A Chilean family returns a marble relic to Greece from their home

Enrico Tosti-Croce returned a marble stone fragment to Athens after his family kept the item as a household decoration for nearly a century.

The artifact originally belonged to Gaetano Tosti-Croce, an Italian naval engineer who found the piece near the Parthenon in the 1930s. After Gaetano moved to South America, the family displayed the stone in their homes in Viña del Mar, Santiago, and Villarrica, Chile.

Enrico inherited the object in 1994 and decided to send it back to Greece following news of the country's efforts to reclaim sculptures from the British Museum. Upon inspection, Greek archaeologists discovered that the family's belief about the stone's origin was incorrect. Experts determined the fragment did not come from the Parthenon, but rather from a much older sanctuary on the same hill. The marble piece weighs 1.2 kilograms and features a carved lotus flower.

The Ministry of Culture of Greece says the carving matches decorative water drainage systems from the Hekatompedon, a monumental temple built around 570 BC. This structure predates the Parthenon by more than a century. While the Ministry of Culture of Greece considers this connection likely, it is not fully confirmed because a technical report is still pending. The Archaeological Service of Greece placed the fragment in the Ephorate of Antiquities of Athens for permanent state storage and research.

The stone's presence near the Parthenon when Gaetano found it remains unknown. This voluntary return adds one more documented artifact from the Acropolis to the national collection.