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An ancient gold brooch and coin, part of a precious sixth-century BC collection, have been stolen from a Turkish museum, a minister said Sunday.
Tourism and Culture Minister Atilla Koc confirmed that an investigation was under way after the theft was reported in local media.
The Milliyet newspaper said experts had deemed that a sea horse-shaped brooch on display at the museum in the western town of Usak was in fact a fake and that the original was missing.
They had also found that the rare coin had been replaced by a similar but less precious piece dating to the same period.
The theft was discovered during an investigation by antiquities experts, launched on the basis of a tip-off that the brooch had been stolen, Milliyet said.
"It is not possible for such a planned and organized act to take place without the knowledge of museum officials," the experts said in their report, quoted by the newspaper.
The two pieces were part of the so-called Lydian Hoard, a collection of 363 silver, gold and glass pieces unearthed in the 1960s in burial mounds near Usak and subsequently smuggled abroad.
Some pieces were put on display at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 1985, and Turkey launched a 2.5-million-dollar (two-million-euro) legal battle to reclaim them.
The treasures were returned to Turkey in 1993 and put on diplay in Usak in 1996.
"The case has been turned over to the judiciary and and an investigation is under way," Koc was quoted by the Anatolia news agency as saying.
han/smc
Turkey-archaelogy-theft
AFP 281621 GMT 05 06
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