This Content Is Only For Subscribers
Stolen treasures, underground passages, secret diaries, and dark dealings: the story that has recently come into the public eye in Boubon, a small ancient city forgotten for centuries on a mountaintop in Turkey, has all the elements of a good thriller, with a touch of scientific intrigue.
The ruins of Boubon are located in the present-day province of Burdur, at an altitude of a thousand metres, less than 100 kilometres from the southwestern coast of Turkey, near the village of İbecik. In antiquity, Boubon belonged to a region known as Kibyrrha, and during the Roman period, it was part of the province of Lycia. The name is derived from Kibyra (or: Kibyrae), the largest ancient city in the region, where recent excavations at the city’s Odeon revealed an unparalleled mosaic floor depicting Medusa.
In another nearby city, Oinoanda, fragments of the so-called Philosophical Inscription of Diogenes have been preserved. This remarkable epigraphic monument from the 2nd century AD must have been the most extensive of its kind known from antiquity. The surprises that the mountainous and seemingly isolated region of Kibyrrha holds do not end here: a set of exceptionally artistic bronze statues, the only such collection that has survived from the Roman period, hails from Boubon, and it is these statues that have recently garnered attention in the small mountain community of Kibyrrha.
The asphalt road that embraces the slopes of Dikmen Tepe, or the “upright hill,” on its eastern side, has a height difference of 140 metres from the summit occupied by the acropolis of Boubon. Ancient ruins and the bases of statues with finely carved Greek inscriptions protrude from the ground and accompany the climb on foot. From the theatre and acropolis, one can view the surrounding mountain peaks and, among them, the fertile plain that constituted the territory of ancient Boubon.
A little above the marketplace and to the west of the theatre, one encounters the remains of a structure measuring 6.50 x 4.80 metres. Here, inscribed rectangular bases for statues along the northern and eastern sides of the room, along with four free-standing inscribed bases, indicate that the building housed a Sebasteion, an imperial cult sanctuary. The inscriptions attest that the space contained statues of members of the imperial family from Nero to Gallienus, spanning the mid-1st to the mid-3rd centuries AD. The first act of the mystery that has captured the attention of foreign media, European and American museums, collectors, and governments played out here.
In the 1960s, ancient artifacts began to appear in the antiquities trade in the United States and were scattered into private collections. Some of these were of exceptional quality and were rumoured to originate from a single, unique location in Turkey, without further details. While the origin of these impressive finds was sought, Turkish archaeologist Cale İnan noticed in the Burdur Museum an exceptional bronze statue without a head, reminiscent of those that had recently surfaced in the United States. The statue had been found in an illicit excavation in Boubon in 1967.
As the Turkish archaeologist learned, the residents of the neighbouring village had been excavating in Dikmen Tepe for some time, selling their finds to smugglers, until the authorities intervened. However, these were not random, isolated acts but extensive and organized group “excavations” led by two brothers, one of whom kept a diary. The latter proved useful for İnan when she undertook the excavation of the Sebasteion of Boubon, to study its bases and inscriptions, in order to propose a reconstruction of the history of the Sebasteion and its sculptures. According to the same archaeologist, these remarkable bronzes originate from this building in the small town of Kibyrrha and have undergone successive reconfigurations throughout the long history of the sanctuary.
However, one of the many reasons why the antiquities trade and the looting that fuels it are destructive is that they pose almost insurmountable obstacles to the scientific study of the objects that come to light and circulate in this manner. Split across collections around the world, many of which are private, the finds are extremely difficult to study as a whole. So, no matter how meticulous İnan’s initial research was, some individual questions about the Boubon bronzes remain unanswered. The difficulty of scientific assessment is compounded by the secret routes that the trade in stolen antiquities follows, with underground transactions between smugglers, collectors, and museum officials who seek to enrich their collections by any means. None of those involved have an interest in revealing the origin and precise circumstances of acquisition of the objects.
The recent decision by American authorities to seize items from private collections and museums and return objects to Turkey that have been identified as originating from illegal excavations has not only brought justified satisfaction to Turkey but has also caused intense headaches for museum officials and collection curators around the world. At the centre of this intriguing dispute, at least from a scientific perspective, lies the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen. This renowned museum houses a bronze head of Emperor Septimius Severus (193-211 AD) that Nihat İnan believed to be part of an exceptional bronze nude body originating from the Sebastopolis of Boubon. This body, valued at $25 million, was returned to Turkey by the United States last March. As expected, Denmark is now being called upon to deliver the head, especially since the Glyptotek had previously acknowledged its origin. However, things are getting more complicated.
During the 1960s and 1970s, antiquities smugglers operated nearly unchecked, and museums hesitated to admit that their treasures were acquired through dubious means, especially when the objects came from less influential countries. The head of Septimius Severus had made its way to Copenhagen through American Robert Hecht, an antiquities dealer in Italy until his death in 2012, who maintained friendly relations with the then-director of the Glyptotek. However, various scandals gradually increased the pressure on museums to respect legality, leading collection curators to reconsider their positions. References to Boubon began to be removed from the texts accompanying the exhibits, replaced by careful phrasing that drew the visitor’s attention to less controversial information about the objects, rather than their origin. Thus, the head in the Glyptotek in Copenhagen was discreetly disconnected from the impressive nude body displayed in the new museum in Antalya.
While the museums’ complicity in supporting antiquities trafficking is condemnable, one must acknowledge the delicate and unenviable position of Rune Frederiksen, the new director of the Glyptotek in Copenhagen, an archaeologist with significant experience and years of excavation work in Greece. This is because matching inscriptions, the supporting carvings on the upper surface of the plinths, and bronze statues is genuinely challenging in any case.
In this instance, because the returned nude torso in Turkey features the common contrapposto pose, dating based on its artistic style is particularly difficult and could be attributed to the Hellenistic period. Additionally, there have been no precise measurements of the supporting carvings and corresponding dimensions of the statue’s feet, so scientific doubts naturally arise about the identity of the nude sculpture and the attribution of the Copenhagen head to it. Adding to these problems is the fact that in the photograph published the one and only time the head “met” the body and was photographed together, they do not appear to truly match.
We can only hope that, at some point, the secret journals of the looters will be made public, that Turks, Danes, and Americans will collaborate closely to complete the scientific study of the finds and reconstruct the path of these objects, and that the stolen treasures will be returned to their places of origin, wherever they may currently reside, in private collections and museums around the world.
Read the original article (in Greek) here.
Author: Christina Kokkinia | Source: LiFO [October 05, 2023]
