June 16 (Bloomberg) -- Italian antiquities thieves unearthed and robbed a 2,700-year-old tomb that contains the oldest known wall paintings by the ancient Etruscans, Culture Minister Francesco Rutelli said today.

The walls of the one-room tomb, in a barley field about 12 miles north of Rome, depict roaring lions and migrating birds, drawn in simple outlines of red and black. They are the oldest such paintings known in the Mediterranean basin, with the exception of Egypt, Rutelli and ministry archaeologists said at a news conference at the tomb.

While officials heralded the discovery, which was made on May 31, the fact that robbers left behind little more than walls is a sign that collectors such as the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles need to help curb the illicit trade in antiquities, Rutelli said.

``This tomb that was found was sacked first,'' he said in an interview. ``We have to avoid situations that encourage the destruction of the world's cultural heritage. The big cultural institutions like the Getty need to be ready to come clean.''

Rutelli, a former mayor of Rome, didn't say there was any connection between the objects stolen from the tomb and the antiquities in the Getty collection that are disputed by Italy.

Getty Director Michael Brand will meet with Rutelli on Monday to discuss artifacts at the museum that Italy says were looted, Rutelli said. The Getty's former antiquities curator, Marion True, is on trial in Rome for allegedly acquiring smuggled objects for the museum. She denies the charges.

Rutelli, who became culture minister last month after voters ousted Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, is continuing negotiations with museums that started under Berlusconi's government.

Operation Mozart

Those talks led New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art to agree in February to return 21 objects to Italy, including a 2,500-year-old vase painted by the Greek artist Euphronios. Italy contends the vase, known as a krater, was looted from an Etruscan tomb.

The tomb disclosed today was found by the Carabinieri paramilitary police art squad, which acted on information gathered in its investigation of an antiquities smuggling ring, the unit's commander, General Ugo Zottin, said.

Two bands of tomb robbers digging in the region around Rome supplied at least 3,000 objects to an 82-year-old Austrian dealer who used his tour-guide business as a cover for smuggling the antiquities to Linz, in northern Austria, the Carabinieri announced in October.

Police have only identified the Austrian by a nickname the Italian tomb robbers used for him: Mozart. Italian police used a cross-border search warrant last year to seize hundreds of antiquities from the Austrian's home in Linz, where he displayed the objects in glass cases with price tags.

Some of the objects ``Mozart'' smuggled may have come from the tomb that was unveiled today, Zottin said.

The tomb, carved into a rolling slope of the barley field, sits in what was part of the ancient city-state of Veii.

To contact the reporter on this story: Vernon Silver in Rome vtsilver@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 16, 2006 14:38 EDT