Cyprus displays antiquities returned after being looted by art dealer

Aydin Dikmen took the artifacts from the country’s breakaway north in the years after Cyprus’s split in 1974.

Published Jul 22

Cyprus has put on display artifacts — some of them thousands of years old — that were returned after a Turkish art dealer looted them from the ethnically divided island nation decades ago.

Aydin Dikmen took the artifacts from the country’s breakaway north in the years after Cyprus’s split in 1974, when Turkey invaded following a coup by supporters of union with Greece.

President Nikos Christodoulides stands in front of an Orthodox Christian icon in a glass case — President Nikos Christodoulides studies an Orthodox Christian icon (Petros Karadjias/AP)

Speaking at the unveiling ceremony at Cyprus’s archaeological museum, President Nikos Christodoulides said the destruction of a country’s cultural heritage becomes a “deliberate campaign of cultural and religious cleansing that aims to eliminate identity”.

The 60 most recently returned artifacts put on display include jewellery from the Chalcolithic Period from 3500-1500 BC and Bronze Age bird-shaped idols.

Antiquities that Dikmen also looted but were returned years ago include 1,500-year-old mosaics of saints Luke, Mark, Matthew and James.

A security officer stands behind antiquities displayed in a glass case — The 60 most recently returned artifacts are on display (Petros Karadjias/AP)

The museum’s antiquities curator, Eftychia Zachariou, told the ceremony that Cyprus has in recent years benefitted from a shift in thinking among authorities in many countries who now opt to repatriate antiquities of dubious provenance.