Arlington urns to be returned to cemetery

The owner of a pair of towering, decorative urns that were originally part of Arlington National Cemetery’s Memorial Amphitheater on Tuesday told Army officials that he would return them, saying that they belong at the nation’s most revered burial ground, not on the auction block.

The nine-foot-tall marble urns, which were replaced during a renovation of the amphitheater in the mid-1990s, were to be be put up for public sale by the Potomack Company, an Alexandria auction house, next weekend.

But after being informed of the impending sale by The Washington Post, the Department of the Army, which oversees the cemetery, asked the auction house to postpone the sale “pending additional research to determine rightful ownership and disposition.”

Several preservation groups expressed outrage that the urns, which appear in many histroic photographs at the cemetery, were being put on the auction block.-- Christian Davenport

More details coming shortly on washingtonpost.com