The scale of the looting is significant. Ferri talks about the 130 objects returned to Italy (from North American public and private collections) and notes:
The few restitutions that have proved possible are largely symbolic: they concern perhaps 3% of the finds from clandestine excavations which have appeared on the antiquities market.This suggests that there are thousands more objects to be identified from the photographic dossiers and stacks of invoices. Indeed Ferri claims,
we have a database of at least 200,000 objects that come from clandestine excavations and ended up on the black market. This is why it is vital to work with the areas most affected by clandestine excavations. It is also necessary to continue negotiations with museums that have made purchases of these finds.Isman's closing question asked,
Which antiquities have proved most difficult to retrieve and which ones still need to be tracked down?Ferri's immediate reply was this:
Coins come to mind: the first antiquities that are found using a metal detector, they are often of crucial importance for dating an archaeological site or a tomb.His comments are no doubt linked to the renewal of the MOU with Italy.