Found packed in a suitcase, this fifteenth-century fresco from Cyprus was among hundreds of antiquities seized by German authorities in Munich in 1997. They were the plunder of Aydin Dikmen, a smuggler who systematically stripped churches in northern Cyprus after it was occupied by Turkish forces in 1974. A year ago the Republic of Cyprus and the Greek Orthodox, Armenian, and Maronite Churches sued for their return. The Munich state court has now ruled that the objects, valued at $52.4 million, should go back.
© 2004 by the Archaeological Institute of America
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