65 years later, Turkey has finally managed to recover a statue of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius that was stolen 65 years ago from the ruins of the ancient city of Bubon – in the present-day Turkish province of Burdur – and smuggled out of the country, in what has been seen as a milestone in the long-running efforts by Turkish authorities to recover historical artefacts and remains that have been plundered from the country for decades.
The good news was announced yesterday by Turkey’s Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, who confirmed that the statue has arrived in the country from the United States, where it was on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art (Ohio): “It has been a long battle. We were right, we were determined, we were patient, and we won,” the minister was quoted as saying by the Turkish news agency Anatolia.
“We have brought the ‘Emperor Philosopher‘ Marcus Aurelius back to the land where he belongs,” the minister said, noting that the sculpture has been repatriated to Turkey after proving that it had been illegally removed on the basis of scientific analysis, archival documents and testimonies. “Through the combined power of diplomacy, law and science, the process we carried out together with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in New York and the US Homeland Security Investigations Unit is more than a simple repatriation; it is a historic milestone,” Ersoy insisted, thanking Turkish Airlines for helping to transport the statue.
The effigy, which is believed to represent the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius – portrayed as a philosopher – but has no head, dates back to the 2nd or 3rd century AD and was taken out of the country in the 1960s following illegal excavations at the ruins of Bubon in the Gölhisar district of Turkey’s southwestern province of Burdur. The statue, of enormous historical and artistic value and considered one of the few ancient bronze sculptures found in Anatolia, changed hands for years until it finally ended up in the hands of the Cleveland Museum of Art (USA), which acquired it in 1986 from private art dealers.
The Cleveland Museum of Art tried to prevent the statue’s return
After an initial investigation that traced the stolen statue back to this museum, the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism launched a process in 2021 – together with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Unit – to have this sculpture of Marcus Aurelius, as well as other effigies stolen in Bubon depicting the body or head of other Roman emperors – including Lucius Verus, Septimius Severus or Caracalla- returned to Turkey.
While both the Manhattan prosecutor’s office and the HSI found the Turkish authorities’ request for the statue’s extradition justified in the light of the evidence presented – including witnesses to the illegal excavation carried out in 1967, the exact match of the negative markings on the pedestal in Bubon with the measurements of the statue’s feet, or the discovery of a similar Roman sandal during archaeological excavations in the nearby city of Kybra– the Cleveland Museum of Art appealed in October 2023 the court order ordering the confiscation of the statue, claiming that there was insufficient evidence linking it to Bubon.
However, additional analyses carried out in the laboratories of the Curt Engelhorn Centre of Archaeometry (Germany), including a soil analysis and the use as a reference of particle remains in another statue of Emperor Valerian seized in 1967 by the gendarmerie and currently preserved in the Bubon museum, confirmed beyond doubt that the statue of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius present in Ohio remained buried for centuries in Bubon before being removed: the Cleveland Museum of Art thus had no choice but to withdraw its appeal, and accept the return of the sculpture to Turkey.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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