Archaeomafia: This is how Italian grave robbers operate

BarcelonaThere is a certain pride among Italian grave robbers who dedicate themselves to clandestinely and illegally excavate the subsoil of the sites. They even write biographies. Luigi Perticarari claimed that he was so proud of his work that he even taught it to his children: "My children are proud of me too. My little daughter wrote that her father was a tombarolo (as the looter of the sites is known in Italy) and brought home many Etruscan vases." Pedro Casasante was another tombarolo who asked the state to be made a senator for life for his discoveries and, when asked in an interview if he worked at night, he laughed. "We can do it during the day. We pretend to be construction workers and drive the excavator," he said.

Marc Balcells (Barcelona, ​​​​1979) has a doctorate in criminal justice from the City University of New York and is a professor of law and political science at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. An expert in the criminological analysis of archaeological looting and the illicit trafficking of this type of heritage, he has spent hours doing fieldwork in Italy interviewing thieves, prosecutors and police officers to explain to Archaeomafia (The Bell) how they act somersault. "Of somersault They exist in all rural areas of Italy, because there are sites with Etruscan and Roman tombs everywhere... And it's very tolerated. When they need to excavate and want to recruit workers, they go to the village bar and ask openly," says Balcells. Looting is criminalized, but the penalties are very low.

The great archaeological raid

The work of the somersault, that the filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher has addressed in the film The Chimera (2023), intensified greatly between 1970 and 2005. "It's known as the great archaeological raid," says Balcells. "Illegal excavations became a real industry and it was the most destructive period, as the somersault became full-time professional looters." In this golden age of the business, apart from the somersault, who are the lowest tier and those who risk death by hanging, there were quite a few people involved: intermediaries and traffickers (well positioned in both the national and international art markets), art dealers, private collectors, experts in foreign markets, and large institutions and museums. Balcells remembers how one tombarolo who worked there at the time showed him a notebook with the names of his "clients." "My eyes were bulging out of my head; there were directors of major museums and art galleries, especially from the United States, the United Kingdom, and France," explains Balcells.

From 2005 onwards, apparently, according to arrest figures, the looting decreased. According to the criminologist, the majority of those interviewed thought that the situation was better today than in the past. According to the carabinieri, this is due, in part, to police operations not only directed against the somersault, but also against the market. One of the most notorious cases is the arrest of Marion True, an American curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in California, who was in contact with Italian illicit antiquities dealers.

Now, looters no longer work full-time, but rather as a way to supplement their wages with other jobs. "Looting still exists, but it's changed its form. Now, they're not worried about finding large pieces that can earn them a lot of money, but rather they look for a constant flow of objects of lower economic value that don't attract as much attention," says the criminologist. One of the advantages is that they can sell them without going through so many intermediaries, and the recipient is no longer so much the international market as the local one. "Many small pieces circulate in Italy, given as gifts," says Balcells.

Another change is that, in this looting business, knowledge used to be passed down from parents to children. There was a large component of oral transmission and, on the other hand, the trade was learned by reading biographies of others. somersaultNow, younger generations are no longer willing to sacrifice a Saturday night to loot graves. And their passion for archaeology has waned. "Nowadays, they often choose to recruit immigrants who work in the fields. They get paid to do the heavy, physical labor," says Balcells. Still, the criminologist doesn't believe they're at risk of disappearing because they have many incentives: non-existent or minor sanctions, an additional source of income, a low risk of detection, and a very supportive community in the rural areas where they live.

Balcells has not been able to prove that the Mafia is involved in the looting business. "The business of somersault The Mafia's profit margin has grown. Perhaps there are some cases where looters have had to pay a toll because the deposit is located on Mafia land, but in general, the Mafia is interested in other businesses like drugs, weapons, or money laundering," he asserts.