the national Museum of Macedonia in the capital Skopje were systematically looted own Director and several of his associates. Last Friday the court of the city of Skopje has recognized seven people, among whom were six of the Museum staff, guilty of misappropriation of cultural property owned by the state and abuse of office. The accused was sentenced to 31 years of imprisonment in total. The longest term was received by the former Director of the Museum of Pen Jozefowski (Pero Josifovski) - 8 years. The gang in addition to Directors program Director of the Museum of gold Widawski (Zlatko Videvski), four more officers and YUVELIR@

Disappearance 162 valuable exhibits from the Museum's collection was discovered in November 2013. The items were on the black market and were sold abroad. Since then the whereabouts of any of them has not been established. 162 stolen artifacts 121 made of pure Zolota@

Many of the missing gold and silver items date from the fourth century BC and come from the famous archeological monument of the ISAR Marvinci, located near the town of Valandovo, in the South-East of Macedonia. However, under the threat of looting and there are other archaeological sites of the country. The number of religious and cultural property stolen in the past four years in Macedonia, under some assumptions, reaches 20 thousand predmetov@

Material was prepared by Maria Onuchin, AI

Sources: artnet.com, hyperallergic.com, ahram.org.eg, artinvestment.ru