In the spring of 1973, an archaeological discovery shocked the world; On the hill of Hissarlik, on the Turkish coast, between the Aegean Sea and the Dardanelles Strait, the magnate Heinrich Schliemann recovered two gold diadems, several bracelets and thousands of rings that the German, obsessed with Homeric texts and, despite that he Priam’s treasure belonged to a civilization two millennia older than that of Troy, he assured that it belonged to Helen of Troy and he baptized it with that name in honor of the mythological king.
A businessman, Schliemann was convinced that the Homeric texts were real testimony of the Trojan War; using the ‘Iliad’ As a road map, he traveled to Türkiye with the aim of finding the ruins of the mythical city. The hill of Hissarlik had been identified as the site of the mythical palace of Priam. Once there, the German obtained a permit to carry out archaeological work on the hill and, with a self-taught method, similar to that of treasure hunters and completely removed from scientific discipline, he began to excavate the site, causing irreversible damage.
Shortly after the discovery, Schliemann illicitly transferred the treasure to Greece. The Ottoman authorities accused Greece of helping the German in the plundering of the Hissarlik finds and never forgave the neighboring country for this event. Schliemann later donated the treasure to Berlin and since 1945 it has been in Moscow.
Repair
In Greece, Schliemann carried out work in Mycenae and took up residence in Athens, in a palace that bears his name and is currently the headquarters of the Numismatic Museum. This week his home was the scene of the first return between Greece and Türkiye of looted cultural property: Athens has returned the 1,055 ancient coins that were illegally taken from Türkiye and seized by Greece during a border control in the summer of 2019.
The repatriated numismatic collection includes 61 silver staters minted by Pamphylia, Cilicia, Ionia, Cyprus, Aegina and Milos, and 994 silver tetradrachms minted in Athens between the beginning and end of the 5th century BC. C. According to the Permanent Tripartite Evaluation Committee, in charge of appraising the coins, these were part of a treasure trove hidden at the end of the 5th century or beginning of the 4th century BC in Asia Minor.
The coins were seized from a Turkish citizen on the Greek border who had kept them inside seven plastic bottles. The detainee confessed to the Hellenic border authorities that unknown persons had delivered the pieces to him at his home in Turkey and that he had to take them to Germany, where he would deliver them to a person in exchange for 1,400 euros.
cultural diplomacy
«The protection of cultural heritage is achieved through cooperation, assistance and mutual understanding between peoples and States. He respect and protection of cultural heritage constitute a national responsibility and a global moral commitment,” he stated Lina MendoniGreek Minister of Culture of Greece during the handover ceremony. His Turkish counterpart, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, referring to the Parthenon marbles, expressed Turkey’s “wholehearted” wish that the pieces be repatriated to Greece.
Turkish relations have been strained for decades. In recent years, however, the governments of both nations are working to build cooperative alliances. Within the framework of cultural diplomacy, in March 2023 the ‘Protocol for the repression and prevention of illegal import, export, trafficking and transfer of ownership of cultural property’ was signed in Istanbul, while last summer Türkiye supported Greece in the matter of the ownership of the Parthenon marbles by ensuring that there was never a decree or permit signed by the sultan that allowed Lord Elgin to tear off the friezes of the Parthenon and move them to the United Kingdom, thus destroying the main argument put forward by London to defend that the ownership of Phidias’ masterpieces belongs to the British Museum.
Thanks to cultural diplomacy, Greece has achieved in recent years that countries such as Italy, Austria, Germany and the United States archaeological pieces repatriated that were illegally removed from the Hellenic country, thus becoming one of the main international agents in the fight against the theft of antiquities.
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