To Turkish archaeologists, it was one of the more blatant antiquity thefts the country has suffered over the decades.
A year after the lower half of a 1,800 year-old statue of Herakles was unearthed near Antalya in 1980, its head and shoulders mysteriously appeared in the United States, where they were bought by the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston.
After a 20-year dispute, the museum acknowledged on July 17th that it has agreed to return its half of the statue, marking Turkey's latest victory in a quest to retrieve hundreds of artefacts smuggled from the country.
The restitution campaign, in which Ankara is targeting museums in Serbia, Germany, France, and half a dozen other countries, underscores Turkey's growing clout on the world stage.
Some analysts also believe it reflects a renewed appreciation within the country of the vast wealth of Anatolia's cultural heritage.
The modern-day saga of dismembered Herakles epitomises the frustrating struggle Turkey has faced in prying back its treasures from the clutches of foreign museums.
When it was first suggested that the two fragments could be part of the same sculpture, the Boston MFA denied it on the grounds that many other versions of the statue were made during Roman times, many of which still survive.
Even after plaster casts were molded and matched, proving the link beyond all doubt, the museum, which had no record of the statue's provenance, refused to return its half.
Pointing out that Turkish law only protects treasures taken after 1906, the museum's director at the time claimed it could have been found "any time since the Italian Renaissance".
Now, the museum appears to have accepted what Turkish archaeologists always claimed: that looters secretly took Herakles' bust and smuggled it out the country.
Katherine Getchell, deputy director of the MFA, said it was only recently that the Turkish government started to take more interest in the statue.
"Turkey has been stepping up its campaign," she said. "It's only in these last couple of years that they've presented us with photos and other evidence of looting from that site."
In the case of other, more unwilling museums, Turkey has started playing tough.
In May, Germany's Pergamon Museum reluctantly agreed to return a 3,500 year-old Hittite sphinx after Turkish Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay threatened to ban German teams from several archaeological digs in the country.
Late last year, Ankara took the unprecedented step of revoking excavation licenses for three French and German teams that had been digging in Turkey for decades, in a move widely seen as a warning shot in the antiquities battle.
"This is a revolution," Gunay was quoted as saying in the New York Times following the sphinx agreement.
Nora Seni, director of the French Institute of Anatolian Studies, believes Turkey's rise as a political and economic force on the world stage partly explains the campaign.
"The balance of power has changed," she tells SETimes. "They see themselves as a major regional power, and that enables them to ask for things they didn't have the confidence to ask for before."
But she also believes that a new mindset is emerging regarding Turkey's wealth of historic sites and artefacts.
"The Turkish state was created by differentiating itself from the Ottoman Empire and all that came before it -- there was a taboo about discussing Byzantine culture," she said.
But the Justice and Development Party government that came to power in 2002 brought with it a neo-Ottomanism that opened the door both to Anatolia's pre-Islamic, as well as its Islamic past, she argues.
"Turkey is taking hold of its heritage," she said.
Author: Alexander Christie-Miller | Source: Southeast European Times [July 28, 2011]
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| Museum officials match plaster cast replicas of the two halves of the statue in September 1992 [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston] |
After a 20-year dispute, the museum acknowledged on July 17th that it has agreed to return its half of the statue, marking Turkey's latest victory in a quest to retrieve hundreds of artefacts smuggled from the country.
The restitution campaign, in which Ankara is targeting museums in Serbia, Germany, France, and half a dozen other countries, underscores Turkey's growing clout on the world stage.
Some analysts also believe it reflects a renewed appreciation within the country of the vast wealth of Anatolia's cultural heritage.
The modern-day saga of dismembered Herakles epitomises the frustrating struggle Turkey has faced in prying back its treasures from the clutches of foreign museums.
When it was first suggested that the two fragments could be part of the same sculpture, the Boston MFA denied it on the grounds that many other versions of the statue were made during Roman times, many of which still survive.
Even after plaster casts were molded and matched, proving the link beyond all doubt, the museum, which had no record of the statue's provenance, refused to return its half.
Pointing out that Turkish law only protects treasures taken after 1906, the museum's director at the time claimed it could have been found "any time since the Italian Renaissance".
Now, the museum appears to have accepted what Turkish archaeologists always claimed: that looters secretly took Herakles' bust and smuggled it out the country.
Katherine Getchell, deputy director of the MFA, said it was only recently that the Turkish government started to take more interest in the statue.
"Turkey has been stepping up its campaign," she said. "It's only in these last couple of years that they've presented us with photos and other evidence of looting from that site."
In the case of other, more unwilling museums, Turkey has started playing tough.
 |
| A museum visitor looks at a Hittite sphinx in Berlin [Credit: Tobias Kleinschmidt] |
Late last year, Ankara took the unprecedented step of revoking excavation licenses for three French and German teams that had been digging in Turkey for decades, in a move widely seen as a warning shot in the antiquities battle.
"This is a revolution," Gunay was quoted as saying in the New York Times following the sphinx agreement.
Nora Seni, director of the French Institute of Anatolian Studies, believes Turkey's rise as a political and economic force on the world stage partly explains the campaign.
"The balance of power has changed," she tells SETimes. "They see themselves as a major regional power, and that enables them to ask for things they didn't have the confidence to ask for before."
But she also believes that a new mindset is emerging regarding Turkey's wealth of historic sites and artefacts.
"The Turkish state was created by differentiating itself from the Ottoman Empire and all that came before it -- there was a taboo about discussing Byzantine culture," she said.
But the Justice and Development Party government that came to power in 2002 brought with it a neo-Ottomanism that opened the door both to Anatolia's pre-Islamic, as well as its Islamic past, she argues.
"Turkey is taking hold of its heritage," she said.
Author: Alexander Christie-Miller | Source: Southeast European Times [July 28, 2011]