Word: schliemann
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...reading your article on the exhibition in Moscow of the gold treasures unearthed by Heinrich Schliemann [ARCHAEOLOGY, April 22], I was surprised that part of the article seemed to be a propaganda tool for Turkey to claim ownership. There was no ancient Turkey, and the ancestors of the modern-day Turks did not inhabit the Turkish coast, also known as Asia Minor, in ancient times. So do these artifacts truly belong to the Turkish nation? German and Turkish claims on the Trojan antiquities certainly ring hollow, particularly when you consider that the frieze of the Parthenon and other sculptures taken...
There it stayed until the end of World War II, when the advancing Red Army arrived in Berlin in 1945 and confiscated art by the truckload. The world believed Schliemann's gold was lost. Curators at the Pushkin knew better. It wasn't until 1991, however, that Russian art historians Grigorii Kozlov and Konstantin Akinsha, who had ferreted out the existence of the artifacts, announced the discovery to the West. It took two more years for the Pushkin and the Russian government to fess...
...mean other nations are cheering the Russians on, however. Germany is negotiating to recover all the artwork seized by the Soviets in 1945, including Priam's Treasure. "Contrary to custom," sniffs a statement from Berlin's Museum of Early and Pre-History, "the Pushkin Museum will be exhibiting the Schliemann gold without the participation of its owner." German curators have even broached the idea of lending the lesser Schliemann artifacts they still possess to the Pushkin, presumably in exchange for a return loan. But so far there has been no response...
Turkey is still smoldering over scams Schliemann committed in the 1870s. Engin Ozgen, the government's general director of monuments and museums, has sent nine communiques to officials in Bonn and Moscow, claiming ownership of the treasure and asking to be included in negotiations over their fate. "We have had no answer," he says. The Turks would like to gather the Troy artifacts from Russia, Germany and the other countries where they've been dispersed and display them in a museum near the actual site...
...appeal and makes scientific sense as well. Modern archaeologists like to study objects in context to try to unravel how, why and by whom they were used. Clearly, having Priam's Treasure on hand would help them do that--finally making the discoveries of the brilliant and devious Heinrich Schliemann fully as important as he thought they were...