In 2010, Greek archaeologist Dr Georgia Flouda traveled to Austria in search of traces of Wehrmacht activity during World War II and its research on antiquities on occupied Crete. There, she met Gerlinde Schoergendorfer, widow of officer and archaeologist August Schoergendorfer, who worked for the occupying forces. Flouda was hoping Schoergendorfer would have been able to locate her late husband’s excavation log, but instead she was given a photo album with 66 black-and-white images. With these, she was to reconstruct part of a turbulent era.
The pictures showed Schoergendorfer’s activities on the Greek island. Shortly before his arrival on Crete, dozens of antiquities had already been stolen by the infamous Austrian Major General Julius Ringel.
The research carried by Flouda, who is curator of Prehistoric and Minoan Antiquities at the Archaeological Museum of Iraklio, recently returned to the fore thanks to an exhibition titled “Cretan Antiquities on Their Way Back” at the museum. Visitors were able to view a total of 34 ancient works taken from Knossos illegally during World War II. Twenty-six of those items were returned last November at the initiative of the University of Graz.
According to Flouda, the exact number of antiquities secreted out of the country by Ringel in a military plane has yet to be determined. Apart from the smaller objects he removed from the Stratigraphic Museum and the storehouse of the Villa Ariadne in Knossos, his obsession extended to larger items. Part of his loot was a headless Hellenistic statue that was sawn in two, the head of a male statue, a section of a sarcophagus with carved representations, a section of a stone burial slab featuring a depiction of a man, and a Minoan vessel carved from steatite.
Last November, on the occasion of the repatriation of objects Ringel had swiped, Greek newspaper Kathimerini presented the heroic efforts of a former ephorate of antiquities in Crete, Nikolaos Platon, for the return of the objects.
Read full story at ekathimerini.com
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