19 cultural artifacts smuggled abroad returned to Türkiye | Partners | Belarus News | Belarusian news | Belarus today | news in Belarus | Minsk news | BELTA
ISTANBUL, 22 July (BelTA — Anadolu) — Türkiye’s Ministry of Culture and
Tourism announced Sunday that 19 artifacts have been returned from
several countries this year, demonstrating a significant endeavor to
protect the nation’s cultural heritage.
Throughout the year, the
ministry has repatriated artifacts illegally removed from Türkiye and
taken to six countries, including the US, the UK and Italy.
One notable item is a Quran repatriated from the UK that was originally part of the collection of Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II.
Signed
at the start of the 16th century by Mustafa Dede, one of the most
celebrated Turkish calligraphers of the time, it was illegally taken out
of Türkiye through extortion and put on sale in 2017, the ministry
said.
In the largest number of artifacts sent back, 11 terracotta
pieces were returned by Italy after an inquiry by the Florence
Prosecutor’s Office and a report from the Ankara Museum of Anatolian
Civilizations.
Other important returns involve a bronze emperor
statue from between the late second and early third centuries AD, a
Roman period terracotta vase from Germany, and two bronze coins from the
reign of Byzantine Emperor Justin I (518-527 AD) repatriated from
France.
Since 2002, 12,139 artifacts have been brought back to Türkiye, with 7,823 of these returns occurring after 2018.
Ankara is actively engaged in identifying and retrieving artifacts that were illegally taken out of the country.
