The Cleveland Museum of Art announced the decision to return a headless Greco-Roman bronze statue, previously believed to depict Emperor Marcus Aurelius, to Turkey. This followed a series of discussions initiated by the Manhattan District Attorney's Antiquities Tracking Unit regarding the statue's provenance. Museum officials undertook extensive scientific tests, including soil and mould analyses, to substantiate their claims about the statue's origins. Ultimately, the museum decided to return the piece, having determined that the connection to its origin in Turkey was valid and substantiated.
"The New York District Attorney approached us with a claim and evidence that we felt was not utterly persuasive," says William M. Griswold, the director of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
"So, we were able to compare the physical models of our statue's feet to those cuttings to see where they best fit," says Seth Pevnick, the museum's curator of Greek and Roman art.
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