Aydın Dikmen (born October 15, 1937 – April 8, 2020) was a Turkish

art dealer An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art, or acts as the intermediary between the buyers and sellers of art. An art dealer in contemporary art typically seeks out various artists to represent, and builds relationsh ...

who was arrested in 1998 for trying to sell

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

art that had been looted from

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

during the 1974 invasion. During the Turkish invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974, some of the churches and monasteries in the area were

looted Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...

for art treasures. He is responsible of looting over 50 Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Maronite monuments as well as archaeological sites and private collections. Among the looted artefacts are mosaics, frescoes, manuscripts, icons, doors and prehistoric artefacts. Greek Cypriot authorities now suspect that Dikmen had a major part of stripping the churches of their treasures or at least selling them. Dikmen sold thirteenth-century

fresco Fresco ( or frescoes) is a technique of mural painting executed upon freshly laid ("wet") lime plaster. Water is used as the vehicle for the dry-powder pigment to merge with the plaster, and with the setting of the plaster, the painting become ...

es from the St. Evphemianos church near Lysi,

, to the Menil Foundation in

Houston, Texas Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

, in 1984. The Cypriot church approved the deal providing that the frescoes would be returned to Cyprus eventually. In 1988 Dikmen, Dutch art dealer Michel van Rijn and associate Robert Fitzgerald sold four Kanakaria church mosaics to US dealer

Peg Goldberg PEG or peg may refer to: Devices * Clothes peg, a fastener used to hang up clothes for drying * Tent peg, a spike driven into the ground for holding a tent to the ground * Tuning peg, used to hold a string in the pegbox of a stringed instrumen ...

for $1 million. When she tried to sell them to the

J. Paul Getty Museum The J. Paul Getty Museum, commonly referred to as the Getty, is an art museum in Los Angeles, California, United States, housed on two campuses: the Getty Center and Getty Villa. It is operated by the J. Paul Getty Trust, the world's wealthies ...

in California, the museum curator contacted Greek Cypriot authorities. After a 1989 trial a federal court in

Indianapolis Indianapolis ( ), colloquially known as Indy, is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Indiana, most populous city of the U.S. state of Indiana and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana, Marion ...

ordered them to be returned to the Greek Orthodox Church in Cyprus. They currently reside in the Byzantine Museum in Cyprus. In March 1998, after an 8-month

sting operation In law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person attempting to commit a crime. A typical sting will have an undercover law enforcement officer, detective, or co-operative member of the public play a rol ...

initiated by

Tasoula Hadjitofi Tasoula Georgiou Hadjitofi (Modern Greek, Greek: Τασούλα Γεωργίου Χατζητοφή) was born in 1959 in Cyprus and lives in the Netherlands. She is an author, a cultural activist and an entrepreneur. Combating art trafficking Ha ...

, Honorary Consul of Cyprus in The Netherlands,

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

police recovered more treasures from apartments Dikmen had rented with a false names. Dikmen was arrested after he was videotaped when he tried to sell the treasures. Michel van Rijn cooperated with the police but later refused to testify against Dikmen after he had received death threats. The returned loot included 30 frescoes from the Antifonitis monastery, a mosaic from Kanakaria church and a number of icons. They were taken to the

Bavarian National Museum The Bavarian National Museum () in Munich is one of the most important museums of decorative arts in Europe and List of largest art museums, one of the largest art museums in Germany. Since the beginning the collection has been divided into two ...

for safekeeping before being returned to Cyprus. In July 2024 the last 60 looted antiquities were returned to Cyprus from Germany after an agreement between the two countries. The artefacts are 24 ecclesiastical relics and 36 prehistoric and other antiquities.

References

External links

*http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/cyprus/index.html Mark Rose, April 20, 1998 *http://www.archaeology.org/9807/etc/special.html Mark Rose, July/August 1998 {{DEFAULTSORT:Dikmen, Aydin Art thieves Turkish criminals 1937 births 2020 deaths Turkish invasion of Cyprus