Latest news with #AlvinL.Bragg
Business Insider
13-05-2025
- Business Insider
Egypt trounces infamous trafficking network to recover 25 rare antiquities
Egypt is set to reclaim 25 stolen rare antiques following a three-year recovery campaign involving the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, Egypt's consulate in New York, and US law enforcement authorities. Egypt recovered 25 rare antiques as part of a three-year campaign involving international law enforcement. These artifacts, spanning millennia, include items such as a gilt wooden coffin, Greco-Roman corpse image, and Ptolemaic gold coin. The Manhattan District Attorney's Office has returned over $6.5 million worth of goods to Egypt since 2022. These artifacts, which span millennia of Egyptian civilization, were delivered to Egyptian officials in New York in early May 2024. Earlier in the month, the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg stated that eleven antiques altogether valued at $1.4 million had been restituted to Egyptian officials. The Manhattan DA's office has returned 27 goods totaling over $6.5 million to the Egyptian government since 2022. Currently, among the 25 objects recovered is a gilt wooden coffin from around 332-275 BCE. After changing hands several times, it was taken from Manhattan's Merrin Gallery in 2023. The collection also contains a Greco-Roman corpse image from Fayoum, temple remnants thought to be associated to Queen Hatshepsut, miniature ivory and stone sculptures, a granite foot piece from the Ramessid dynasty, and finely carved jewelry reaching back nearly 2,400 years. The collection also includes elaborately created jewelry from roughly 2,400 years ago, a granite foot part from the Ramessid dynasty, Egypt's zenith of power, and miniature ivory and stone sculptures. In addition, a unique gold coin going back more than two millennia to the time of Ptolemy I, one of Alexander the Great's generals and the founder of ancient Egypt's final royal dynasty, is set to be returned. Recent loss of Egyptian artifacts Amid the chaos of the 2011 revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak, several cultural assets vanished. Thousands of priceless artifacts were taken during the widespread looting of museums and archeological sites, and many eventually turned up in private collections or on the international black market. Some of Egypt's stolen artifcats as earlier reported by The Art Newspaper, were part of a bigger investigation into the Dib-Simonian trafficking network, which includes high-profile persons like as former Musée du Louvre director Jean-Luc Martinez. The network enabled the sale of plundered cultural treasures to organizations such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Louvre Abu Dhabi. The ring's leader, Serop Simonian, was arrested in Germany and will be transferred to France in 2023. 'Egypt has an incredibly rich cultural history that we will not allow to be diminished by selfish looters and traffickers.
Yahoo
19-02-2025
- Yahoo
Cleveland Museum of Art to return looted, headless, bronze statue to Türkiye
CLEVELAND (WJW) – A headless, bronze statue at the Cleveland Museum of Art is confirmed to have been looted from Bubon, Türkiye, and will soon be returned. The statue, known in Cleveland for many years as 'Draped Male Figure' or 'The Philosopher,' is valued at $20 million and is believed to be of former Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, although without the head it will likely never be proven. The Cleveland Museum of Art issued a press release on Friday confirming the findings of its testing. Father, daughter arrested after body found in storage room, man shot in apartment '(…) The Cleveland Museum of Art has made the decision to transfer the Greek or Roman bronze statue of a draped male figure (the Philosopher) to the district attorney for delivery to the Republic of Türkiye,' the release reads. 'The test results led the museum to conclude that the statue was likely present at the site commonly known as the Sebasteion in the ancient city of Bubon, Türkiye. Those tests involved creating molds of the statue's feet, including a lead plug in the left foot, and comparing them to stone pedestals located at the Sebasteion, which retain certain holes on their upper surfaces to hold the feet of statues.' The MOA said three different types of analyses were performed on soil samples from within the statue as well. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr.'s Office said this is one of 15 antiquities looted, 14 of which have been repatriated to Türkiye. Their combined value is estimated to be $80 million. 'I appreciate the museum's cooperation throughout this matter, which is illustrative of how we can work together to ensure that looted antiquities are in the possession of its rightful owners. Our extensive investigation into the widespread and historic looting at Bubon has now led to 15 antiquities recovered for the people of Türkiye, and I thank our team of prosecutors, analysts, and investigators for their hard work,' District Attorney Bragg said in a press release. Many art historians feel strongly that this statue is of the former Roman emperor. 'I think everyone knows that this is Marcus Aurelius and this was certainly one of the top ten or 15 works of art in the Cleveland Museum of Art,' Case Western Reserve University Professor Henry Adams said. 5 hypothermia deaths in Cuyahoga County prompt public health advisory Adams tells Fox 8 there has always been suspicion the statue was smuggled. 'This is a work that was purchased in 1986,' he explained. 'When I came to the museum in 1996, I was told by quite a number of people that this was something that had been stolen from Turkey. That was rumor.' The Cleveland Museum of Art said its extensive testing proves the statue is 'probably not' Marcus Aurelius, but rather a Greek Philosopher. 'The stone base at the Sebasteion where the statue was likely located does not bear any inscription,' the release reads. 'Although there is an inscription on a separate stone base at the Sebasteion that bears a legend in ancient Greek of 'Marcus Aurelius,' the new tests suggest that the Philosopher is highly unlikely to have ever been on that stone base. Without a head or identifying inscription, the identity of the statue remains uncertain.' Turkish officials and the MOA are considering a temporary display of the statue in Cleveland prior to its transfer to Türkiye for cultural cooperation between Türkiye and the museum. No date has been set for either the display or return. How did it end up in Cleveland? The DA's office detailed the history in its release: How many plane crashes have there been in the US this year? 'In the 1960s, individuals from a village near Bubon began plundering a Sebasteion, an ancient shrine with monumental bronze statues of Roman emperors and selling those looted antiquities to smugglers based in the coastal Turkish city of Izmir. Working with Switzerland-based trafficker George Zakos and New York-and-Paris-based trafficker Robert Hecht, they unlawfully removed the looted antiquities from Türkiye, transporting them to Switzerland or the United Kingdom, and then onward to the United States or other European destinations. Once the statues were in the United States, New York-based dealers such as Jerome Eisenberg's Royal-Athena Galleries and the Merrin Gallery funneled the stolen Bubon bronzes into museum exhibitions and academic publications thereby laundering the pieces with newly crafted provenance. As the Bubon pieces graced the pages of exhibition catalogues and academic publications, the reputational value of the institutions who displayed the Bubon pieces increased, and the financial value of the statues grew.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
14-02-2025
- New York Times
Cleveland Museum to Return Prized Bronze Thought Looted From Turkey
Towering bronzes depicting emperors once graced an ancient shrine in a region of what is now Turkey that was once part of Rome's extended empire. Installed between around A.D. 50 and 250 to venerate imperial power, the statues were later buried by earthquakes only to be discovered and quietly sold by local farmers in the 1960s. They ended up in museums and antiquities collections around the world. Now, one of these venerable legacies of Roman rule, a headless bronze believed by some to depict the famed statesman Marcus Aurelius and by others to be an unnamed philosopher, is returning to Turkey. The Cleveland Museum of Art, which has featured the bronze in its collection since 1986, agreed to the return on Friday in response to a seizure order from Manhattan investigators who have said the statue was clearly looted and sold through dealers in New York. The museum's decision ended a court case it had initiated to block the seizure and came after months of what investigators from the Manhattan district attorney's office described as cooperative efforts to establish whether the bronze had indeed been stolen from an ancient archaeological site known as Bubon. 'This investigation included extensive witness interviews and forensic testing that proved conclusively this antiquity was looted from Bubon,' Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said in a statement. The museum cited the extensive forensic testing as key to its decision. The testing included comparing soil samples using soil from within the statue, lead isotope analysis and 3-D modeling that confirmed the statue was one that had stood in Bubon. Lead at the foot of the statute from a plug used to attach the bronze to its plinth was found to match lead residue that had leached into a stone base at the shrine site. 'Without this new research, the museum would not have been able to determine with confidence that the statue was once present at the site,' the Cleveland institution said in a statement. With the surrender, the district attorney's Antiquities Trafficking Unit, led by Matthew Bogdanos, has seized 15 artifacts originally taken from Bubon, including artifacts returned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Museum of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Art at Fordham University; and the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. Fourteen of the 15 have already been repatriated. The Cleveland bronze statue will be returned to Turkey after logistical arrangements are finalized with Turkish officials, though the museum said it might be able to retain the statue for a final, temporary period of display. The Manhattan district attorney's office is still litigating an item held by a California collector that it also believes was taken from the site. Investigators have said their work also contributed to the return of two other Bubon objects, the head of the emperor Septimius Severus from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen and another, unnamed piece from London. Cleveland has long presented the bronze statue it is returning, with its flowing robes and stoic posture, as a premiere artifact in its Greek and Roman galleries. It was cast to be larger-than-life and stands 6 feet 4 inches without its head. Investigators have valued it at $20 million. Efforts to return the statue date to 2023, when investigators persuaded a New York judge to authorize its seizure. But the museum filed a court challenge in Federal District Court in Ohio, arguing that evidence presented by the Manhattan district attorney's office had not been compelling. The museum said it had bought the statue in 1986 from the Edward H. Merrin Gallery for $1.85 million. The museum provided a bill of sale from the date of its purchase that said it was buying a 'Figure of a Draped Emperor (Probably Marcus Aurelius), Roman, late 2nd Century A.D., bronze.' But in fighting the seizure, museum officials had disputed that the statue was from Turkey and suggested it was more likely the torso of a philosopher, not an emperor. Aurelius had something of a reputation as both. His 'Meditations' is viewed as a classic work of Stoic philosophy. Turkey's claim had at one point hinged in part on persuading investigators that the statue in fact depicts Marcus Aurelius because a stone plinth at the site is inscribed with that emperor's name. But in its statement on Friday, museum officials said the recent research had only deepened their sense that the statue they hold is not that of Aurelius because the plinth that bears that name is not the one where analysis indicated the Cleveland bronze had once stood. The district attorney's office said it continued to believe that the statue represents Aurelius, and noted that the museum had indicated as much on its website until two years ago. Turkish officials said they disagreed with the museum's conclusion as to the statue's identity, saying that in ancient times statues were moved around and that they believe the bronze had occupied the plinth with lead tracings as well as the plinth that bears the inscription of the name. Investigators visited Bubon three times, including once with museum officials, and did interviews with villagers near Bubon who recalled the looting, the investigators said. Some villagers, investigators said, had plundered the shrine (called a sebasteion) and sold the artifacts to smugglers based in the coastal Turkish city of Izmir. Investigators said the smugglers worked with a Switzerland-based dealer and a prominent antiquities dealer, Robert Hecht, who supplied artifacts to many museums and collectors but who was known by the villagers as 'American Bob.' Though authorities several times accused Hecht, who died in 2012, of antiquities trafficking, he was never convicted. The Bubon artifacts, investigators said, were transported to Switzerland and Britain for restoration before being shipped to the United States and elsewhere in Europe. As part of their evidence of the smuggling network, investigators said they knew the identity of the studio where some artifacts were restored in London. From the time of Augustus, Roman emperors were venerated as gods, sometimes alongside the deities themselves. To honor the emperors with a shrine, to become part of the 'imperial cult,' was to establish that a local, conquered region had embraced the benefits and prestige of what it meant to be part of the empire. Few of the shrines are known to survive in any form and Turkish archaeologists have been excavating the one in Bubon to help reconstruct how it fit into the society of what was then part of Asia Minor. Experts say that while seismic events most likely led to the demise of the shrine, the calamity that buried them probably protected the bronze from being recycled into armaments. Zeynep Boz, a Turkish official responsible for the return of her country's antiquities, said in a statement that she wanted to thank the investigators who had in partnership with her country 'corrected an injustice and restored justice in the end.'
