Decades after being looted by a Turkish art dealer, a collection of ancient artifacts has finally returned to Cyprus.
These precious pieces, some dating back thousands of years, were put on display at the country’s archaeological museum.
Aydin Dikmen stole the artefacts from the breakaway northern part of Cyprus following the 1974 Turkish invasion. German authorities seized the items in 1997, and after years of legal battles, they were repatriated in stages, with the final batch arriving this year.
President Nikos Christodoulides, speaking at the unveiling ceremony, decried the looting as a “deliberate campaign” aiming to erase Cyprus’ cultural and religious identity.
The recovered treasures include:
- Jewellery from the Chalcolithic Period (3500-1500 BC)
- Bronze Age bird-shaped idols
- 1,500-year-old mosaics depicting Saints Luke, Mark, Matthew, and James (looted earlier by Dikmen and returned previously)
These mosaics are especially significant as they are rare examples of early Christian art that survived the Iconoclastic period (8th-9th centuries AD), when many such works were destroyed.
Cypriot authorities and the Orthodox Church have long pursued the return of looted artefacts, searching auctions and black markets for relics from hundreds of churches. The museum curator, Eftychia Zachariou, highlighted a positive trend: a growing willingness by other countries to repatriate antiquities of questionable origin.
Read more: Turkish invasion of Cyprus
(Source: AP)