A Roman-era statue, thought to symbolize Marcus Aurelius, stands in a gallery on the Cleveland Museum of Art on June 25, 2010.

Amy Sancetta/AP

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Amy Sancetta/AP

A Roman-era statue, thought to symbolize Marcus Aurelius, stands in a gallery on the Cleveland Museum of Art on June 25, 2010.

Amy Sancetta/AP

A headless bronze statue, believed to depict Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, has belonged to the Cleveland Museum of Art for practically 40 years. But quickly, the artifact can be in New York the place authorities will examine whether or not it was stolen from Turkey.

The life-size statue is over 6 ft tall, about 1,800 years previous and valued at $20 million. It is believed to be one in every of many antiquities looted from Bubon, in southwest Turkey, and trafficked in Manhattan a long time in the past.

On Aug. 14, a New York decide signed a warrant ordering the statue to be seized. As of Friday, it’s presently awaiting transport, in response to the Manhattan District Attorney’s workplace.

The investigation into the sculpture’s origins comes over a decade after the Turkish authorities’s claimed that 21 objects on the Cleveland Museum of Art had been linked to a bootleg commerce.

Over the years, nations internationally, together with Turkey and Italy, have been urging main American establishments to return artifacts they imagine had been stolen.

Todd Mesek, a spokesperson for the Cleveland Museum of Art, stated museum officers are taking the allegations “very seriously” and couldn’t communicate additional on the matter.

Emperor Marcus Aurelius led Rome throughout a time of famine, a significant flood and plague. Those painful experiences gave Aurelius a singular perspective on how to deal with adversity. His writings in Meditations put Stoicism into observe and it’s among the many hottest self-help guides ever written.

The Cleveland Museum of Art obtained the statue in 1986. The sculpture, titled “Draped Male Figure,” was a part of the museum’s Greek and Roman Art division.