Dutch police have arrested three men in connection with a robbery of four ancient golden objects from the Drents Museum in the Netherlands over the weekend.
The Saturday morning raid of treasures belonging to the lost Dacian civilisation, including the €4.3 million golden helmet of Coțofenești, had sparked shock and political tensions between the Netherlands and Romania. Dacia was an ancient area of central Europe, covering much of the historical region of Transylvania, which is today located in north-central and western Romania.
Ernest Oberlander-Tarnoveanu, the director of the Romanian National History Museum in Bucharest, which loaned out 670 objects for the show, has lost his job. Bucharest’s foreign affairs minister, Emil Hurezeanu told international press the pieces were of “special cultural and symbolic importance”, and questions have been raised in Romania about the level of security in place at the show.
Dutch police are thought to have moved quickly to arrest three suspects in the town of Heerhugowaard, north of Amsterdam, due to fears that they might melt the objects—which could be worth more than €80,000 in gold value alone. However the helmet and three golden bracelets have not yet been recovered.
Police have appealed for help in tracking them down, alongside another person of interest who was seen buying a hammer at a DIY store in Assen. The thieves apparently blew up a side door at the museum in Assen before smashing a case containing the objects with a hammer—which was later discovered in a ditch outside the museum.
“We are very happy with the hopeful news about the arrests in North Holland,” said the Drents Museum in a statement on Wednesday evening. “We have great respect for the investigative services that have handled this appalling case so well… The recovery of the stolen art objects intact would be a fantastic next step for all involved, not only for us, but especially for the Romanian people.”
The objects, thought to be worth almost €6 million according to their insurance value, have been described as “priceless” treasures from the lost Dacian civilisation from 450BC.
The importance of the golden helmet to Romania was likened by the cultural journalist Claudia Marcu to the value ascribed to Rembrandt’s The Night Watch in the Netherlands. The object was discovered, according to archaological expert Hendrik Spiering, by playing children after a small landslide. Spiering explains it was used as a sheep’s watering trough before its significance was realised.
The art expert Bianca Frölich, from Frölich Kunst & Antiek, told a Dutch television show that the theft was a kind of “cultural terrorism”.
“The Dacians didn’t leave any written texts behind—only the Greeks and the Romans wrote about them,” she said. “The only thing we know about this civilisation are these objects.”
Arthur Brand, an art detective who recently secured the return of a stolen Van Gogh painting, tells The Art Newspaper that the objects would be impossible to sell and that he suspects they had been targeted for their precious metal. ”The Dutch police have done great work in arresting the first people after just a few days,” he says. When it's about precious metals, gold or silver, there is always a risk that they will be melted down, so the quicker you are, the better.
“They will naturally be trying to find out from these people where the golden helmet is,” he continues. “But the chances that it will be recovered are about 50:50.”
