An ancient vase at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is fueling an intensifying ethical and legal debate about some of the world's most celebrated works of art. Two years ago, Italian authorities discovered the ancient vessel had been smuggled from Italy and demanded its return. Such prized artifacts have raised thorny questions about the ownership of cultural treasures in private collections and museums around the world. The controversy - and attendant criminal trials of alleged smugglers - is also shedding new light on the secretive world of antiquities collecting - a realm populated by tomb robbers, wealthy connoisseurs and aggressive dealers and curators. Some experts estimate that up to $4 billion worth of precious art is being illegally traded. Whatever their worth, ancient artworks are priceless to Italy, Egypt and other nations increasingly using cultural artifacts to exert political leverage and stoke national pride.

Adriel Bettelheim is a reporter for Congressional Quarterly's CQ Weekly magazine, covering telecommunications, science, and technology. He has been a reporter for the Denver Post and the Syracuse Herald-Journal. He graduated from Case Western Reserve University with a bachelor's degree in chemistry.

Rachel Adams is the assistant editor at Change, a Washington, D.C.-based magazine about higher education. She received her B.A. in English from the Catholic University of America and recently completed an M.A. in writing from the Johns Hopkins University. She has written for Preservation, Baltimore and DC Style magazines and is the editor of Lines & Stars, a local literary journal.