He had turned his house into a Museum!

Manolis Vaios, Proto Thema, 20.02.2013 (translated by A.M.)

A veritable museum filled with precious ancient objects of the Hellenistic and the Roman period was discovered by the police in the house of a 57-year-old man in Plataies (Plataea) of Boeotia, after receiving information that he held antiquities coming from illegal excavations.

The first artefact is a marble funeral stele of the roman period measuring 1.32 m height, 0.57 width of base and thickness 0.10 m with a pediment and bearing the relief of a standing man wearing a chiton -the head is missing - and on the cornice the inscription ΚΑΛΛΩΝ ΦΙΛΟΚΡΑΤΟΥΣ.

The second find is another marble funerary stele with a height of 0.70 m, width 0.35 m and thickness 0.13 m, dated to the early roman period and bearing the inscription ΕΠΙ ΑΡΕΣΚΟΥΣΗ.

The third is part of a marble funerary stele similar to the first, with a height of 0.41 m, width 0.20 m and thickness 0.07 m which bears a standing male form in relief missing its head and legs.

Finally part of a marble statue pf a sitting form seated on a throne, its feet on a base, with a height 0.45 m, width 0.32 m and thickness 0.30 m, dated to the late Hellenistic or early Roman period.

The archaeologist of the 9th Eporate of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities who examined the objects deemed them to come under the law for the protection of antiquities and the 57-year-old was arrested and led to the Persecutor's office in Thebes.