Chariot of Ire

The good people of Monteleone di Spoleto are trying to get the Met to fork over a 2600 year old Etruscan chariot it has spent the last ten years and Lawd knows how much money restoring.

"I am sorry for the Met, which has done a great job, but the chariot is ours and is part of our identity," said Nando Durastanti, the mayor, who will lead a march in Rome to urge the Italian government to take action on behalf of the village.

Monteleone's villagers also plan to protest outside the US embassy in Rome, under a banner reading: "We want our chariot back!"

To use an Italian expression of Signore Durastanti, "E pazzo." The chariot dates from the mid-500's B.C. Etruscan culture was totally subsumed by the rise of Rome within the next couple hundred years. And the Etruscans themselves (together with the other tribes of the Italian Peninsula) have been overrun by race migrations of Celts, Goths and other groups any number of times since then. These people really are no more Etruscans than I am.

As to whether the chariot was improperly filched from the Italian guv'mint under more modern, nationalistic-based legal claims, apparently the protesters don't have much of a leg to stand on.