Villena Bronze Age treasure mostly stolen, mayor says

Villena Mayor Fulgencio Cerdan said thieves stole most of the Treasure of Villena in an early-morning raid on the Spanish town's museum on Thursday.

The museum alarm sounded at about 5:20 am, and a town council spokesman said the thieves had left by 5:24 am. He described the raid as “super-fast and super-professional”.

The Treasure of Villena is a Bronze Age collection of more than 50 objects, mostly gold, kept in the Villena Museum in Alicante province. It includes 29 bracelets, 11 bowls, three bottles and other pieces made of gold, silver, iron and amber, dating to about 1,000 BC.

Cerdan said the collection's historical value was incalculable and that the gold alone was worth about 1.7 million euros, or $2 million.

Manuel Pineda, the Spanish government's deputy representative in Alicante, said the thieves arrived in several vehicles and apparently entered the museum through a window.

The Villena spokesman said all security systems were activated and insisted there had been no failure by the museum. Shortly before the robbery, another alarm sounded at the city's sports centre, and authorities were investigating whether that was a diversion.

The treasure was discovered in 1963 by archaeologist Jose Maria Soler in a vessel sunk in a dried-out riverbed in Villena.

The raid follows other high-profile European museum thefts, including a Louvre jewellery robbery last October and the theft of four works by Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina from a museum in Sicily.