It was a breathtaking sight for U.S. investigators involved in the hunt for stolen Italian cultural artifacts more than 1,900 years old. Some of the sought-after antiquities lay swaddled in blankets on the floor of a Del Mar, Calif., garage. They were turned over to authorities by the third wife of late multimillionaire Allen E. Paulson, whose relatives in Boise spoke with a federal investigator.

The three frescoes from a Roman senator's villa near Pompeii - buried and preserved for centuries by ash and pumice from Mount Vesuvius - were excavated in the early 20th century and later smuggled out of the country. They might have been lost forever.

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Source: http://www.sfgate.com/