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# Regalia of King Otto I of Greece, lost after 1981, found in 2023
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/korolevskie-regalii-gretsii-mnogo-let-schitavshiesia-utrachennymi-nashli-v-korolevskom-dvortse-tatoi-vo-vremia-inventarizatsii/
- Published: 2023-07-20T06:01:29.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:47:02.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Monarchies, Heritage, Humour

Greece's royal regalia, long thought lost, found in the royal palace at Tatoi during an inventory.

The crown, sceptre and sword were made for the coronation of Greece's first king, Otto I, in 1832\. Owing to a delay, the jewels were not used at the ceremony and remained in the royal treasury. The regalia left Greece together with Otto, who fled the country after his overthrow in 1862.

The House of Wittelsbach, to which he belonged, kept the jewels for almost a hundred years, and in 1959 finally agreed to return them to King Paul I of Greece. But some time afterwards the coronation jewels were lost.

Various theories circulated: that one of the courtiers had quietly helped himself to them, that burglars had stolen them, or that they had gone astray during one of the removals. Or had they simply been forgotten for a long while? However that may be, they were last seen in 1981, at the funeral of Frederica of Greece, consort of King Paul I, placed upon her coffin. Surely they did not bury the crown?

Yet, as so often happens with such trinkets, they had simply slipped behind some sideboard in the palace, where they lay quietly gathering dust for a couple of decades, and now they have turned up. The carefully packed crown, sceptre and sword had probably been prepared for storage in the former palace of King Constantine II, but one of those responsible went on maternity leave, another was transferred to a different residence, and a third bought a little house on the outskirts of Athens and took up growing cabbages. In the end nobody remembered the royal treasures any more, nobody polished the gold plates to a shine or laid anti-moth preparation in the velvet cap.

That is, until 2023, when the Ministry of Culture, for the first time in many years, proved to be of some use: an inquisitive clerk looked where he ought not to have and made a discovery of importance to the whole of the Greek state.

The beautifully preserved regalia will be sent for restoration, and provided that someone supremely competent does not lose them again, they will be handed over to the Greek Parliament for permanent display in the trophy hall.

An instructive tale about the benefits of tidying up!

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_9360@20-07-2023_09-01-29.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_9361@20-07-2023_09-01-29.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_9362@20-07-2023_09-01-29.jpg)

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_9363@20-07-2023_09-01-29.jpg)