Found and returned

This mosaic had maybe the most amazing history of all on display at the Gaziantep museum (remember I previously showed Euphrates the river god and the girl whose image has become the exhibition signature?). The Zeugma rescue excavations found basically only the frame of this piece and the feet of the figures in it - the rest of the image was blank and presumed to have been stolen by antique-robbers. Later, the remaining piece was identified in a private US museum and returned to the collection in Gaziantep, as you can see below! It had been there since the early 1960's when it had apparently been taken from the site on the Euphrates and sold on an art market which was maybe at the time less conscientious about sources than most would be today. Happy endings are nice!