The first repatriation of Turkish artefacts from Canada took place earlier this week, marking a historic milestone and setting an important precedent in international law. Turkey’s minister of culture and tourism, Mehmet Nuri Ersoy, announced via social media that seven manuscript pages, two printed work pages and two modern calligraphy works have been returned through a Canadian federal court ruling.
“This development has been recorded as the first official repatriation of cultural property from Canada to Türkiye,” Ersoy wrote on 31 March. “We protect our heritage and return history’s entrusted treasures to the lands where they were born.”
Dating from the 17th to 19th centuries, the Ottoman-era manuscripts being repatriated feature Arabic and Turkish calligraphy on a range of topics from Islamic jurisprudence, Sufism, history and literature. While analysis revealed the removal of the original bindings from some pages and the addition of some modern miniatures—interventions deemed commercial and not authentic—the items retained their status as cultural heritage.
One of the works repatriated to Turkey from Canada this week Courtesy of the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry
Ersoy added that the repatriation is a “meticulous process” initiated by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) that “carries significant weight as a strong international precedent”. He thanked a team that includes the Turkish General Directorate of Cultural Heritage and Museums, the Presidency of Turkey’s Manuscripts Institution, the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts and the Turkish embassy in Ottawa.
The artefacts were handed over during an official ceremony on 30 March at the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa, where representatives of Turkey’s ministry of culture and tourism received the items from Canadian officials, completing a legal and diplomatic process that began more than a year ago.
According to Ersoy, the artefacts were first intercepted by the CBSA as they were being transported from Istanbul to Vancouver. After the case was referred to the Canadian Ministry of Heritage, official communication with Turkey initiated the technical and legal proceedings. Scientific reports and legal documents presented by Turkey led the Canadian Federal Court to rule that the artifacts are Turkish cultural property under national law, authorising their return.
Canadian and Turkish officials during the repatriation ceremony on 30 March at the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa Courtesy of the Turkish Culture and Tourism Ministry
He emphasised that the repatriation not only restores Turkey’s cultural property but also highlights the progress of international cooperation in protecting cultural heritage, in line with the 1970 Unesco Convention. No information has been released indicating whether the buyer of the artefacts had purchased them knowing their illicit provenance or believing them to have been legally exported.
Experts consulted by The Art Newspaper said that while Turkey is a significant channel for antiquities smuggled from across the Middle East, Eastern Europe and Western Asia, they were surprised that the first interception of Turkish artefacts happened in Vancouver rather than Toronto. British Columbia has Canada’s third largest community of Turks, after Ontario and Quebec, estimated at over 8,000 in the last census in 2021, with most settled in Vancouver. Turkish Airlines began non-stop flights between Vancouver and Istanbul a few years ago to serve the growing community.
“It’s excellent news that the pages were intercepted and returned,” says Dominique Langis-Barsetti, an archaeologist at Université Laval in Québec City who has worked extensively in Turkey. “That’s the heart of the 1970 Unesco Convention to prevent the illicit import/export of cultural property,” of which both Canada and Turkey are signatories.
“Art historians everywhere welcome the recovery of works of art removed illegally from their country of origin,” says Hector Williams, a Vancouver-based archaeologist, professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia and the secretary of the Canadian Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles. “It is a welcome first step for Canada’s cultural relations with the Republic of Türkiye, a valued Nato ally, that our officials should have intercepted and returned these artworks to their country of origin, especially at a time when Canada is benefitting from the return of First Nations works from major collections like those of the British and Vatican museums.”
