In Repatriation Ceremony in New York, 43 Antiquities Are Returned to Turkey

The items returned on December 8 were all linked to plundered archeological sites in Turkey; according to the DA’s office, the items were stolen from those sites and then exhibited and sold by dealers using faked provenance records. The objects included a 2nd-century marble head of Greek orator Demosthenes from the Metropolitan Museum of Art; a Roman bronze statue of an emperor from California-based collector Aaron Mendelsohn; and a group of 6th-century BCE terracotta reliefs from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Law enforcement seized the sculpture of Demosthenes—originating from a site near the modern Turkish city of Izmir—from the Met earlier this year; the Met is one of several museums now reviewing their collections and preemptively returning trafficked items to their countries of origin. The Roman statue, estimated to be worth $1.33 million, was looted from Bubon, an ancient city in south-central Turkey; it was surrendered by Mendolsohn in exchange for a deferred prosecution agreement.

Additionally, 41 terracotta reliefs were voluntarily returned by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The plaques were from a Phrygian temple in Düver, a site in south-central Turkey. The ATU had previously repatriated a relief stolen from Düver in 2022; once the plaques were determined to have been looted, the VMFA immediately surrendered their claim to them.