Turkey Reclaims 200 Looted Antiquities From US With AI Assistance

(MENAFN- USA Art News) Turkey's Culture Ministry announced on Monday the repatriation of approximately 200 cultural artifacts from the United States. The announcement took place at the Istanbul Archaeological Museums, accompanied by the opening of the exhibition“No Escape: Boubon,” which highlights Turkey's efforts against illicit cultural heritage trafficking, Anadolu Ajansı reported.

A significant focus of the presentation included bronze statues from the ancient city of Boubon in Burdur, southwestern Turkey. This site experienced illegal excavations in the 1960s, leading to the dismantling and dispersal of its statues across various countries. Excavations at the site recommenced in 2023 and are currently ongoing.

Among the returned objects, the largest single group, numbering 44 artifacts, comprised terracotta architectural panels from Duver in Burdur, dating between 700–480 BCE. The collection also featured 40 artifacts from the Horoztepe archaeological site in Tokat province, a portrait from the ancient city of Aphrodisias, and various theatrical masks and goddess statuettes. Attendees at the event included Turkey's culture minister, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, and Manhattan district attorney Matthew Bogdanos.

Bogdanos confirmed that the New York Antiquities Trafficking Unit (ATU), which he established in 2017, has recovered 6,452 looted antiquities, with 276 originating from Turkey. Last year, the Cleveland Museum of Art agreed to return a statue of Marcus Aurelius to Turkey. At that time, the ATU had seized 15 looted antiquities from Boubon, collectively valued at nearly $80 million, of which 14 had already been repatriated.

The recovery of the 100 objects unveiled Monday involved three primary technologies, according to Tech Times. Lead isotope geochemistry was used to identify the smelting origins of ancient bronze. Geometric mold-matching helped determine if sculptures belonged to specific pedestals. Additionally, an AI platform named TraceART scans global auction sites and social media for trafficked Turkish artifacts. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism developed TraceART and implemented it in 2025, with flagged items subsequently reviewed by experts. An early success for the AI platform was the retrieval of two 16th-century Iznik tiles from a UK auction house this year.

The exhibition includes four portraits of Roman emperors whose statues once adorned Boubon's Sebasteion, a grand display dedicated to the Roman imperial family, Tech Times noted. These bronze sculptures, looted and fragmented in the 1960s, had been held by US institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the J. Paul Getty Museum. Their connection to the ancient site was established through lead isotope analysis, matching statue feet to pedestal imprints, and extensive research by professors and journalists, including Turkey's Özgen Acar, and the New York Times's Graham Bowley and Tom Mashberg.

The handover on Monday followed an instance where an American auction house listed Anatolian artifacts for sale. Turkey's Ministry of Culture raised concerns and presented its case to the Manhattan District Attorney and US Department of Homeland Security Investigations, leading to the items' return. Turkey repatriated around 180 cultural artifacts in 2025 alone, bringing the total number since 1980 to over 26,700, Tech Times reported. The ministry is still actively seeking an ancient marble torso known as the Old Fisherman, currently at the Altes Museum in Berlin, and dozens of Iznik tiles housed at the Louvre in Paris.

Source: ARTnews

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