Trojan Gold
Object or Group Name
Trojan Gold
Case Summary
The Penn Museum's controversial acquisition of a collection of gold believed to have been looted from the site of ancient Troy triggered a debate in the late 1960s about the ethics of museums acquiring unprovenanced antiquities.
In 1966, the antiquities dealer George Allen of the gallery Hesperia Fine Arts offered the "Trojan Gold" collection to the Penn Museum. The group consisted of 24 pieces of gold jewelry dated to 2400 B.C. The only documentation tied to the lot stated that Allen had acquired the gold from the dealer Robert Hecht, who had in turn purchased it from another dealer, George Zakos. The provenance information stated that the jewelry was found at Troy and was "similar in style to Heinrich Schliemann's 'Treasure of Priam'.
One month later, the Penn Museum acquired the collection for USD $10,000. The curator, George Bass, informed the Turkish Ministry of Education that the museum was interested in acquiring the assemblage, and arranged for the lot to be shown to Burhan Tezcan, the Deputy Director of Antiquities for Türkiye.
In an email, Bass stated that Türkiye made no claim to the gold as there was no scientific way at the time to determine the true provenience of archaeological material. "Thus the hoard could have come from Poliochni on the Greek island of Lemnos as easily as from Troy," stated Bass.
But Bass and his colleagues at the museum also concluded that collecting such objects that may have come from illegal excavations would ultimately undermine the museum's credibility, archaeological scholarship and the Penn's field research. At the time, Penn Museum director Froelich Rainey was part of a UN committee drafting what would become the 1970 UNESCO convention on cultural property. Rainey believed the treaty, while important, would not be sufficient to curb looting, and began drafting a new collection policy for Penn that would: the Pennsylvania Declaration, which prohibited future acquisitions of unprovenanced material.
In February of 2009, new evidence linking the gold to Troy came to light when Professor Ernst Pernicka of the University of Tuebingen (and former director of the Troy Excavations) and Dr. Hermann Born of the Museum for Pre- and Proto-History in Berlin, examined the collection. They concluded that the metallurgical content was consistent with the gold that Schliemann recovered from Troy in the 1870's. They also found through analysis of soil lodged on one of the gold pendants that the collection was consistent with the earth found at the Trojan plain. While not conclusive, Pernicka and Born stated that the evidence suggested the collection most definitely had come from either Türkiye, Greece, or southeastern Europe.
At the end of 2011, the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism concluded from the scientific analysis that there was sufficient information to make a repatriation claim for the gold. By that time, law enforcement investigations had found ample evidence that Hecht and Zakos had routinely trafficked looted antiquities out of Türkiye over many years.
After 11 months of discussion, Penn and Türkiye agreed that, because the collection was purchased four years before the ratification of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, the museum would make an indefinite loan to Türkiye. Türkiye initially rejected the offer, but after the possibility that Greece might also make a claim to the gold was raised, the loan proposal was accepted.
In 1966, the antiquities dealer George Allen of the gallery Hesperia Fine Arts offered the "Trojan Gold" collection to the Penn Museum. The group consisted of 24 pieces of gold jewelry dated to 2400 B.C. The only documentation tied to the lot stated that Allen had acquired the gold from the dealer Robert Hecht, who had in turn purchased it from another dealer, George Zakos. The provenance information stated that the jewelry was found at Troy and was "similar in style to Heinrich Schliemann's 'Treasure of Priam'.
One month later, the Penn Museum acquired the collection for USD $10,000. The curator, George Bass, informed the Turkish Ministry of Education that the museum was interested in acquiring the assemblage, and arranged for the lot to be shown to Burhan Tezcan, the Deputy Director of Antiquities for Türkiye.
In an email, Bass stated that Türkiye made no claim to the gold as there was no scientific way at the time to determine the true provenience of archaeological material. "Thus the hoard could have come from Poliochni on the Greek island of Lemnos as easily as from Troy," stated Bass.
But Bass and his colleagues at the museum also concluded that collecting such objects that may have come from illegal excavations would ultimately undermine the museum's credibility, archaeological scholarship and the Penn's field research. At the time, Penn Museum director Froelich Rainey was part of a UN committee drafting what would become the 1970 UNESCO convention on cultural property. Rainey believed the treaty, while important, would not be sufficient to curb looting, and began drafting a new collection policy for Penn that would: the Pennsylvania Declaration, which prohibited future acquisitions of unprovenanced material.
In February of 2009, new evidence linking the gold to Troy came to light when Professor Ernst Pernicka of the University of Tuebingen (and former director of the Troy Excavations) and Dr. Hermann Born of the Museum for Pre- and Proto-History in Berlin, examined the collection. They concluded that the metallurgical content was consistent with the gold that Schliemann recovered from Troy in the 1870's. They also found through analysis of soil lodged on one of the gold pendants that the collection was consistent with the earth found at the Trojan plain. While not conclusive, Pernicka and Born stated that the evidence suggested the collection most definitely had come from either Türkiye, Greece, or southeastern Europe.
At the end of 2011, the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism concluded from the scientific analysis that there was sufficient information to make a repatriation claim for the gold. By that time, law enforcement investigations had found ample evidence that Hecht and Zakos had routinely trafficked looted antiquities out of Türkiye over many years.
After 11 months of discussion, Penn and Türkiye agreed that, because the collection was purchased four years before the ratification of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, the museum would make an indefinite loan to Türkiye. Türkiye initially rejected the offer, but after the possibility that Greece might also make a claim to the gold was raised, the loan proposal was accepted.
Number of Objects
24
Object Type
Jewelry – bracelets, rings, personal decoration
Culture
Trojan
Museum Name
University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology ('Penn Museum')
Museum Accession Number
66-6 (Accession Lot Number)
Receiving Country
Türkiye
Sources
Troy Gold – Turkey and the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
https://plone.unige.ch/art-adr/cases-affaires/troy-gold-2013-turkey-and-the-university-of-pennsylvania-museum-of-archaeology-and-anthropology
Turkish 'Troy Gold' at Penn Museum Stirs Up Controversy http://www.thedp.com/article/2012/09/turkish-troy-gold-at-penn-museum-stirs-up-controversy
Could Museum's Gold Be From Ancient Troy?
https://web.archive.org/web/20160820215906/http://articles.philly.com/2010-01-31/news/24955967_1_heinrich-schliemann-ancient-city-treasure
Penn Museum Lends Possibly Plundered Items to Turkey
https://web.archive.org/web/20130912210252/http://articles.philly.com/2012-09-07/news/33651449_1_penn-museum-penn-s-museum-turkish-minister
Brian Rose. C. (2017), "Beyond the UNESCO Convention: The Case of the Troy Gold in the Penn Museum", Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 5(1), 87-91.
Images
https://www.newsweek.com/who-owns-antiquity-u-penns-trojan-gold-and-drusus-head-64667
MOLA Contributor(s)
Liv Siefert
Vanessa Rousseau
Peer Reviewed By
Jason Felch
Citation
“Trojan Gold,” Museum of Looted Antiquities, accessed October 9, 2024, https://mola.omeka.net/items/show/975.