In today’s episode of problems that only Kardashians have, Kim Kardashian has been asked by the United States government to “forfeit” an ancient limestone statue from antiquitous Rome that she purchased five years ago.
Apparently, according to an archeologist from Italy’s Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the antique is a stolen good that was “looted, smuggled, and illegally exported from Italy.”
The sculpture is called “Fragment of Myron’s Samian Athena” from the Axel Vervoordt Gallery in Belgium and dates 1st or 2nd century.
When it arrived in Los Angeles in 2016, the Feds were alerted of the possibility of the art piece being what is considered a “protected cultural property.”
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, during the Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property first held in The Hague in 1954 and revisited in 1999, protected cultural properties are the safeguarding of “movable or immovable property of great importance to the cultural heritage of every people, such as monuments of architecture, art or history, whether religious or secular; archaeological sites; groups of buildings which, as a whole, are of historical or artistic interest; works of art; manuscripts, books and other objects of artistic, historical or archaeological interest; as well as scientific collections and important collections of books or archives or of reproductions of the property defined above.”
The Kardashian had received a $745,882, 5.5-ton shipment of 40 antiques and contemporary furniture to decorate one of her properties.
According to a complaint filed in California on Friday, the newly minted billionaire divorcee has to hand over the property in what is called a “civil forfeiture.”
But in a plot twist that smells suspiciously like an episode of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” her office states that she didn’t even buy this piece in question and the law student is ready to work with the government to find the real ancient boosters.
“Kim never purchased this piece and this is the first that she has learned of its existence. We believe it may have been purchased using her name without authorization and because it was never received, she was unaware of the transaction. We encourage an investigation and hope that it gets returned to the rightful owners.”
As a woman of Armenian descent, we are sure she would never want anything to do with the stealing of culture, a phenomenon that has left her own people stripped of its heritage.