Hundreds of looted ancient artifacts recovered by Italian police were displayed in the Colosseum on Friday.

The 337 pieces displayed in the ancient Roman arena include vases, bronze tools and marble statues of Venus, some dating as far back as the 8th century B.C.

Police said the pieces are worth some euro15 million (about $20 million) overall. They said the pieces were returned from Switzerland in June after a two-year investigation.

Italy has aggressively pursued the return of art it says was illegally looted from its soil and sold to museums or private collections worldwide.

This probe grew out of an investigation into an Italian art dealer later convicted of art trafficking.

The objects were seized in Geneva, part of a massive haul of some 20,000 artworks from all around the world, the art squad of the Carabinieri police said.

The pieces returned to Italy also include “kraters” — huge vases used to mix wine and water — statuettes and drinking cups. Police say the objects were looted mostly from southern Italian regions and, after their spectacular display Friday at the Colosseum, they will return there.

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Scientists are speculating that King Tut’s penis was stolen because they were under-developed.

…new evidence suggests that Tut may have had a genetic mutation that causes weird physical effects like elongated skulls and under developed genitals.

While Egypt’s chief archaeologist Zahi Hawass says Tut was well developed, even he cannot ignore the fact that the king’s member is no longer attached to the mummy.

The mummy was intact at its first unwrapping in 1922. The penis was said to be missing in 1968 but a CT scan later showed that it was hidden by sand surrounding the mummy, reports The New York Daily News.

Some scientists believe the penis may have been swiped at some point after the body was embalmed, raising the possibility that it could have been a conspiracy to spare Tut, in the afterlife, the “locker room” variety of embarrassment.

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Bonham’s auction house has pulled four 2nd century A.D. Roman sculptures from auction amid fears that they were taken during illegal excavations.

Photographs seized by police suggested that the sculptures – funerary busts and a marble statue of a youth from the second century AD – were illicitly excavated, archaeologists told the Guardian.

A spokesman for Bonhams auctioneers said: “Whenever a serious question is raised about an item’s provenance we withdraw it from sale pending an internal investigation. We take rigorous care to ensure that we only sell items that have a clear provenance.”

Dr David Gill, reader in Mediterranean archaeology at Swansea University, said that the four antiquities bore soil traces that indicated they were excavated during illegal digs. Images in the Bonhams auction catalogue show the same sculptures cleaned and restored.

Archaeologists remain concerned about illegal trading of antiquities and some believe insufficient checks are carried out into their provenance.

Lord Renfrew, the eminent Cambridge archaeologist, warned that “such sales are maintaining London’s reputation as a clearing house for looted antiquities”.

Gill said the withdrawal was the latest in a series of such incidents in London.

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The stolen toe of King Tut’s father, Akhenaton, has been returned to Egypt nearly a century after it was stolen.

The toe of King Akhenaton, which was stolen in 1907 during an examination of the pharaoh’s bones, was returned during a signing ceremony for an agreement with Switzerland over the return of ancient artefacts, the council said.

“The toe is now back in Egypt and will be displayed in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo,” said the statement, which confirmed that it was from the skeleton of the pharaoh, which had been found in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor.

The toe’s movements since 1907 were not disclosed.

Frank Ruehli, a scientist at the University of Zurich and a specialist in mummies, obtained it “thanks to his personal contacts” in “another European country,” a diplomat told AFP without elaborating.

The return was thanks to the Ruehli’s “private initiative” and not carried out by the Swiss government, which is the 16th country to sign the accord on stolen antiquities, the diplomat added.

Antiquities council chief Zaki Hawass said Switzerland’s signature was particularly important as it had been a major transit point in the trade in smuggled artefacts in the past.

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An archaeologist has been called in to determine if a 130-year-old stone house in Nebraska was built using materials taken from a Native American monument.

“Initially, we did a self-guided history tour brochure for Harlan and Franklin counties. During the course of that, our historical society and museum director, Ernie Kuhl, showed me the stone house and told me the legend — and it’s more than legend — that the stones had been stolen from a nearby stone figure of a man,” Harlan County Tourism Director Pat Underwood said.

The stones for the house are believed to have been taken from a nearby American Indian stone artwork that was approximately 25 feet long and depicted a man holding a spear or medicine lance and a shield and wearing a medal around his neck.

Underwood said a topographical officer with the U.S. Calvary wrote about the monument in 1869, and a reporter with the Omaha Bee newspaper described it in 1875.

“People knew about it and had heard the legend,” Underwood said. “It is kind of part of local history, especially for anybody who paid attention to history.”

“All the old-timers, especially over in that area by Orleans, were aware of it. The stone house has a lot of history behind it,” Tourism Committee Chairman Dave Fleischmann said.

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