The BM says that the stele entered its collection in 1927, nine years after the collapse of the Ottoman empire, and it had been acquired in Syria, not in Turkey. The Turks were unimpressed. “The British Museum has no sense of joint venture,” says Ilber Ortayli, head of the Topkapi. “They were completely unco-operative.”

大英博物馆声称这方石碑1927年被该馆收藏，那时候奥斯曼帝国已经覆灭九年了，得到这个文物的地方是叙利亚，不是土耳其。土耳其人却对此无动于衷。“大英博物馆没有合作的观念”托普卡匹博物馆馆长特伯·奥特里说，“他们根本不愿意合作。”

Shock, not awe

惊而不恐

Turkey has many other museums in its sights. A list of artworks being sought abroad indicates the culture ministry has made similar demands of the Louvre, the Pergamon, London’s Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A), the Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, the Davids Samling Museum in Denmark, the Dumbarton Oaks Museum in Washington, DC, the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Getty. It has also claimed stolen antiquities that have been seized by police in Frankfurt, Florence, Bulgaria, Switzerland and Scotland.

土耳其已将很多国外博物馆纳入视野。文化部长发出了寻找流失海外艺术品的清单，对卢浮宫、佩加蒙、伦敦维多利亚与艾伯特博物馆、里斯本古本提安博物馆、丹麦哥本哈根市大卫收藏馆、华盛顿特区敦巴顿橡树收藏馆、克利夫兰艺术博物馆也有类似的要求。土耳其也要求归还遭警察查封的被盗古董，它们现存于法兰克福、佛罗伦萨、保加利亚、瑞士和苏格兰。

Museum directors have reacted with varying degrees of shock. Some have instructed lawyers; others, such as the V&A, are hoping that a “long-term” loan of the contested object will satisfy the demands from Ankara. (Mr Gunay says only an “indefinite” loan will suffice.) Still more are prevaricating, hoping that the authorities will lose interest. This is unlikely.

那些博物馆馆长有不同程度的吃惊，有的已经咨询过律师，其他的，如伦敦维多利亚与艾伯特博物馆馆长希望长期出借有争议的藏品会满足安卡拉的要求。（居纳伊说“无限期的出借”就足够了。）还有更多的馆长在搪塞，希望土耳其当局会失去兴趣。然而这是不可能的。

Turkey is convinced of the justice of its quest. Moreover the culture ministry lumps together objects that were smuggled out of the country illegally with those that were removed—perhaps legally to a place of greater safety, but not provably so—in an era when ownership was judged in a looser way. For Turkey, all of these objects were stolen. It is determined to get them back.

土耳其深信自己的追求是正义的。而且文化部把从该国非法走私的文物和那些合法转移到更安全地方的文物混为一谈——但是没有办法证明这是合法的，因为以前判定所有权的方法不严谨。对于土耳其来说，所有西方博物馆收藏的文物都是从他那里偷走的。土耳其已经铁下心来让这些文物回家。

Mr Gunay’s ministry is beefing up its anti-smuggling and intelligence bureau, and will soon add criminal and legal units to its task force. Easy foreign travel, communication and technology have all helped the restitution campaign. Turkish émigrés and Turks travelling abroad have helped to identify objects in foreign museums. Online museum inventories, with details of acquisition and provenance, are another rich source of information. The ministry is also working with the American group behind WikiLoot, a not-yet-launched effort to use crowd-sourcing to combat the illicit antiquities trade.

居纳伊的维护部正在加强反走私和情报局的力量，该局的特别小组不久会配备刑事和法务部队。境外旅游部门、通讯部门和技术部门也从容不迫地投入到这场归还文物的战斗。土耳其的旅外侨民（还有在国外旅游的土耳其人）在西方博物馆帮助辨认文物。另外一个资源是信息丰富的网上博物馆，上面的文物清单详细地说明了文物的来源。文化部和美国的WikiLoot合作，把这股尚未使用的力量投入到打击非法古董交易的群众运动中。

Turkish self-justification is as romantic as it is defiant. Asked about the return of the sphinx of Hattusa, which he personally oversaw, Mr Gunay explained that it went to a museum in Corum, “the very homeland of the sphinx”. He added, “I wholeheartedly believe that each and every antiquity in any part of the world should eventually go back to its homeland. Even if these objects are made of stone, just as people have souls, so do animals, plants and monuments. Taking a monument away destabilises the world and is disrespectful to history.”

土耳其的自我辩白浪漫而大胆。被问到他亲自监督的哈图沙狮身人面像的归还时，居纳伊解释说，它去了乔鲁姆的一家博物馆，那里才是它真正的家。他又补充道：“我虔诚地认为世界上的每个古物都应该回到它的故乡。即使这些文物是石头做的，它们和人一样有灵魂，动物、植物、历史遗迹也是如此，转移历史遗迹破坏了世界的稳定，是对历史的亵渎。”

These arguments are selective. Turkish officials refuse to concede that Turkey itself, over centuries of domination, forcibly removed hundreds of objects from their homelands. Asked whether Alexander’s sarcophagus would be returned to Lebanon, Mr Gunay and his interpreter simply ignore the question. The Turks are too determined to depict themselves as victims of cultural oppression to accept that foreign museums and archaeologists have also played a part in saving their treasures.

他们的辩解是有选择性的。面对同样的问题，土耳其官员拒绝让步。在奥斯曼帝国统治的几个世纪里，数百件文物被从故乡强制迁走。当被问到土耳其是否会把亚力山大的大理石棺交还黎巴嫩，居纳伊和他的译员选择了回避土耳其人的态度过分坚决，并没能把自己描绘成文化压迫的受害者，他们也不认同国外博物馆和考古学家拯救了他们的文物。

The result is an impasse. Foreign museum directors wish to keep ties with Turkish museums, but if all objects from antiquity were to be repatriated to their land of origin, as Mr Gunay suggests, what justification is there for institutions such as the Met, the Louvre and the BM· Why, for example, should the BM retain the Parthenon marbles in London? The carvings were acquired by Lord Elgin when Greece was part of the Ottoman empire. Lord Elgin had obtained a firman, or Ottoman permission from the local authorities, but only after the payment of significant bribes. Does that make acquisitions illegal?

结论陷入了僵局。外国博物馆馆长期望和土耳其博物馆保持联系，但是如果将所有文物按照居纳伊的建议归还到原产地，大都会艺术博物馆、卢浮宫和大英博物馆能给出什么理由呢？比如伦敦的大英博物馆能保留帕台农神庙的大理石雕像吗？这是额尔金勋爵从希腊搞到的，那时候希腊还属于奥斯曼帝国。额尔金勋爵通过当地政府巨额贿赂弄到了敕令（奥斯曼帝国的许可）。这会使获取的文物非法吗？

Turkey’s campaign has strong support at home. But counting any object acquired without a distinct contract as stolen should alarm museums everywhere.

土耳其的这场斗争在国内获得了强烈支持。那些没有签署明确合同的馆藏文物被看做是偷来的，这给每个博物馆都敲响了警钟。