Turkey and Metropolitan Museum of Art: Lydian Hoard Treasures

Turkey and Metropolitan Museum of Art: Lydian Hoard Treasures

Caterina De Luca Cultural Diplomacy and Soft Power "Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli"

Lydia (Karun) Treasures

By Mr. Arif Solak

The original, left, and the fake golden brooch in the shape of a winged seahorse

DHA photo

The collection consists of 363 artifacts that were looted from burial mounds in the Uşak and Manisa Provinces of Turkey. The collection was clandestinely excavated in Turkey in the 1960s. It was subject of a legal battle between Turkey and the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1987 and 1993. The collection made news again in May 2006 when a golden hippocampus, on display at the Uşak Museum along with the rest of the collection, was discovered to have been exchanged for a fake, probably between March and August 2005.

Chronology of the pre '70 restitution claims

INDE

1984

1960

excavation by treasure hunters

2018

Title here

The MET put some of the pieces of the Lydian Hoard on display

2016

Title here

1990

Denial of the motion

2021

Title here

2019

Title here

1993

Settlement of the dispute

1966-70

1986-87

Turkey filed a lawsuit

Collection acquired by the MET

Restitution claims (dispute development)

INDE

• 1960s: Treasure hunters excavated a sixth-century B.C. collection from burial tumuli (tombs) in the village of Güre, in the Uşak region of western Turkey, the area of ancient Lydia. The Lydian Hoard, as the collection came to be called (or Croesus Gold, after the legendary King of Lydia), consists of a pair of marble sphinxes, tomb paintings, jewellery and gold and silver objects.
• 1966-1970: The collection was acquired in three batches by the Metropolitan Museum of Art(MET) of New York.
• 1984: The MET put some of the pieces of the Lydian Hoard on permanent display, but their true provenance was misrepresented.
• 1985 Turkish officials were alerted by Özgen Acar (a Turkish journalist) that the pieces exhibited at the MET closely matched the description of the Lydian Hoard.
• 1986: A formal demand for return was made by Turkey. The request was rejected.
• 1987: Turkey filed a lawsuit for the Hoard’s return against the MET.
• 1990: the motion was denied and the court turned to the merits of the case. It was only at this point that the MET agreed to resolve the dispute out-of-court.
• 1993: The MET agreed to settle the dispute and to return the Hoard to Turkey.

Legal Issues

The case involves three main legal problems:

1. Whether the action filed by Turkey was timely;
2. Whether the claimed objects could be identified as belonging to the patrimony of Turkey;
3. Whether the MET had exercised due diligence at the moment of the acquisition of the Lydian Hoard.

Legal Issues

1. In 1987, the MET applied for the court to reject the Turkish claim because the applicable three-year limitation period had expired. As a result, the Court dismissed the motion filed by the MET.
2. As the MET’s motion to dismiss was denied, the pre-trial discovery process went ahead. Lawyers and archaeologists demonstrate that the Lydian Hoard originated from Turkey.
3. The MET’s officials said that the collection had been acquired in good faith. In reality, the documents disclosed at the pre-trial discovery process demonstrated quite the opposite: the purchase has been defined as a symptomatic example of the “age of piracy” whereby museums and collectors used to buy works of art with little or no thought to provenance.

Adopted Solution

Cultural Cooperation – Unconditional restitutionTurkey spent six years and 40 million dollars pursuing the Lydian Hoard in court. Yet, in 2006, the country’s entire budget for museum and archaeological site maintenance was $66 million.

• The settlement agreement reached by the Republic of Turkey and the MET provided for the repatriation of the Lydian Hoard, in which the Metropolitan Museum of art has agreed to return the fabled Ledien horde antiquities in exposition to the republic of Turkey.

• The restitution of the Lydian Hoard represented a monumental step in the affirmation of the principle that source nations should be entitled to retrieve the cultural assets removed by looters and international traffickers. In this respect, Patrick J. Boylan affirmed that there is a growing recognition in international law that wrongfully taken cultural objects should be returned for the sake of the integrity of the cultural heritage of art rich nations.

Original document of the final dispute settlement.

Original document of the final dispute settlement.

Sitography :

LOREM IPSUM

• https://plone.unige.ch/art-adr/cases-affaires/lydian-hoard-2013-turkey-and-metropolitan-museum-of-art-1/fiche-2013-lydian-hoard-2013-turquie-et-met/view
• https://plone.unige.ch/art-adr/cases-affaires/lydian-hoard-2013-turkey-and-metropolitan-museum-of-art-1/case-note-2013-lydian-hoard-2013-turkey-and-metropolitan-museum-of-art/view
• https://itsartlaw.org/2020/04/30/case-review-republic-of-turkey-v-christies/

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