ISTANBUL, TURKEY—The Anadolu Agency reports that Italy has returned an 1,800-year-old Lydian atonement inscription to Turkey. The artifact was seized in 1997 by Italian anti-smuggling officials who raided an antiquities dealership. Officials from Turkey’s Culture and Tourism Ministry have identified the inscription as part of the Apollon Aksyros Temple in western Turkey’s ancient city of Saitta. The inscription will be displayed in the Anatolian Civilizations Museum. To read about a bowl used for protective magic that was found at Sardis, once the capital of the Lydian Empire, go to “Artifact.”
Italy Hands Over Stolen Ancient Artifact to Turkey
News September 24, 2020
Recommended Articles
Artifacts July/August 2024
Etruscan Oil Lamp
Digs & Discoveries May/June 2024
Pompeian Politics
Letter from Vesuvius September/October 2023
Digging on the Dark Side of the Volcano
Survivors of the infamous disaster rebuilt their lives on the ashes of the A.D. 79 eruption
-
Features July/August 2020
A Silk Road Renaissance
Excavations in Tajikistan have unveiled a city of merchant princes that flourished from the fifth to the eighth century A.D.
(Prisma Archivo/Alamy Stock Photo) -
Features July/August 2020
Idol of the Painted Temple
On Peru’s central coast, an ornately carved totem was venerated across centuries of upheaval and conquest
(© Peter Eeckhout) -
Letter from Normandy July/August 2020
The Legacy of the Longest Day
More than 75 years after D-Day, the Allied invasion’s impact on the French landscape is still not fully understood
(National Archives) -
Artifacts July/August 2020
Roman Canteen
(Valois, INRAP)