More than half a century after it was taken from the ancient site of Olympia, a missing piece of Greek history has finally returned home. A German woman has voluntarily handed back the top of an ancient limestone column that she removed from Greece over 50 years ago.
The artifact — the capital of a 4th-century BC column from the Leonidaion, a grand guesthouse once used to accommodate distinguished visitors to the Olympic Games — measures roughly nine inches high and 13 inches wide. The woman, now elderly, came forward to return the relic through the University of Muenster in Germany, which coordinated its formal repatriation.
In a statement, Greece’s Ministry of Culture commended her “sensitivity and courage,” emphasizing that the act was a powerful gesture of historical responsibility and moral integrity.
The Leonidaion, where the column originated, was among the most prominent buildings of ancient Olympia — a structure that once hosted athletes, nobles, and ambassadors attending the ancient Olympic Games. Over the centuries, much of it fell into ruin, and archaeological excavations have long sought to recover fragments scattered or stolen during earlier eras of looting.