The Guardian reports today that 52 people have been arrested in a series of raids by Spanish police in connection with archeological theft. Mosaics were among 300, 000 items that theives had stolen from sites throught Andalucia in southern Spain. Roman remains and also artefacts from the Moorish occupation had been targetted by specialist criminals.

Sadly, this isn’t a new activity in Spain. In 1983 a mosaic of the god Bachuus was stolen from Italica, close to Seville.  Elsewhere, there have been notable thefts of mosaic treasures from the excavations at Zeugma in Turkey.

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