“Every work of art is beautiful and meaningful in the place where it belongs.” In a statement that is also a political manifesto, Turkey’s Minister of Culture and Tourism Mehmet Nuri Ersoy welcomed back 12 fragments of precious Roman-era mosaics on Dec. 8. at the Zeugma Mosaic Museum in the southeastern city of Gaziantep. They were illegally excavated in the Hellenistic city of Zeugma in Southeastern Turkey and smuggled to the United States in the 1960s. “We will chase and bring back home all the cultural wealth that have been pillaged from this geography,” the minister said.

The fragments, about 50 by 50 centimeters (20 by 20 inches) each, depict theatrical masks, river birds and minor deities. They were identified by experts only a few years ago and recovered by Turkish authorities through an agreement with Ohio's Bowling Green State University, which had acquired them in good faith.

In the last 15 years, Ankara has tried every possible means to reclaim its cultural heritage improperly taken abroad, from international tribunals to strong-arm tactics such as revoking excavation permits to archaeological missions. On many occasions, it worked.

Since 2002, Turkey has recovered more than 4,000 artifacts, including a Hittite sphinx from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, the upper half of a “Weary Heracles” statue from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and golden jewelry from the Penn Museum now proudly shown at the new Troy museum.