Turkey's demand for the return of the Sphinx of Hattusha
Press release from 02/25/2011
In connection with Turkey's demand for the return of the Sphinx of Hattusha, Hermann Parzinger, President of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, explains: "The Hittite sphinx from Bogazköy (Hattusha) has been the subject of demands for its return from Turkey since the 1930s. Since then, nothing has changed in the differing legal assessment of the case by the German and Turkish sides. There are no new documents to support either view. However, precisely because of the special quality and history of German-Turkish relations, new, constructive ways should be sought to resolve this case. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is open to such paths if they strengthen scientific and cultural co-operation between our countries. However, solutions are only conceivable within the framework of comprehensive co-operation between the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz and Turkish museums, which should be discussed by experts as soon as possible. However, the threat to close German excavations in Turkey, which have rendered outstanding services to archaeological research in Anatolia over the decades, does not create a climate that promotes the search for a positive solution."
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation always decides on restitution requests in consultation with the Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Federal Foreign Office. In addition to specialist expertise, legal and political aspects play a decisive role.
The Sphinx of Hattusha, now Bogazköy, was found in 1907 during Turkish excavations in which German archaeologists were involved. In 1915/1917, this piece and another sphinx as well as 10,000 Hittite clay tablets were sent to the Museum of the Ancient Near East in Berlin for restoration and scientific processing and research. The fragments come from a gateway complex of the Hittite capital and are dated to the beginning of the 2nd half of the 2nd millennium BC (14th/13th century).
The gateway with the two sphinx sculptures was found in a badly damaged condition, having been shattered into numerous individual pieces by fire. The fragments of the sculptures were reassembled in Berlin and missing parts were added. The better preserved sculpture was returned to Istanbul in 1924, together with the first clay tablets, which were worked on, cleaned and restored between 1920 and 1942. The work is now in the Ancient Oriental Museum in Istanbul.
The second sculpture, together with the copy of its Istanbul counterpart, was integrated into the Pergamon Museum's tour of large-scale architecture as a gate situation and has thus been on display in Berlin since 1934 as a testimony to Hittite civilisation. The work has been the subject of academic publications since 1935. In 1938, the Turkish side demanded the return of the Sphinx in Berlin for the first time. In 1987, the remaining 7,000 clay tablets, which had remained in Berlin due to the war, were handed over to Turkey by the then government of the GDR. After reunification, Turkey intensified its demand for the return of the Sphinx to the German Foreign Office.