At least 41 historical artifacts of Anatolian origin were illegally taken out of Turkey and have now been returned to the country from the US.
The Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry has announced that additional cultural assets have been returned to Turkey since 2021 as a result of the cooperative efforts between the ministry and the US Manhattan District Attorney’s Office over the past five years.
Turkey’s Deputy Culture and Tourism Minister Gökhan Yazgı and an accompanying delegation received the artifacts at the Turkish House in New York during a handover ceremony.
The handover ceremony was held in New York with an accompanying delegation. The process between the institutions of the two countries worked together for five years. As a result, total 3,059 artefacts have been repatriated.
Roman era artefacts
Among the returned pieces are three bronze statue heads, one bronze bust of a woman and four body parts of bronze statues, all considered significant works of Roman Period sculpting in Anatolia. There are also several ancient artefacts belonging to the Bubon Ancient City located in the İbecik Village of Gölhisar district in the Burdur province.
It is reported that the artefacts were part of the collection that was illegally excavated and taken abroad during unauthorized excavations in the 1960s at the Bubon Ancient City. Among the repatriated artefacts, the heads of young Caracalla and mature Caracalla, the elder son of Emperor Septimius Severus, are of particular importance as they belong to statues of deified emperors that were erected in the sacred area (Sebasteion) of the ancient city.
The returned artefacts also include two bronze helmets of the Frigian type, dating back to the fourth century B.C. and were worn by infantry soldiers. Earlier in 2022 and March 2023, two bronze statues, namely Lucius Verus and Septimius Severus, were also returned to Turkey from the Sebasteion structure. Other artifacts returned from the U.S. include various significant pieces like a terracotta female head dating back to the sixth century B.C., a bronze weight shaped like Minerva from the Roman period, a marble head of Minerva, terracotta and silver Cybele figurines, a bronze Satyr figurine and a silver female figurine.
Artefacts returned from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
According to artnews.com, The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) in Richmond has also returned 44 ancient artefacts deriving from Italy, Egypt, and Turkey, following an inquiry led by New York State and federal officials overseeing legal claims related to cultural property ownership.
Alex Nyerges, the museum’s Director and CEO emphasized that VMFA’s leadership “fully supports” the repatriation decision. In a statement, a museum representative said that no evidence linked current employees to unlawful activity related to the initial acquisition of the 44 returned objects, which it stated, entered the museum’s collection between the 1970s and 1990s.
