

Investigators Win Repatriation Battle as Cleveland Museum Backs Down
The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) has abandoned its legal fight to prevent the seizure of a prized bronze statue depicting the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Valued at $20 million, the artefact was looted from Turkey in the 1960s.
The museum, which has featured the bronze in its collection since 1986, had challenged the order in court, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to prove the statue had been illegally exported. In their lawsuit, the museum claimed that the headless sculpture, The Emperor as Philosopher, probably Marcus Aurelius, later renamed Draped Male Figure, had been lawfully acquired by the museum and that New York District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg’s office in Manhattan has no legal authority to seize it.
Today, the CMA announced it has elected to drop its opposition, paving the way for the artefact to be returned to its country of origin.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office Antiquities Trafficking Unit, headed by Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos has been actively involved in the repatriation of stolen artefacts, including many bronzes identified as having been looted from the ancient city of Bubon in Türkiye. In recent years, prosecutors and analysts with the ATU have worked closely with academics and the Turkish authorities to seize antiquities looted from this ancient site that were laundered through the black market including a number of bronze figures and portrait heads, never before seen in documented collections.
By May 1967, law enforcement authorities from the Republic of Türkiye had uncovered their first lead as to these objects eventual origins, after a large, ancient bronze statue was found hidden in a looters house in the village of Ibecik, located in the mountainous region of the Gölhisar district, in the southern province of Burdur, less than 100 kilometers from the southwest Turkish coast.
This investigation, coupled with studies by Turkish archaeologist Jale İnan on behalf of the museum in Burdur, as well as notes gathered and seized from a local treasure hunter during investigations, helped to establish the find spot for this statue and other sculptures which once stood on the summit and slopes of Dikmen Tepe within the eastern Roman Empire city of Bubon.
According to the ancient Greek geographer Strabo, the city of Bubon formed a tetrapolis with its neighbouring cities of Cibyra, Oenoanda and Balboura. Culturally diverse, at its pinnacle its inhabitants are said to have spoken as many as four languages: Greek, Pisidian, Solymian and Lycian.
Travellers to Bubon as late as the mid-19th century described finding a walled acropolis, a small theatre of local stone, and the remains of tombs, temples, and other large structures in what remained of the ancient city. Few of these survive today. Decimated by a large-scale looting operation during the mid-20th century, the unprotected ancient city's movable cultural heritage became the victims of poverty and art market greed, with much of what had survived throughout history, being dug up and carried away for profit.
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The Sebasteion at Boubon |
In 1967, the archaeological museum of Burdur undertook the first legal excavation at what remained of Boubon. During these emergency excavations, where some of the explored sites were reburied after exploration to afford more protection, site archaeologists documented a Sebasteion near the centre of the terrace close to the Agora. This complex is believed to have been devoted to the worship of the imperial cult, honouring members of the Imperial family. It is thought to have been in use for a period of over two centuries from the 1st to the middle of the 3rd century CE.
Inside this Sebasteion, archaeologists discovered two inscribed podiums along the north and the east walls of the room, and four free-standing bases along the west wall. Here, statues of emperors and members of the Imperial household would have been displayed.
The majority of the dedications found at the Sebasteion date from the half century beginning with the joint reign of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus (161-168 CE) and ending with the sole reign of Caracalla (211-217 CE). Unsurprisingly, by the time archaeologists set about documenting the site, only one single headless statue remained. All the others had been clandestinely excavated and illicitly exported out of the country.
As part of this documentation, Jale İnan assigned names to seven of the missing bronzes, based on seven of the 14 dedicatory inscriptions documented in situ at the Sebasteion. According to the researcher's reconstruction, patrons or visitors entering this room in the middle of the 3rd century CE, would have seen bronze statues of Nerva, Poppaea Sabina, Lucius Verus, Commodus, Septimius Severus and lastly, Marcus Aurelius on a podium which faced the entrance.
An inscription, documented in İnan's 1990 excavation notes, that stones forming the top course of the north podium read:
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The Emperor as Philosopher Image Credit: Cleveland Museum of Art |
At the time of sculpture's purchase, the CMA's press releases and follow-up publications openly admitted that the bronze was part of a “group of Roman bronze figures and heads, believed to have come from Turkey” that represented various emperors and empresses, which had been created for a structure honouring the imperial cult in the mid-2nd century. All details which perfectly aligned with the details of the statues which once filled the Sebasteion in Bubon.
Before mandating the statue's seizure, DANY's Antiquities Trafficking Unit, with the assistance of officials from the Republic of Türkiye, were able to locate and interview one of the individuals who actually looted and smuggled this statue and determined that the bronze had been smuggled into Switzerland by Robert Hecht then circulated onward via Charles Lipson, first via the exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and later loaned long term to the Metropolitan Museum of Art via a private collector before ultimately being purchased by the Cleveland museum.
Yet, despite the evidence presented at the time of its seizure and its earlier stance that the object had been lawfully acquired, the museum ultimately cited forensic evidence in its decision to relinquish the Marcus Aurelius statue. It cited analysis of soil samples taken from within the body of the statue, as well as lead from a plug in its foot used to attach the statue to a plinth, which matched evidence obtained from the Sebasteion in Bubon proving the bronze had once stood there.
While these laboratory findings provide are a scientific nail in the coffin, linking this beautiful statue to its original site, this testing merely strengthens Manhattan's preexisting case for restitution. The evidence of the object's trafficking from Türkiye, didn't rest on scientific analysis, which in this case, was miraculously made possible because the find spot remained relatively undisturbed.
The case was weighted on multiple elements, including the first-hand testimony of farmers who told investigators that men from a nearby village found the bronzes buried on a hillside, beginning in the late 1950s and year by year, working in teams, removed the artefacts from the Sebasteion, many of which were sold to “American Bob,” absence of legal export permits and then unlawfully smuggled out of Türkiye.
Lest we forget, in 1962, the infamous American ancient art dealer Robert "Bob" Hecht was detained in Türkiye after he was seen inspecting ancient coins returning to Istanbul on a flight from heavily plundered Izmir, the same city where the intermediary dealer in this case operated. As a result of that incident, Hecht was declared persona non grata in the country. A friend of notorious Turkish antiquities smugglers, such as Fuat Üzülmez and Edip Telliağaoğlu, Hecht mediated the purchase of a large number of ancient artefacts which were smuggled from Turkey, before he turned his sights on Italy.
To date the ATU has restituted 14 antiquities, valued at almost $80 million, looted from Bubon. This Marcus Aurelius, headless though he be, is the 15th, and one I am sure the citizens of Türkiye will warmly welcome home.
By: Lynda Albertson