Report: Antique Carpets Missing from Turkish Museu
Ankara, Turkey, October 2, 2006--More than 70 antique carpets and rugs have gone missing from the same museum in western Turkey where a 6th century B.C. treasure of King Croesus was stolen and replaced with a fake, Turkey's state-owned news agency reported Monday.
The Anatolia news agency said officials going through Usak museum's storehouse, could not find 71 of the 210 antique carpets and kilims, or oriental rugs, which had been removed from mosques around the province and taken to the museum for safekeeping.
Culture Ministry officials were not immediately available to confirm the report.
Usak museum's director and nine other people are currently on trial suspected of involvement in the theft of at least two pieces from the museum, including a coin and a gold brooch, in the shape of winged sea horse, which was replaced with a replica.
The pieces were taken once before in the 1960s and displayed at the Metropolitan Museum in New York before being returned to Turkey in 1993.
Theft of antiques from mosques, such as carpets, tiles and even doors are not uncommon in Turkey and local authorities removed the high-priced rugs from mosques around Usak and took them to the museum in 2002, Anatolia said.
Anatolia quoted Usak Governor Kayhan Kavas as saying a formal investigation would be launched.
Local authorities asked that the mosque carpets be returned after the Croesus scandal broke, only to be told that 71 were missing, the report said.
Croesus was king of the Lydians in the 6th century B.C., and was richest man of his time in what is now western Turkey. His name has become synonymous with great wealth — as in the phrase, "as rich as Croesus."
Turkey is rich in treasures left by the many civilizations that have settled here since the Neolithic Age, but some of the treasures are displayed in small provincial museums with few visitors and minimal security.
In June, Turkey's Culture Ministry pressed for a lawsuit against the manager of a small museum's storehouse after inspectors found that 545 ancient silver coins there had also been replaced with fakes. The original coins from the Kahramanmaras Museum in south-central Turkey were dated to the 4th century B.C.
