US accused of sending fake Roman mosaics back to Lebanon

Mosaic fragment from the Villa Romana del Casale, Sicily, a Unesco world heritage site. Photograph: Alamy

Authorities in New York have been accused by leading academics in France and Britain of repatriating fake Roman artefacts to Lebanon.

Eight out of nine mosaic panels that the US authorities recently returned to the Middle Eastern country are not what they seem, according to claims made by Djamila Fellague of the University of Grenoble.