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Ancient Roman Bust Seized from Massachusetts Museum in Looting Probe 

The bust known as “Portrait of a Lady” was acquired in 1966 by the Worcester Art Museum. (Worcester Art Museum)
The bust known as “Portrait of a Lady” was acquired in 1966 by the Worcester Art Museum. (Worcester Art Museum)
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Ancient Roman Bust Seized from Massachusetts Museum in Looting Probe 

The bust known as “Portrait of a Lady” was acquired in 1966 by the Worcester Art Museum. (Worcester Art Museum)
The bust known as “Portrait of a Lady” was acquired in 1966 by the Worcester Art Museum. (Worcester Art Museum)

A bronze bust believed to depict the daughter of an ancient Roman emperor has been seized from an art museum in Massachusetts by New York authorities investigating antiquities stolen from Türkiye.

The seizure is the latest in an ongoing investigation into a smuggling network involving objects looted from Bubon in southwestern Türkiye and trafficked through Manhattan. A spokesperson for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg did not provide further details of the investigation.

The bust known as “Portrait of a Lady” was acquired in 1966 by the Worcester Art Museum about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Boston. The seizure comes weeks after the Manhattan district attorney’s office seized a statue thought to portray the Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius from a Cleveland, Ohio, museum.

Worcester Art Museum officials said in a statement that the bust taken from their possession dates from A.D. 160 to 180 and is believed to be a life-sized portrayal of a daughter of Marcus Aurelius or another Roman emperor, Septimius Severus.

Museum officials said they had “limited information” about the bust’s history when they acquired it nearly six decades ago.

“We are very thankful for the new information provided to us,” said Matthias Waschek, the museum’s director. “The ethical standards applicable to museums are much changed since the 1960s, and the Museum is committed to managing its collection consistent with modern ethical standards.”

The bust shows a young woman with a heavy-lidded gaze and hair carefully combed into waves.

Marcus Aurelius ruled as Roman emperor from A.D. 161 to 180 and was a Stoic philosopher whose “Meditations” have been studied over the centuries. Septimius Severus’ reign from A.D. 193 to 211 was marked by his efforts to convert the government into a military monarchy.

Türkiye first made claims about the Marcus Aurelius statue in 2012 when it released a list of nearly two dozen objects in the Cleveland museum’s collection that it said had been looted from Bubon and other locations. Museum officials said at the time that Türkiye had provided no hard evidence of looting.

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Adieu Paris as Niger Nixes Colonial French Place Names

This photograph taken in Niamey on October 15, 2024 shows children standing in front of the new plaque where Avenue General Charles de Gaulle was renamed to Avenue Djibo Bakary, named after the Nigerien political figure (1922-1998) who was the first mayor of Niamey (1956-1958), the president of the Niger Government Council (May 1957-October 1958) and a supporter of the immediate independence of Niger in the referendum called in 1958 by Former French President General Charles de Gaulle. (AFP)
This photograph taken in Niamey on October 15, 2024 shows children standing in front of the new plaque where Avenue General Charles de Gaulle was renamed to Avenue Djibo Bakary, named after the Nigerien political figure (1922-1998) who was the first mayor of Niamey (1956-1958), the president of the Niger Government Council (May 1957-October 1958) and a supporter of the immediate independence of Niger in the referendum called in 1958 by Former French President General Charles de Gaulle. (AFP)
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Adieu Paris as Niger Nixes Colonial French Place Names

This photograph taken in Niamey on October 15, 2024 shows children standing in front of the new plaque where Avenue General Charles de Gaulle was renamed to Avenue Djibo Bakary, named after the Nigerien political figure (1922-1998) who was the first mayor of Niamey (1956-1958), the president of the Niger Government Council (May 1957-October 1958) and a supporter of the immediate independence of Niger in the referendum called in 1958 by Former French President General Charles de Gaulle. (AFP)
This photograph taken in Niamey on October 15, 2024 shows children standing in front of the new plaque where Avenue General Charles de Gaulle was renamed to Avenue Djibo Bakary, named after the Nigerien political figure (1922-1998) who was the first mayor of Niamey (1956-1958), the president of the Niger Government Council (May 1957-October 1958) and a supporter of the immediate independence of Niger in the referendum called in 1958 by Former French President General Charles de Gaulle. (AFP)

Niger bid goodbye to the Avenue Charles de Gaulle on Tuesday as its ruling junta renamed several historic sites in the capital Niamey which previously bore references to old colonial master France.

Since taking power in a coup in July 2023, the Sahel nation's military rulers have turned their backs on Paris, instead forging ties with fellow juntas in Burkina Faso and Mali -- as well as Russia.

With the sound of marching bands blaring in the background, several junta officials took to the streets to witness the new names' inauguration.

"Most of our avenues, boulevards and streets... bear names that are simply reminders of the suffering and bullying our people endured during the ordeal of colonization," said Major Colonel Abdramane Amadou, Minister for Youth and a junta spokesman.

"The avenue which once bore the name of General Charles de Gaulle is henceforth christened 'Avenue Djibo Bakary'," Amadou added.

A socialist politician who died in 1998, Bakary was a key figure in the struggle for Niger's independence, which it obtained in 1960.

A few hundred meters further on, the memorial to those who died in the two world wars now pays "homage to all civilian and military victims of colonization to the present day".

With the ruling junta frequently accusing France of wishing to topple it, the renaming of monuments and streets marks a symbolic confirmation of Niger's break with its former imperial ruler.

Since the coup, Niger's authorities have expelled both the French soldiers fighting against the region's persistent extremist threat and the French ambassador, while the Franco-Nigerien cultural center is no longer run as a joint venture and has been renamed after Niger's filmmaker Moustapha Alassane.

- 'Honour our ancestors' -

Other monuments across Niamey will bear new names from Tuesday onwards.

A portrait of French commander and explorer Parfait-Louis Monteil, engraved for decades in stone, was replaced by a plaque bearing the effigy of neighboring Burkina Faso's iconic communist leader Thomas Sankara.

An anti-imperialist hero nicknamed Africa's Che Guevara, Sankara was killed in a 1987 coup his widow and supporters accuse France of having a hand in organizing.

Amadou hailed Sankara as a man whose "struggle for liberation" and "emancipation of peoples" was "still inspiring people" today.

Meanwhile the Place de Francophonie was renamed after the Alliance of Sahel States -- a confederation created with Mali and Burkina Faso in 2023, cementing relations between the coup-hit countries.

All three had their membership suspended to the 88-state International Organization of La Francophonie in the wake of their coups.

From now on "we are going to honor our ancestors", vowed General Assoumane Abdou Harouna, the capital region's governor and a junta figure.

Oumarou Abdourahamane, president of the Niger branch of the NGO Urgences Panafricanistes, welcomed the new names.

"It makes no sense for our streets to continue to bear the names of former colonists... and so justice is being done by renaming these streets, by naming them after our country's heroes," he said.

Urgences Panafricanistes is headed at the international level by activist Kemi Seba, known for his virulent anti-Western views, who was arrested on Monday in Paris for as-yet unknown reasons.

Seba, who was born in France to Beninese parents, holds a Nigerien diplomatic passport as special adviser to junta leader Abdourahamane Tiani.

The controversial militant, who was recently stripped of his French nationality, is a radical black power activist who is regularly accused of anti-Semitism and has been sentenced in France several times for incitement to racial hatred.

In June 2023, shortly before the coup that toppled elected president Mohamed Bazoum, Niger also adopted a new national anthem titled "For the honor of the fatherland", which references the anti-colonial struggle.

It replaced "La Nigerienne", whose lyrics were written by French composer Maurice Albert Thiriet in 1961, a year after the country gained its independence.