for forgeries, isn't an entirely new idea using here's

a hole. you can see it here, but you wouldn't be able to through the crust to close the whole vin, chiseled out in a structured way. jesus lost something, was slaughtered in mindful, does he 9 possible? yes. you can see the edges of the inserts and paste my teeth. this is my thing i know. and this material has a different density to the materials surrounding it, which has a different ally, compositions and kind of kind of showing those who come up with a sized carried out and metallic graphic tests and then a cross section of the materials and the outer crust the reason for one thing we determine that the corrosion, which looks very bad to the naked eye, is only on the surface to the shoes for these that leads us to conclude that this artifact was created in modern times and designed to look very old

the, the test showed the bronze sculpture of augustus to be a think the at the time, steph, i'm lima, and had uncovered 35 bronze works, suspected to be forgeries. and that number was likely to rise. if those that are for those files, most of it on the image most is would show divides the labor of the seamless. so i could be wrong. that could be more, but i suspect that there are $12.00, or 3 people who get together and say, what are we going to do next? they'll take these exceptional bronze portrait of a black african woman and our thoughts of that kind of in. and you have to come up with the idea 1st of all, then you have to make the most cost the middle east and then begin ruining it. so

making those damage marks the end of the degree to make it look ancient and of this i'd so little of that requires a lot of skill should force, which is the tradition museums. and you know, means yet, museums are obviously never happy when someone calls impulse and pieces from the major collections into question on those 2 devices. that usually also leads to interpersonal problems and just replace and then a couple of different guns and then can't be avoided of uh, i think it's harder. but i think the question is whether these original ancient were excellent side for more than forgeries. and this is serious enough, but you have to look pos, things like that is communion and vixen most as

a professor at the university of honda, stephan lima was in a position to be able to freely designate expensive artworks as worthless facts. of course, the practice didn't make him many friends in the our trade or at the museums that were affected. the fuse book about the spanish master's forgeries was published in 2015 the donald. how did you, ladies and gentlemen, the students welcome to these book launch at the mazda and loose. the university's archaeological museum was mostly on the page either to own this. i believe scholars must respond to these challenges quickly, clearly and effectively. law only then can we defend the foundations of val discipline from these money grubbing attack multiple law office up to the,

to this gate. it's still not clear who the spanish master is the person or people behind the forgeries, or likely still working in secret smuggling fix onto the international art market. stuff on lima has now retired. we caught up with him again in the city of cologne. he still spends time on the topic of forgeries ever since his book was published. fellow experts from all over the world have sent him images of suspicious bronzes, lima and says that the spanish master is slowly but surely distorting an image of antiquity. the alexander bust from the bank and museum in stand, which landed him in court and 2010 had remained missing until 2023. in my company for me, which is including the end of may i go to

a newspaper clipping with the photo from a great call. a want to sleep through a whole he right was content. it really be what is cooked in was uh, i looked at the picture and saw a box in the thoughts was the alexander from stand up parked to pick the articles and the page was from the geneva collection of the criminal dealer. robin signs will be in times this couldn't so i think that collection was discovered in 2006 office wrote on the other side that i saw there was a legal dispute involving easily in greece. and then the antiquities were returned to italy and also to grace as lucy, dogs. it's all queens pizza, or even golden among the things returned was the alexander from stand? um it is oh, it's now resurfaced. greece is culture ministry published the list of 351

antiquities restore to the country from the collection of robin symes. number 11 is the alexander bust. the court has now ruled that it was looted. art extend shouldn't have exhibited it without documentation about its origin, just as lima and said in 2000 lima and still believes the bronze is a forgery. he's pleased, it's turned up and hopes the material will be analyzed. those books and it's a great town come to live in the bad wouldn't be. and if we'd found out they had had been mailed to down off and this it's more, it's a naive american, multi billionaire. i had both it even if that would have been a sensation because to, to that we just had in the to, instead of a. but i haven't returned to a country that spectacular ongoing a lot and it does, it is picked up with the 1st to see it is increasing on times of

the call. and if i want to anything split pieces so prestigious, it has such a smell on it. that people will get in touch with the test the load it's unlikely the authorities in athens don't know that the alexander bronze from robin symes collection is suspected of being a fake. after all, greece is called your minister has a doctor it in archaeology herself. it's now up to greek authorities to make the next move and disclose to the world the providence of the alexander bronze. the

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