Türkiye Recovers Missing Gypsy Girl Mosaic Panel from Zeugma

by · Greek City Times

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Türkiye has recovered a long-missing panel from the famed Gypsy Girl Mosaic and returned it to the Zeugma Mosaic Museum in Gaziantep, Culture Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced on Tuesday.

The 13th panel, dating to the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, was repatriated following joint efforts with US authorities after it surfaced at an international auction. The mosaic originates from the ancient city of Zeugma, a major Hellenistic Greek and later Greco-Roman settlement on the Euphrates River.

Speaking at the handover ceremony, Ersoy recalled that the mosaic was broken apart during illegal excavations in the 1960s, with many of its panels smuggled abroad. Twelve pieces were repatriated and reunited with the artwork at the Zeugma Mosaic Museum in 2018.

Scientific research by Camila Felag of France’s Grenoble Alpes University, together with assessments by Zeugma excavation director Kutalmış Görkay, confirmed that the newly recovered panel belongs to the same composition.

“Today, we are pleased to add the 13th panel to the museum’s collection,” Ersoy said, describing it as an important addition to one of the world’s largest mosaic museums.

He stressed that the recovery demonstrates how combating cultural property trafficking requires coordinated scientific research, legal mechanisms and international cooperation.

“As missing pieces return, we are not only completing a mosaic but also restoring a damaged memory, filling gaps in history and reuniting a cultural asset with the heritage to which it belongs,” he said.

Türkiye has recovered 13,454 cultural artifacts since 2002 under a memorandum of understanding with the United States that was signed in 2021 and recently extended for another five years.

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