Athens (CNN) -- Robbers broke into a museum in Olympia, the birthplace of the Olympics, tying and gagging the museum guard and stealing artifacts, police in Greece said Friday.
Police spokesman Athanassios Kokkalakis said two men had struck at the Archaeological Museum of Olympia just after 7:30 a.m. local time (00:30 ET).
The robbers "approached the museum's guard, tied her hands and bound her mouth and then went into the museum, where they took 65 to 68 small clay and brass small statues and a gold ring and put them in a bag and left."
The Greek prime minister's office told CNN that Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanos had submitted his resignation after the robbery took place, but did not say whether it had been accepted.
The museum, built on an ancient site in the Peloponnese peninsula, is considered to be among the most important in Greece.
The ceremony for the lighting of the Olympic flame for the 2012 London Olympics is scheduled to take place on May 10 at the Ancient Olympia site, where the museum is located.
The first Olympic Games were held in Olympia in 776 B.C., according to the Greek Culture Ministry's website. A sanctuary at the site was dedicated to the deity Zeus, who was celebrated at the Games.
0 comments:
Post a Comment