Usak, TURKEY: A combo picture released 14 June 2006 shows the original (L) and the fake (R) brooch from the so-called Lydian Hoard. The theft of an ancient masterpiece from a Turkish museum — with the suspected help of its director — has sounded the alarm over Turkey’s ability to protect its heritage, prompting inspections in public-run museums across the country.The scandal broke in May when the director of the Usak museum in western Turkey and six others were arrested, suspected of stealing a golden brooch in the shape of a winged seahorse from the so-called Lydian Hoard and replacing it with a fake. The embarrassment was compounded by the fact that the famed 2,500-year-old collection, known in Turkey as the “Treasure of Croesus,” was repatriated only in 1993 after a lengthy legal battle with New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art that reportedly cost 40 million dollars (31 million euros). AFP PHOTO / IHLAS NEWS AGENCY (Photo credit should read -/AFP via Getty Images)
THE famed Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York pulled in a record 7.35 million visitors in the last financial year, the institution announced last Thursday (5), four months after introducing mandatory out-of-town admission charges. The attendance figures for the fiscal year ending June 30 covered the cultural landmark’s Fifth Avenue headquarters, the Met Cloisters in northern Manhattan and the Met Breuer dedicated to modern and contemporary art. The Met said it was the highest fiscal-year attendance in the museum’s recorded history, attributing it in large part to a Michelangelo exhibition visited by 702,516 people from November 2017 to February…
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