More than 200 ancient coins were returned to a museum in southern Italy by a priest who was informed of the theft during a confession.
The anonymous penitent, who was presumably the thief himself, asked the priest to return the stolen ancient coins to the archaeological park of Paestum, near Naples.
He insisted that the coins must be handed over personally to the site's director, Gabriel Zuchtriegel, the park said in a statement.
“It is the latest restitution by someone remorseful” for stealing objects from museums, the statement added.
Of the 208 ancient coins returned, seven were fake, but the majority were from the XNUMXrd century BC, going up to the end of the XNUMXth century AD.
Paestum, originally a Greek colony that was later conquered by the Romans. It has three of the best preserved Greek temples in the world.
It's not uncommon for people to return artifacts stolen from Italian archaeological sites, sometimes after decades.
A former manager of Pompeii, the ancient Roman city, once said that sometimes people return them out of fear that they will be cursed.
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