Several antiquities looted, displayed at the Met repatriated to Turkey

By Al Mayadeen English
Source: Agencies
24 Mar 2023 14:51

Nine of the repatriated works were seized from Met Trustee Shelby White, whose collection was subject to a criminal investigation.

The exterior of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York appears on March 19, 2013 (AP)

The Manhattan District Attorney's office announced that it returned 12 looted antiquities to Turkey on March 22. Some of the looted objects were displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is undergoing investigation this week after a report came out showing that over 1,000 objects in its collection were looted.

Three of the returned objects were recovered during ongoing investigations which traced looted antiquities from two archaeological sites in Turkey's Perge and Bubon.

As scholar Elizabeth Marlowe noted in a 2022 Hyperallergic opinion piece, the Met possessed two antiquities that were illegally looted from the Bubon site. The looted antiquities were a bronze depiction of Emporer Caracalla and a bronze statue of an unnamed man.

“The Metropolitan Museum of Art displays two pieces associated with Bubon, but avoids connecting them to each other lest this raises questions about their respective paths to the museum,” Marlowe wrote.

“In this label, the museum not only pretends to know far less than they actually do but deliberately misleads the public,” she concluded later in the piece. “This display at our nation’s most esteemed museum is, effectively, a laundering operation.”

Nine other repatriated works were recovered from Met Trustee Shelby White.

White's antiquities collection was subject to a criminal investigation, which eventually led to the seizing of 89 objects, valued at $69 million.

“It sends a clear and strong message to all smugglers, dealers, and collectors that illegal purchase, possession, and sale of cultural artifacts will have consequences,” Turkish Consul General Reyhan Özgür said at the March 22 repatriation ceremony.

Turkey recovered 1,203 objects since 2022, according to Özgür. However, since Turkey waited too long to ask for the return of the 6,000-year-old “Guennol Stargazer”, so a New York court ruled that Turkey could not recover it.

At least 1,109 pieces in the Met's collection were linked to their previous owners who have been convicted of crimes, which include looting and trafficking.

Less than half of these pieces had available records, which display how they left their countries of origin.

250 antiquities in the Met are also linked to looted areas in Nepal and Kashmir, only three of which possess details on how the objects left their original areas.