Bowling Green State University to return ancient Turkish mosaics

BOWLING GREEN >> A set of ancient mosaics that were part of an Ohio university’s art collection will be returned to Turkey, more than half a century after looters removed them from the ruins of Roman homes and smuggled them out of the country.

Turkish representatives joined Bowling Green State University administrators at a news conference Tuesday to discuss the decision, the Toledo Blade reported .

Southern Methodist University art history professor Stephanie Langin-Hooper, one of the researchers who probed the history of the mosaics, praised the return of the artifacts.

“Today we have a modern triumph — a reverse triumph if you will — where looted masterpieces get to go home,” she said. “It is a triumph for scholarship, for research, and for collaboration.”

Turkish Consul General Umut Acar thanked university officials for their cooperation in the matter.

“It’s that understanding and respect that brings together representatives from a city in southeast Turkey with Bowling Green residents,” Acar said.

Officials originally thought the pieces were from the Turkish city of Antioch but researchers later determined they probably came from the city of Zeugma.

Bowling Green bought the 12 mosaics from a New York gallery in 1965 and displayed them in the Wolfe Center for the Arts.