The value of stolen art works recovered by Italian police more than doubled last year as authorities cracked down on unauthorized archeological digs.

Works valued at 183 million euros ($243 million) were reclaimed in 2008, compared with 82 million euros the year before, General B. Giovanni Nistri of the Italian military police said at a news conference today in Rome.

The art doesn’t include pieces voluntarily sent back to the country by foreign museums and collectors.

Italy’s rich archeological heritage spans the entire peninsula, including Etruscan tombs and Roman villas. Italy in recent years has pushed for the repatriation of pieces allegedly smuggled out of the country from clandestine excavations. Some of those works have landed in collections at the world’s most famous museums.

The number of known illegal digs in Italy last year increased by 15 percent to 238, mostly in the area around Rome, the Carabinieri police said. Ten paintings were recovered on Dec. 19 following a raid on a camper van parked in the city. The paintings were taken from the 12th century Santo Spirito in Sassia basilica in Rome in 2004.

The most valuable piece recovered was a damaged oil-on-wood painting of a Madonna with Baby Jesus attributed to the 16th century artist Francesco Mazzola, more commonly known as Parmigianino. All the recovered paintings were “well packaged and ready to be exported from Italy,” Nistri said.

The Culture Ministry, along with the Carabinieri police, announced separately that it had returned 2,200 archeological objects, mostly antique coins, to Bulgaria today. The objects had been seized in Italy in 2005 and were found to have been stolen and then exported from Bulgaria, according to an e-mailed statement.