At least two of the artifacts were at the centre of a long legal battle over stolen antiquities between Turkey and New York´s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The Met had returned the pieces — a golden brooch in the shape of a sea horse, and a coin — in 1993 after a dispute that began in 1970.
The Turkish prosecutor´s office says nine people, including the Archeological Museum´s director Kazim Akbiyikoglu, have been detained for questioning in connection with the switch.
Turkish Culture and Tourism Minister Atilla Koc confirmed a newspaper report of the theft on Sunday. "Unfortunately the incident is true," he said, according to Associated Press.
"You can maintain external security, but we haven´t yet invented a tool to protect them from people on the inside," he said.
The Met had displayed 363 artifacts from the "Lydian Hoard" that it purchased in the 1960s. Turkish officials said the collection had been stolen from burial mounds in the Usak region in 1966.
Turkey launched a lawsuit in 1987 that led to the eventual return of the artifacts to Turkey.
King Croesus ruled the warrior-like Lydians in what was then known as Asia Minor. Greek literature, including writings by Aeschylus, referred to the amount of gold owned by the Lydians and used in everyday artifacts, originating the expression "rich as Croesus."
The theft lends a new twist to the increasingly heated issue of returning disputed artifacts to their country of origin.
In February, the Met agreed to return to Italy 21 artifacts that experts said were illegally excavated. Italy and Greece both have claims against the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. And Egypt´s Supreme Council of Antiquities is beginning to press its case for the return of artifacts from around the world.
Met director Philippe de Montebello had criticized Turkey for displaying the Croesus items in Usak, in a museum visited by just 769 people in the last five years.
The theft may have happened five months ago, Turkish officials admitted, but the incident has only been officially confirmed recently.
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/story/2006/05/30/croesus-theft.html
