For most of the 20th century Turkish authorities were happy to lend their treasures for foreign exhibitions and ignored the provenance of most pieces in Western collections. Today, however, the government argues that any object without the correct permissions or with gaps in its provenance has been stolen and so belongs to Turkey.

二十世纪的大部分时间里土耳其当局乐意把他们的文物借到国外展出，他们并没有关注西方博物馆大部分藏品的出处。但是今天的土耳其政府主张任何没有得到正规许可或来源可疑的文物，都是被从土耳其偷走的，所以这些文物理应属于土耳其。

Growing economic power and stalled talks over EU membership make many Turks feel that it is time to turn their backs on the West. Amid the turmoil of the Arab spring Turkey believes it can become the leader of the region. “A new Middle East is about to be born,” Ahmet Davutoglu, the foreign minister, told parliament last month. “We will be the owner, pioneer and the servant of this new Middle East.”

由于经济实力不断增张而且加入欧盟的会谈陷入了僵局，因此很多土耳其人感到放弃西方的时候到了。看到阿拉伯之春的动荡土耳其认为自己可以成为这一地区的领导者。外长艾哈迈德·达武特奥卢在议会发表讲话指出：“一个崭新的中东即将诞生，我们将成为新中东的主人，我们要引领新中东，我们要为新中东服务。”

Turkey has been inspired by the success of Italy and Greece in confronting the illicit trade in classical antiquities. Officials also cite the tough stance taken by Zahi Hawass, a colourful former Egyptian minister, against museums with dodgy holdings. “We will make life miserable for museums that refuse to repatriate,” he pronounced at an international 2010 conference in Cairo about looted artefacts.

意大利和希腊在古董在非法交易的诉讼案件中获胜鼓舞了土耳其。官员引用个性鲜明的前埃及部长札西·哈瓦斯采取过的强硬立场来反对那些收藏来源不正的文物的博物馆。“那些拒绝归还文物的博物馆，我们会让他们活的很惨”这是2010年他在开罗一个关于被掠夺文物的国际会议上的发言。

Turkey has been emboldened by two important successes. Last September the Boston Museum of Fine Arts bowed to public pressure and returned the top half of an 1,800-year-old statue called “Weary Herakles”, which came from southern Turkey. Left to the museum by an American couple, its documented provenance went back no more than 30 years, which suggests it was looted, probably in the late 1970s. Mr Erdogan himself brought this trophy back to Turkey, reuniting the head and torso with the statue’s bottom half.

两个重要的胜利让土耳其咄咄逼人。去年九月波士顿美术馆迫于公众压力归还了一座叫“疲倦的赫拉克勒斯”的雕像（有一千八百年历史）的上半截，这座雕像来自土耳其南部，人们认为上世纪七十年代后期它被从土耳其盗走。埃尔多安亲自护送这个战利品返回土耳其，这个雕像的头部躯干和下半部重新被合为一体。

Mr Gunay also forced the German government to return a massive sphinx (pictured) that had been removed in 1917 from Hattusa, the Bronze-Age capital of the Hittite empire. The sphinx is one of a pair. The first was sent back to Turkey in 1924. Its twin had long been part of the permanent display at the Pergamon museum in Berlin. Germany maintained it had obtained the sphinx legally, whereas Turkish authorities argued that it had merely been sent to Germany for repair. Documentation about the sphinxes was destroyed in bombing raids on Berlin in the second world war.

居纳伊也督促德国政府归还1917年他们从青铜时代的赫梯帝国之都哈图沙拿走的一个巨型狮身人面像（见文章附图）。狮身人面像原来是一对。第一个已经在1924年还给土耳其。因为其中一个被柏林佩加蒙博物馆永久展览，这对宝物长年千里遥望。德国坚持说这个狮身人面像是他们合法获取的，然而土耳其当局辩称当时把这尊文物运到德国只是做修复。这对狮身人面像的文件在二战期间毁于袭击柏林的炸弹。

Early last year Turkey stepped up the pressure, indicating that it would not renew the licences of the German archaeology institute, the biggest foreign group working in Turkey, unless the sphinx was sent home. In May 2011 German and Turkish culture officials signed an agreement to return the sphinx as part of a wider accord on training curators, exchanging research and enabling loans of Turkish objects. But German curators now complain that as soon as the sphinx went back to Turkey the rest of the agreement was quietly shelved.

去年年初土耳其增大了压力，明确指出除非归还狮身人面像，否则就不会更新德国考古研究所（土耳其最大的外国工作团）的执照。2011年5月德国和土耳其的文化官员签署了归还狮身人面像的协议，这个协议是馆长培训计划的延伸，也是考古研究和土耳其出借文物的交换条件。但是德国博物馆馆长抱怨说一旦狮身人面像归还土耳其，协议的其他部分很快就会被束之高阁。

The Turkish authorities then turned their attention to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In September 2011 a delegation led by Murat Suslu, the director-general for cultural heritage and museums, flew to New York to discuss loans for a 2014 exhibition. Mr Suslu, who has a reputation as a table-thumper, opened the meeting with a declaration of intent. Before any further loans could be discussed, he wanted information about 18 works in the Met’s collection. “It certainly came as a surprise to us,” says the Met’s director, Thomas Campbell, “especially in light of the collaborative spirit we have always enjoyed with our peer institutions in Turkey.”

接着土耳其当局将注意力转移到纽约大都会艺术博物馆。2011年9月文化遗产和博物馆主管穆拉特·叙斯吕率领的代表团飞赴纽约商讨2014年展览文物的出借事宜。很多人都知道开会的时候叙斯吕喜欢敲桌子，喜欢发表宣言。在进一步谈论出借事项之前，他想得到大都会艺术博物馆18件藏品的信息，这让我们非常震惊，大都会艺术博物馆的馆长托马斯·坎贝尔说，“出于协作精神，我们一直乐意和土耳其同仁分享信息。”

Within weeks, the focus was on the BM. The Topkapi Museum had agreed to an important loan for an exhibition about the Haj that the BM was planning for January 2012. The 35 pieces under discussion had been removed from Mecca by the Ottoman authorities in the 19th century. At the last moment, Mr Suslu and Mr Gunay refused to allow the loan to go ahead on the grounds that the BM had a stone tablet dating from the first century BC, known as the Samsat Stele, that originally came from Turkey. The stele had been in the BM’s collection for almost 90 years (and had been exhibited, without complaint, at a Tokyo exhibition in 2005 alongside loans from the Topkapi).

几周之后，焦点对准大英博物馆。托普卡匹博物馆先前同意向2012年1月大英博物馆的哈吉展览借出一件重要文物。这次讨论的35件文物是19世纪被奥斯曼帝国当局从麦加搬走的。最后一刻叙斯吕和居纳伊拒绝以后出借文物，因为大英博物馆收藏的一个公元前1世纪的石桌，就是萨姆萨特石碑原来出自土耳其。大英博物馆收藏这方石碑将近90年（已经被展出过，没有人提出质疑，2005年东京的展览活动中它就被放在土耳其出借文物的旁边）。