J. Paul Getty Museum brought back an ancient bronze funerary bed from 530 BCE to Turkey while in a repatriation ceremony.
Located all the way from Los Angeles, ART News shared that it was sold to the museum by a dealer from Switzerland. Getty Museum director, Timothy Potts, stated that this return shall end the lengthy operations between the US and Turkey in finding the artifact's exact origins and original owner.
Turkey's Deputy Minister for the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Gökhan Yazgı, praised the Getty Museum's move to rectify illegal artifact trafficking.
One strong reason why the artifact has to be returned is due to the confirmation that the previous owner falsified the provenance document.
The J. Paul Getty Museum and the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism today announced the return to the Republic of Türkiye of an ancient bronze funerary couch dating back to ca. 530 BCE. (Photo : Screenshot from ArtDependence Official News)How the Bronze Funerary Bed Was Stolen from Turkey
In a description by ArtDependence, the bronze funerary bed or couch stands on four legs, is 73 inches long, and is an ancient burial monument.
While records reveal that it was in the hands of a certain European collection between the 1920s and 1980s, researchers found that it's not the case for this artifact. The same report noted that the bronze funerary bed was taken through an illegal excavation in the funerary site of Manisa, Izmir of Northeast Turkey, during the early 1980s.
At the same time, ART News shared that the bed matched the bronze materials and fabrics preserved in the same tomb site found by Turkish archeologists.
The US and Turkey have yet to release a specific date on when the artifact will be returned. However, Potts did suggest that the two countries still have a few more years to address restitution claims and return artifacts to Turkey's historic sites.