Looting Archaeological Artifacts in Italy is a big problem that is still being faced today and has previously been faced for years. According to Artnews, "Looted archaeological antiquity items from Italy were recently seized from museums in the US and taken back to Italy where they belong". (Solomon). Items were and still are being looted illegally, trafficked then distributed to museums unknowingly (Some of these museums just took them in and proudly displayed them without confirming that they were looted or stolen artifacts like the British Museum for example). Some of these Looted Artifacts also end up in personal collections, regional buildings, homes, auctions, sold on the web, etc.. There are different ways looting can happen: Personal Gain, Poverty, and Unintentionally. Personal Gain looting would be the groups or individuals that secretly excavate and loot items to traffick and sell them or distribure them. Poverty Looting is basically Looting the items to sell them so they can survive with the money they made off the item since that's all they can do since they are very poor. Uninentional Looting could technically be looting without knowing like for example I dug up a random archaeological item made out of Metals with a Metal Detector and didn't know what it belonged to so I just took it and displayed it for myself without bringing it to a professional or to the City hall or whatever. Its not only artifacts from present day Italy that get stolen/looted, Lots of other artifacts from other parts of the world get looted aswell. A good example of this is the Benin bronzes from the historical Benin kingdom located in present day southeastern Nigeria which got stolen during the British Occupation. Some of the looted artifacts in Italy have connection with the samnite tribes. Source: https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/200-looted-artifacts-repatriated-to-italy-edoardo-almagia-1234613789/
