Representatives for the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Boston, announced yesterday (4 September) that they have reached an agreement with Turkish authorities to return a looted cultural artefact to its rightful home.
The elegant gold and carnelian ornament, believed to be a necklace, was most likely stolen in 1976 from the Bintepeler region, an archaeological zone known for its preponderance of tumuli, or burial mounds. In the mid-1970s,the Manisa Museum oversaw excavations near the village of Kendirlik in response to alleged looting, eventually uncovering beads from the grounds that perfectly matched the jewelry piece in the MFA Boston’s collection. These findings led local authorities to conclude that the object had been smuggled out of the country.
According to the MFA’s provenance research, the necklace was acquired by the institution in 1982. The artefact was noted as coming from Asia Minor, an area that includes modern-day Turkey, but no other ownership history was given. After an internal investigation, representatives of the MFA Boston reached out to the offices of the Ministry of Culture of Turkey last autumn, via the Turkish Consul General in Boston. Experts at the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Turkey conducted scientific and archival research that concluded the object probably originated from the Bintepeler Necropolis Area in Manisa province.
This news marks the latest in a series of high-profile repatriations to Turkey. Last April, Los Angeles’s J. Paul Getty Museum announced plans to return an ancient bronze sculpture of a young man’s head, following a far-reaching sting operation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in 2023. The DA’s office seized statues from the Worcester Art Museum and the Cleveland Museum of Art as a result.