By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The mosaics embedded in the floor outside the Eva Marie Saint Theater are going home.
Bowling Green State University announced today that it has reached an agreement with Turkey to repatriate the mosaics, which have been in the university’s possession for more than 50 years. The transfer will be made this year according to the agreement signed today (May 14) with Turkey’s Directorate General for Cultural Heritage and Museums of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
They were purchased from a dealer, Peter Mark, legally and in full accordance with the law, the university stated. They were believed at the time to have come from Antioch.
Questions about the provenance arose in 2012 through the work of art historians Stephanie Langin-Hooper, then of the BGSU faculty and now at Southern Methodist University, and Dr. Rebecca Molholt, of Brown University and now deceased. They could not find a record of these mosaics in Antioch but found matching patterns in ruins in the area of Zeugma, Turkey, Langin-Hooper said at the time. Those patterns were unique to these mosaics.
The BGSU announcement states: “Additional research and consultation with scholars, art experts and representatives from the Republic of Turkey have confirmed that the mosaics are very likely from Zeugma and that the provenance of the pieces prior to BGSU’s acquisition will likely never be known.”
The directorate will pay for the cost of the mosaics’ removal and return as well as providing high quality replicas to replace the originals, according to the university press release.
Once returned to Turkey the mosaics will be displayed at the Zeugma Mosaic Museum in the city of Gaziantep. This near the area from which they were removed. That site is now a reservoir.
The university says the return “will allow the historic artifacts to be appreciated and studied where they originated and be enjoyed by a much wider audience.”
That was an important factor for the university. “The preservation and care of the mosaics has been a priority for the University for the last 53 years,” BGSU President Rodney Rogers stated. “As a university, we have relied upon the expertise of scholars to guide us, both when we acquired the mosaics and now. It is clear today that the best place for these precious artifacts is back in the Republic of Turkey at the Zeugma Mosaic Museum. We greatly appreciate the collegiality of the Turkish Ministry of Culture in working with us to come to an agreement. We look forward to continued collaborations.”
In 2012, the university reported that the mosaics were purchased for about $35,000 with the approval of then President William Jerome with the assistance of art professor Hugh Broadley from Peter Marks Works of Art.
They, however, were kept in storage until 1979 when the then-curator of the McFall Gallery on campus, Mary Wolfe, advocated to have them displayed outside the gallery. They resided there until they were removed in 2008 to be cleaned and restored in preparation for their installation in the Wolfe Center.
At the time, BGSU was praised for its cooperation with determining the provenance of the mosaics. Bible History Daily described BGSU as responding “quickly and candidly.”
