Earlier this year, I wrote a column describing the Turkish government’s bullying tactics to reclaim antique objects from European and American museums. It is ironic that Turkey, one of the greatest looters and pilferers of other nation’s cultural heritage, would so aggressively demand the return of these antiquities.
Just in case its threats fail to work, Turkey embarked on a new course of action last month: bribery! Turkish Education Minister Nabi Avci announced on Nov. 10 that “Turkey has doubled its contribution to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) amid the financial crisis it faces with the United States and Israel not paying their membership fees.”
Avci did not even attempt to hide the real reason for Turkey’s generosity; he disclosed that “significant progress has been made in Turkey’s candidacy for the UNESCO World Heritage Committee elections to be held on Nov. 19.” Indeed, his prediction came true when his country was elected to the 21-member World Heritage Committee for the next 4 years.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry immediately announced that as a member of that committee, “Turkey intends to share, at the international scale, the experience and knowledge it has accumulated in managing and protecting its own 11 world heritage areas representing different layers of Anatolian civilization, including Neolithic, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, and Ottoman periods.”
Electing Turkey to a body that is supposed to preserve cultural assets is akin to putting a wolf in charge of guarding sheep. Turkey should not be eligible to serve on the UNESCO committee or on any other UN agency because of its long record as a major violator of human rights and the hegemonic threat it presents to the peace and security of neighboring states.
Not surprisingly, the foreign ministry’s announcement made no mention of the numerous Armenian religious and cultural monuments in present-day Turkey. Only in recent years, with the intent of easing the way for its European Union candidacy as well as generating income from foreign tourists, has the Turkish government renovated a handful of Armenian and Greek churches, after decades of neglect and systematic desecration and destruction.
Now that Turkey has undeservedly become a member of the World Heritage Committee, Armenia’s UNESCO representative has the opportunity during each meeting for the next four years to point out the irony Turkey faces, as it is tasked with preserving cultural monuments, while remaining one of the biggest confiscators of other nations’ cultural heritage.
Murat Suslu, Turkey’s director-general of cultural heritage and museums, told the New York Times with a straight face: “We only want back what is rightfully ours… If you come to my house and you steal precious objects from me, do I not have the right to get them back?” Suslu, who insisted that thievery and looting are wrong no matter when they occurred, must be reminded that Turkey can make such claims only after returning to Alevis, Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Cypriots, Greeks, and Kurds what is rightfully theirs!
Just as ironic was the statement made by Ertugrul Gunay, Turkey’s culture minister, to the Economist magazine: “I wholeheartedly believe that each and every antiquity in any part of the world should eventually go back to its homeland. Even if these objects are made of stone, just as people have souls, so do animals, plants, and monuments. Taking a monument away destabilizes the world and is disrespectful to history.”
Instead of falsely presenting their country as a looting victim, Turkish officials should acknowledge that they are in possession of numerous antiquities confiscated by their Ottoman predecessors during their occupation of over a dozen neighboring countries. For example, the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great, discovered near Sidon, Lebanon, in 1887, was shipped to Istanbul’s Archaeology Museum under orders from Sultan Abdul Hamid II, where it is still kept as one of its most prized possessions. It’s now up to Lebanon to demand the return of this precious cultural treasure from Turkey! Also, Saudi Arabia has the right to reclaim a plethora of sacred Islamic relics removed from Mecca by the Ottoman authorities in the 19th century.
Turkey’s membership in UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee provides a unique opportunity for Armenians and other dispossessed nations to draw the world’s attention to the Turkish government’s illegal confiscation of their cultural heritage and demand their immediate return.
Harut Sassounian
“I wholeheartedly believe that each and every antiquity in any part of the world should eventually go back to its homeland.”
.
I wholeheartedly agree with my Minister of Culture. I don’t know why this concept is so difficult for Armenians to understand. To claim back an object or artifact because its “homeland” is Turkey, does NOT mean the Turkish officials are claiming it is a ‘Turkish’
artifact. Do I have some Turkish “disease” where I think this argument makes sense and everyone else thinks I’m an idiot?
.
” different layers of Anatolian civilization, including Neolithic, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, and Ottoman periods.””
.
Neolithic civilizations are long gone, Rome is gone, the Byzantines are gone, the Seljuks are gone. THEY NO LONGER EXIST. All that remains is the LAND on which those people lived on during various stages of history. That land today is Turkey. That makes the lands on which Turkey exists the homeland of those artifacts.
.
Now, I purposely left off Hellenistic. That’s a grey area. Greeks have a historic claim those artifacts no doubt, but some of these Greek civilization existed solely on Asia Minor- modern Turkey. I am still inclined to favor that they remain in Turkey due to the homeland thing, but you can certainly make a strong case they be returned to the Greeks.
.
As for the sarcophagus of Alexander (which I was stunned to see in Istanbul during my last visit), and the relics from Mecca, yes, if they should be returned. Absolutely. No double standards from me.
.
Finally, with Armenia, despite me agreeing with the homeland argument and the fact that it would apply to Armenian artifacts as well…. considering the history, they should be returned.
There is one fatal flaw in your logic. You are under the false assumption that today’s Turkey is a “natural evolution from the peoples of antiquity”. Not only are they NOT, but in fact today’s Turkey destroyed the natural progression of cultural growth of the true indigenous peoples of Anatolia, Greeks and Armenians. The same people’s artifacts they are trying to claim after completing Genocide and sitting on their lands comfortably for 100 years. This is nothing more than a bunch of thugs throwing a temper tantrum for completing the looting they started a century ago.
Well, like I said, considering the history, Armenian artifacts should not be claimed and should be returned. But when we consider ancient neolithic artifacts, and Hittite artifacts, Roman artifacts, Byzantine and Seljuk artifacts, then what? Armenia exists. These other civilizations do not. All that’s left is the things they left behind and the lands on which they lived. That’s why Turkey has the right to claim them. The history of Turkey and Turks here is irrelevant because this isn’t about Turkey or Turks. This is about ancient artifacts from ancient civilizations that should, in my opinion, be on display in their land of origin. This land of origin, incidentally, happens to be Turkey. That’s all. Nothing more.
The problem with that is, who defines ‘Armenian artifacts’? The dishonest liars at the British Museum? Or the Genocide Denying Government of Turkey? Actually these two are holding hands like a couple in love. They both have commercial interests with one another and anything ‘Armenian’ threatens their nefarious objectives.
For example, not long ago, as there were complaints why the exhibits at the museum were being represented as “Ancient Turkey” with Urartian artifacts and the like, and not a single mention of Armenian, they came back with a silly excuses and commentaries like “we know there wasn’t an Ancient Turkey” and “They may not be Turkish but they aren’t Armenian either”.
I guess that would also mean the Anglo-Saxons and Brittons and the like are also “not English”. And Prussians, Bavarians and the like are also “not German” – according to the British Museum, that is – a band of pompous charlatans self-proclaimed to be “experts” and people “with integrity”.
So there we have the problem of proto-Armenians: related Armenian groups that existed before the nation became assimilated enough to become one people and be unified under the first Armenian kings. And included in these groups are Hittites, Phrygians and Urartians alike, and that is not even the whole story. Ancient Anatolian peoples are interrelated, and that interrelation at the time in question happens to be to present day Armenia and Armenians. True, much of Armenian ancestral land happens to fall into Turkey today, but what makes Turkey the rightful owner of these ancient artifacts and not Armenia, given the historical reality as we all the perpetrated Genocide?
Lucky for Turkey, we Armenians have not learned how to protect our cultural history effectively, that’s why Turkey gets away with murder, both figuratively and literally.
Wow, the obsession over Turkey has no bounds. Yes, Turkey has looted stuff in its history. What great victor hasn’t? Did Armenians not loot Urartu and then try to even appropriate its heritage? Never mind that Urartu and Armenian language are totally different, and never mind that Armenia (under Medes’ protection) destroyed Urartu?
And yes, it is correct to say that these artifacts belong to Turkey! Where should they belong? Armenia? What you incorrectly call Western Armenia is TURKEY! It has been for over 1000 years! Get over it. You are not going to restore the world map by giving $25 to your US Congressmen. If you want the land back, be a man, move your comfortable homes in the US, form an army, and come and take it back! Don’t be chicken hawks.
Nor do you have Eastern Armenia. It is all Russian now. They own you. They own your foreign trade, they own your military, they own your infrastructure. In today’s history, they is no such thing as an independent Armenia. You could have kept the Eastern Armenia independent. You could have. Instead, by virtue of your pipedreams and pissing off Turkey, you need to live under Russia’s protection. Like a little kid who shouts insults at bigger boys from behind an uncle’s leg. What is going to happen when that uncle has more important things to attend to? Maybe the next leader of Russia will not be like the old-mentality-guy Putin, bent on continuing on Peter Great’s colonialist push? What if, like Britain, they decided to give on such claim, and withdraw? What if the relationship between Turkey and Russia improve even further? Or Azerbaijan somehow manages to befriend Russia. What if then they decide to use you as a pawn? They can. And they will.
RVDV, please refrain from pretending that you are a noble Turk “honest” enough to concede points on behalf of Turkey. Your position is no less biased than Armenians. But I will give your brave Kurdish people this: at least you do what you preach, you have taken up arms against Turkey and in Iraq, to earn your freedom. Armenian chicken hawks on the other hand are way too eager to give up even the little freedoms they did have, so that they can chase pipe-dreams. Where is Freud to analyze this mental sickness of theirs? To give up reality in exchange for a delusion.
From the article: …representing different layers of Anatolian civilization, including Neolithic, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, and Ottoman periods.”
I find it interesting that he omits Armenians who were there long before the any Turks came along…
Murat Suslu said, ‘If you come to my house and you steal precious objects from me, do I not have the right to get them back?”
I would think Armenians have the same right, like land and much else. I trust Mr. Suslu agrees.
…monuments.!!! Taking a monument away destabilizes the world and is disrespectful to history.”
Tell it to Azerbaijan after destroying Armenian cemetery’s Khatchkars.
From RVDV:
the sarcophagus of Alexander the Great was shipped to Istanbul’s Archaeology Museum …, where it is still kept as one of its most prized possessions.
Go to any other major museum in the world, that have looted so much, start in England, maybe read the book “Making The Mummies Dance,” it’s fascinating and you may never look at museums the same again
because its “homeland” is Turkey, does NOT mean the Turkish officials are claiming it is ‘Turkish’
oh buddy, you’re kidding yourself…
Do I have some Turkish “disease” where I think this argument makes sense and everyone else thinks I’m an idiot?
YAH, KINDA! YAH!! See Mr. Suslu above…
You’re ignorant to say the least if you think a Turk, any Turk, would claim a Byzantine artifact as Turkish. I’ll leave it at that. Or Roman. Or Greek. Visit any ancient ruins in Turkey, see if any tour guide in the country will refer to them as “Turkish”.
RVDV, as a ‘proud Turk of Kurdish ethnicity’ you are not one to judge who owns what in Anatolia—you are still confused about who you are. But you are not alone. Your entire nation is confused and your school children are miseducated after decades of propaganda based on myths of Turkish glory and denigration of indigenous people. Who and what is a Turk? Seriously.
I’ll grant you this: The motivation of Turkey in trying to gain the return of artifacts of ancient Anatolia/Asia Minor from museums elsewhere may be less than honorable, but their membership in UNESCO would force upon them a certain amount of accountability to the world at large. The eyes of the world would be on them. That’s a good thing. They can try to glorify Turkey and drum-up tourism by taking ‘ownership’ of artifacts of the nations they conquered or decimated, but UNESCO members could ensure that the historical record is accurately recorded and credited, and not labeled as belonging to ‘Proto-Turks.’ That’s what matters most.
What the heck is a Proto-Turk, anyway?
Ideally, Turkey should see itself as caretaker, not owner, but you and I both know that Turkey has a dismal record in this regard. Don’t be naive and bury your head under the cloak of Turkishness that you so eagerly wear.
I’m copying part of an earlier comment of mine.
“Armenia exists. These other civilizations do not. All that’s left is the things they left behind and the lands on which they lived. That’s why Turkey has the right to claim them. The history of Turkey and Turks here is irrelevant because this isn’t about Turkey or Turks. This is about ancient artifacts from ancient civilizations that should, in my opinion, be on display in their land of origin. This land of origin, incidentally, happens to be Turkey.”
Does the fact that Turkey is being rather hypocritical automatically negate the fact that we have a point? How much money have these western museums made from artifacts they confiscated? Is that not worse than Turkey, who has literally done nothing to… say… the Hittites? Here’s where we differ, you say Turkey would, ideally, see itself as a caretaker. I’m saying that Turkey is actually trying to be one. But its hard to achieve with all this skepticism and our, as you said, dismal record. I believe we can change, and I believe we are trying to change (for whatever reason). Finally, I am not confused about who I am. I am a Turk. You guys are the ones who are confused. You can’t comprehend why someone would chose to be a Turk. That’s not my problem.
Visit the wikipedia Hittite page, not a single word of ‘Armenia’. That is quite a sensitive topic for Turks so I presume they are watching the page like hawks and ready to re-edit at the speed of light should anyone insert some Armenia sources. Similar to ‘baklava’ supposedly being “of Turkish origin”. You see, these things (and others) ‘must’ be ‘Turkish’ (and also non-Armenian) at all costs, because Turkey’s number one industry, tourism and hospitality, depends on it. It ultimately translates into dollars. And here we have not taken opportunities to correct the misinformation and damage to our identity and culture. And while Turkey blockades Armenia and causes all kinds of damage, we in the diaspora in turn are not doing enough to hurt Turkey’s ill-gotten income.
If we were wealthy and organized like Jews, Turks and Azeris would not get away with wikipedia fraud, nor all this UNESCO nonsense, nor anything else for that matter. Consider this: Jews have actually started teaching themselves through professional classes how to edit wikipedia, and how to undo internet propaganda against Israel. This is funded presumably by Israel itself.
Do we have similar such programs? Not only do we not, but it seems we don’t even give a damn. The Israelis and Jews definitely do give a damn, no matter how marginal or insignificant anything seems, they are ready to defend and promote their interests even if it costs money and is a loss. Because they are sober enough to realize that “one thing leads to another”.
Take for example another recent Azeri tactic with UNESCO to claim polo as “an ancient Azeri game” – of course by using the Armenian Artsakh Horse to make the claims, like everything else they do. What did we do about it? NOTHING. We are way late to the party. Leave it to Tajikistan, of all places, to actually inadvertently ‘help’ Armenian interests while also defending itself and other countries through their protest letter. In their letter they stated: polo is “a common cultural heritage of Iran, Tajikistan, Armenia, Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan.”… although the last country in the group is debatable with its historic absence from planet earth.
The same thing with “Caucasian Carpets” where they got away with it being of the “intangible heritage of Azerbaijan” – whatever that means. Giving it some thought, here again we realize that this is not only theft of Armenian culture, but it is for the benefit of their carpet industry, of course again stolen from Armenia and Artsakh. Presenting “Caucasian Carpets” and stating that it is “on the UNESCO list” and “it is the real thing” translates into dollars again.
“Keshkeg” was another Turkey/UNESCO quackery. They migrated to Asia Minor, discovered a thousands of years old Armenian dish named harissa, re-badged it as “Keshkeg” and now it is on the UNESCO list of “intangible heritage of Turkey”. Good morning, Armenia and Armenians of the world, wake up and smell the coffee if you are so inclined, your culture is being robbed from you as you read this.
Still, the charlatans at UNESCO are every bit to blame as the Azeri-Turk fraud machine. ‘Political Correctness’ it seems has gone to their heads, and they are eager, actually desperate, to hand out “culture” to the culture-less, even at the expense of an insignificant group of people named Armenians.
They should make a plaque at the entrance to their UNESCO headquarters which reads: “Come One, Come All, Armenia Has Plenty Of Culture We Can Give Away”.
The Hittites: it is quite interesting and also suspicious that non-Turkish “historians”, “archaeologists”, “scholars” and the like conveniently and deliberately ignore the evidence and any possibilities of ancient “Anatolian Peoples” with linkage and kinship with today’s Armenia and Armenians, is it not? The Hittites are but one group.
There was a German scholar named Peter Jensen in the late 19th century, who used non-linguistic evidence to see the Hittites and Armenians as related, at a time when the Hittite language was not even deciphered and was even thought to be an Asian language by others. When it was deciphered half a century later his research was corroborated as the two languages were shown to have strong ties.
Jensen’s book is in German and is called “Hittiter und Armenier”.
So then, in which country do Hittite artifacts belong, Turkey, or Armenia?
If scientists ignore the “evidence” linking Hittites and Armenians, maybe that is because there is no such evidence. If you have evidence, publish it and try to persuade the scientific community. If you cannot, perhaps that means that your position is wrong. Just because some Jensen dude said something 100 years ago does not mean that modern scientists have to accept it. Individual scientists can be wrong. There were scientists who used to claim that the earth is flat.
Sure, the Hittites were Indo-European, but so are the Irish. Does not mean we Armenians should claim Irish artifacts. True, Armenians (or their predecessors in the Armenian Highland) interacted with the Hittites, but that does not mean Hittite artifacts are Armenian. Since Hittites existed in the territory of modern Turkey, and there is no Hittite state now, these artifacts naturally belong to Turkey.
Armenians, the descendent of Noe, Haik and Tigran the great, as well Hittites(again Armenians form different period and Dynasties). The Armenians have lived in historical Armenia since the first cavitations who lived in the Anatolia region for over 8 thousand years, not Turks, or Seljuk Turks. Therefore any Historical Artifacts found or still exist in The Kingdom of Armenia (or Greater Armenia), Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, and Ancient and Historical Armenia belong to Armenian people. Turks can claim there Turkish heritage (Seljuk Turks had no heritage, they stole it from Persians and Arabs) from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Mongol or “Jahhnamistan” and return not only the historical Artifacts to the Armenian people, but it’s about time that Turks return the Armenian Homeland to the Armenian people, my ancestors were born in Sasun and Mush I want what was stolen from them to be returned including our homeland.