EGN NEWS DESK
An ongoing saga involving looted treasures and political drama that started a half-century in the past got here one step nearer to closure after a trove of artefacts, some 1000’s of years previous, went on show at Cyprus’ archaeological museum.
The objects have been stolen by Turkish artwork seller Aydin Dikmen from the north of the island throughout the upheaval of Turkey’s invasion.
They have been taken from as many as 500 church buildings, AP experiences, and the Cypriot authorities and the nation’s Orthodox Church have been on the lookout for them ever since.
Many have been held in Germany after being seized by authorities there in 1997, resulting in prolonged authorized battles to safe their return. The final of them arrived again within the nation earlier this 12 months.
The most lately returned artefacts are actually on show and embody jewelry from the Chalcolithic Period between 3500-1500 BC and Bronze Age bird-shaped idols. Treasures looted by Dikmen however already returned embody 1,500-year-old mosaics of the Saints Luke, Mark, Matthew, and James – extremely uncommon examples of early Christian work.
The authorized battle to return the objects started in 2004, however repatriation didn’t occur till July 2013, with one other batch returned in August 2015 earlier than the ultimate batch this 12 months.
Dikmen was accused of working with the occupation regime and his collaborators to ransack over fifty Greek Orthodox, Maronite, and Armenian Christian monuments, in addition to stealing antiquities from occupied museums and personal collections.
A 1997 raid on Dikmen’s premises found 1000’s of stolen objects, together with 318 relics of Cypriot origin, amongst them Sixth-century mosaics, prehistoric artefacts, and centuries-old frescoes.
The newest discovering noticed an settlement signed for the repatriation of ecclesiastical relics, and prehistoric and different antiquities, to Cyprus by June 20, a second a press launch from the Synodal Committee known as a “historic day and a day of pleasure”.
