評論
打印
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.”
大英博物館聲稱這方石碑1927年被該館收藏，那時候奧斯曼帝國已經覆滅九年了，得到這個文物的地方是敘利亞，不是土耳其。土耳其人卻對此無動于衷。“大英博物館沒有合作的觀念”托普卡匹博物館館長特伯·奧特里說，“他們根本不愿意合作。”
Shock, not awe
驚而不恐
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.
土耳其已將很多國外博物館納入視野。文化部長發出了尋找流失海外藝術品的清單，對盧浮宮、佩加蒙、倫敦維多利亞與艾伯特博物館、里斯本古本提安博物館、丹麥哥本哈根市大衛收藏館、華盛頓特區敦巴頓橡樹收藏館、克利夫蘭藝術博物館也有類似的要求。土耳其也要求歸還遭警察查封的被盜古董，它們現存于法蘭克福、佛羅倫薩、保加利亞、瑞士和蘇格蘭。
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.
那些博物館館長有不同程度的吃驚，有的已經咨詢過律師，其他的，如倫敦維多利亞與艾伯特博物館館長希望長期出借有爭議的藏品會滿足安卡拉的要求。（居納伊說“無限期的出借”就足夠了。）還有更多的館長在搪塞，希望土耳其當局會失去興趣。然而這是不可能的。
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義的。而且文化部把從該國非法走私的文物和那些合法轉移到更安全地方的文物混為一談——但是沒有辦法證明這是合法的，因為以前判定所有權的方法不嚴謹。對于土耳其來說，所有西方博物館收藏的文物都是從他那里偷走的。土耳其已經鐵下心來讓這些文物回家。
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.
居納伊的維護部正在加強反走私和情報局的力量，該局的特別小組不久會配備刑事和法務部隊。境外旅游部門、通訊部門和技術部門也從容不迫地投入到這場歸還文物的戰斗。土耳其的旅外僑民（還有在國外旅游的土耳其人）在西方博物館幫助辨認文物。另外一個資源是信息豐富的網上博物館，上面的文物清單詳細地說明了文物的來源。文化部和美國的WikiLoot合作，把這股尚未使用的力量投入到打擊非法古董交易的群眾運動中。
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.”
土耳其的自我辯白浪漫而大膽。被問到他親自監督的哈圖沙獅身人面像的歸還時，居納伊解釋說，它去了喬魯姆的一家博物館，那里才是它真正的家。他又補充道：“我虔誠地認為世界上的每個古物都應該回到它的故鄉。即使這些文物是石頭做的，它們和人一樣有靈魂，動物、植物、歷史遺跡也是如此，轉移歷史遺跡破壞了世界的穩定，是對歷史的褻瀆。”
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.
他們的辯解是有選擇性的。面對同樣的問題，土耳其官員拒絕讓步。在奧斯曼帝國統治的幾個世紀里，數百件文物被從故鄉強制遷走。當被問到土耳其是否會把亞力山大的大理石棺交還黎巴嫩，居納伊和他的譯員選擇了回避土耳其人的態度過分堅決，并沒能把自己描繪成文化壓迫的受害者，他們也不認同國外博物館和考古學家拯救了他們的文物。
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?
結論陷入了僵局。外國博物館館長期望和土耳其博物館保持聯系，但是如果將所有文物按照居納伊的建議歸還到原產地，大都會藝術博物館、盧浮宮和大英博物館能給出什么理由呢？比如倫敦的大英博物館能保留帕臺農神廟的大理石雕像嗎？這是額爾金勛爵從希臘搞到的，那時候希臘還屬于奧斯曼帝國。額爾金勛爵通過當地政府巨額賄賂弄到了敕令（奧斯曼帝國的許可）。這會使獲取的文物非法嗎？
Turkey’s campaign has strong support at home. But counting any object acquired without a distinct contract as stolen should alarm museums everywhere.
土耳其的這場斗爭在國內獲得了強烈支持。那些沒有簽署明確合同的館藏文物被看做是偷來的，這給每個博物館都敲響了警鐘。
