No Turkish loans for Seljuk show in New York

A major exhibition on the Seljuks will be held at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art without loans from Turkey. Turkey is refusing to lend artifacts to leading British and American museums based on the issue of disputed antiquities The Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in New York is organizing a major exhibition on the Seljuks, whose medieval Islamic empire expanded from Central Asia into much of Anatolia, without loans from Turkey, the online The Art Newspaper has reported. Turkey is refusing to lend artifacts to leading British and American museums until the issue of disputed antiquities is resolved.

Experts fear that loaned material from Iran and Russia’s collections will also not be present at the show. The Met’s problem in securing Turkish loaned material echoes those surrounding the British Museum’s exhibition on the Hajj, which went ahead in London in 2012 without Turkish artifacts after tangled disputes over an inscribed stele with a relief of Heracles, which have yet to be resolved.

“In the past five years, Turkey has pursued a series of claims for a list of what it regards as ‘stolen’ objects in the collections of museums in Britain, Europe and the U.S.  Despite a change at the top of Turkey’s Culture Ministry and the country’s museums authority, it appears the Met did not pursue an official request for loans after thorny initial discussions with Ankara, according to sources familiar with the project. Turkey’s stance may be more conciliatory now. In a statement, its Culture Ministry tells us that it is ‘open to negotiations’ with the Met and noted the issue had been ‘quite inconvenient for both parties.’ The Met declined to respond to questions about the exhibition or the...