Ancient gold ring back in Greece

Athens – Greece’s culture ministry yesterday said the Nobel Foundation in Sweden had returned a gold ring stolen from the island of Rhodes during World War II.

The announcement came just days after a Unesco body said Greece and Britain had agreed to hold formal talks on the Parthenon marbles currently on display at the British Museum in London.

The Mycenaean signet ring, marked with a pair of winged sphinxes, was formally returned at a ceremony in Stockholm on Thursday, the ministry said.

It had been found in Rhodes during a 1927 excavation at a Mycenaean necropolis by the Italian School of Archaeology.