NEW YORK – Septimius Severus ruled ancient Rome as emperor for nearly two decades, and a 7-foot-tall statue that researchers say depicts him has presided over the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Greek and Roman galleries for the past 12 years.
But now the headless bronze statue, dating from 225 AD and valued at 25 million dollarsit has disappeared, being one of the last antiquities seized by the museum, whose collection has been cited several times in recent months for containing looted objects.
Investigators who seized the statue said it was stolen from Bubo, an archaeological site in southwestern Turkey, in the 1960s.
In the past three months the Manhattan District Attorney’s office has seized 17 other museum objects considering them looted.
These files are part of a wave of recent warrants and warrants issued by prosecutors to recover illegally obtained antiquities from museums, galleries, auction houses and collectors across the United States, according to court documents.
In addition to the Met, authorities have seized items from the Sant’Antonio Museum of ArtHe Princeton University Museum of Art and the Museum of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Art at Fordham Universityaccording to court records.
The statue of the emperor, lent to the Met by a Swiss lender, is one of three museum pieces returned to Turkey.
According to the researchers, the statue was most likely part of a group of figures originally placed in a shrine in Bubo, where members of the imperial family were venerated during the time Rome ruled the area.
“It was a shrine to the imperial cult,” said Elizabeth Marlowe, director of the museum studies program at Colgate University, who traced the statue’s history.
Bronze is important, in part, because of its rarity.
“It was a repository of extraordinary sculptures,” he explains.
“Most of the bronze statues were cast in ancient times. But this site has been somewhat neglected. They were buried. They survived.”
History depicts Septimius Severus, who reigned AD 193-211, as a cunning Roman general of African descent who defeated four rivals to assume the position of emperor and establish a new imperial dynasty.
When exhibiting the statue in the museum’s Roman court in 2011, the Met identified the bronze as a “Statue of a Nude Male Figure” without specifying the figure’s identity, and on a tag on the wall said there was reason to doubt that it was a representation of the emperor.
But the investigators and the prosecution have identified it as a statue of Septimius Severus.
The second antique the Met will return to Türkiye is a head of caracalla bronzethe eldest son of Severus, believed to have been made between AD 211 and 217 and valued at $1.25 million.
Caracalla succeeded Severus as emperor and was considered a tyrant who used fear and bloodshed to rule.
Researchers believe that the bronze head was also stolen from Bubo.
The recovery of stolen items at Bubo and other sites has been a major focus of the Turkish authorities for decades.
In the 60s, according to researchers, local farmers they dug up the statues and sold theminstead of informing the Turkish government as required by a 1906 law and other statutes.
“At that time, looting was done for commercial purposes for the villagers,” says Matthew Bogdanos, head of the prosecution’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit.
He said farmers had used tractors to excavate the site, which was largely buried under soil and rubble. centuries of earthquakes and changes in the landscape.
The prosecutors were assisted by investigators from the US Internal Security Investigations and Turkish authorities.
The return of the antiquities “sends a loud and clear message to all smugglers, dealers and collectors that the illegal buying, possession and sale of cultural artifacts will have consequences,” said Reyhan Ozgur, Turkey’s consul general in New York. ceremony held last week in which 12 items worth $33 million were returned to Turkish officials.
Turkish and New York officials said the probe was greatly aided by some of the farmers who had been involved in the investigation. looting of the sixties.
They were able to identify the items they had stolen by looking at images from museum catalogs and websites that investigators showed them, officials said.
According to investigators, many of the items from Turkey were smuggled into Switzerland and passed into the hands of Robert Hecht, an antique dealer who was for a time based in New York and who passed away in 2012.
Detectives said their ongoing investigation into Hecht’s past business dealings helped them gain insight into the Turkish items.
Last year, investigators returned another allegedly stolen Bubo statue to Turkey.
The 2.5 meter high, practically intact bronze depicts the Roman emperor Lucius Verus and dates from the 2nd century AD
It is valued at $15 million and was stolen last spring from the home of a well-known New York collector, donor and Met trustee, Shelby White, according to investigators.
Among the Met objects identified by investigators as looted are 15 artifacts related to Subhash Kapoorformer Manhattan art dealer charged with smuggling into US more thanand 2,500 items coming from India and South Asia for 30 years.
The Met released a statement on Thursday saying it was willing to move the 15 sculptures to India after learning they had been smuggled out of that country.
“The Museum is actively reviewing antiquities history from suspected dealers,” the statement said.
“The Museum greatly values its long-standing relationship with the Government of India and is delighted to resolve the matter.”
Also returned to Turkey by the Met is a stone sculpture described as a theatrical head from Perge that dates to AD 290 and has a value of $250,000.
According to the researchers, the marble head, which had been loaned to the museum by a private collector, was stolen from Perge, another heavily looted archaeological site.
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Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.