Historical artifacts smuggled from Turkey to the United States return home

Six historical artifacts smuggled from Turkey to the United States were returned home with a ceremony held at the Antalya Museum. According to media, the statue of Lucius Verus, the statuette of Attis, the statuette of Apollo, the idol of the Kusura type, the duver terracotta slab and the four-piece columnar sarcophagus, which were looted from ancient cities in Anatolia and smuggled to the United States, returned to Turkey.

With the ceremony attended by Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, US Ambassador to Ankara Jeffry Flake and US Assistant District Attorney of Manhattan Colonel Matthew Bogdanus  at Antalya Museum, the contract for the delivery of the works was signed.

Ersoy reminded that a group of bronze sculptures included in the exhibition opened in the USA in 1967 were assessed to be of Turkish origin, but it was not known where they belonged, and thanks to the file prepared based on research conducted by Jale Inan and Ozgen Acar and Prof. Dr. Ertekin Doksanaltı, they had proved where these works belonged.