Back in 1972, $1 million was still an eye-popping amount of cash. But to Robert Hecht, an enterprising American antiquities dealer living in Paris, it was not too much to charge the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an exquisite Greek vase created 500 years before the birth of Christ and painted by one of the acknowledged masters of the craft. Since the acquisition of the Greek vase, the prices of antiquities have shot skyward. The problem with the burgeoning traffic in antiquities, however, is not so much the price but something far more significant: the provenance, i.e. where are these precious artifacts coming from And who are their rightful owners Evidence is increasing that more and more artifacts are being illegally unearthed from their countries of origin. A recent British study of five large collections totaling 546 objects, for instance, determined that 82 percent of the objects were suspect. From Italy to Greece to Turkey, countries have long complained about the trade in smuggled artifacts and have been largely unable to stop it.
