Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius returned to Türkiye after 65 years

Dating back to the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, the statue of Marcus Aurelius was smuggled out of the country in the 1960s during illegal excavations at the ancient city of Boubon in the Gölhisar district of Burdur. One of Anatolia's rarest bronze statues, the work changed hands over the years and eventually ended up in the collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art in Ohio.

IMPORTANT BECAUSE HE IS DESCRIBED AS A PHILOSOPHER

This work, which Türkiye has been pursuing for over 65 years, holds a special place in ancient art history because it depicts Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius as a philosopher.

In a process jointly launched in 2021 by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the New York Manhattan District Attorney's Office, and the US Department of Homeland Security Investigations, not only the Marcus Aurelius statue but also other statues and statue heads belonging to Roman emperors of Boubon origin, such as Lucius Verus, Septimius Severus, and Caracalla, were returned to Türkiye.

REQUEST FOR EXTRADITION TO Türkiye FOUND JUSTIFIED

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office and the Homeland Security Investigations Service (HSI) found Türkiye's request for extradition justified, particularly given the information provided by witnesses regarding the illicit excavation in 1967, the exact match of the negative marks on the pedestal with the statue's foot measurements, and the discovery of a similar sandal during the excavations at the ancient city of Kybra. They decided to seize the statue from the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The Cleveland Museum of Art filed a lawsuit challenging the New York Supreme Court's seizure order in October 2023, challenging the statue's association with Boubon. However, analyses conducted at the Curt Engelhorn Archaeometry Center laboratories in Germany definitively revealed that the statue had been buried in Boubon soil for many years.

Source: AA