OREANDA-NEWS. The Amsterdam Court of Appeal suspended the final decision on the Scythian gold.

A collection of Scythian gold (about 2 thousand artifacts) was taken from the Crimean museums to the exhibition titled “Crimea – Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea” at the Allard Pierson Archaeological Museum in Amsterdam in February 2014. A month later, Crimea joined Russia. After the end of the exhibition, the question arose whether the exhibits should be returned to the museums, from where they had been taken, or to Ukraine.

In 2016, judges stated that the artifacts should be returned to Ukraine, and the question of the collection’s ownership should be decided after that, according with the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property of 1970. The Crimean museums appealed against this decision, because they consider that after Kiev gets the collection it will never return to the Crimea.

On July 16 2019, Yefim Fiks, the first Deputy Chairman of the Crimean parliament, stated that the decision of the Amsterdam court on the Scythian gold would be a kind of democracy test. He stressed that it would be fair to return the collection to to the Crimea. Representatives of the museums noted that all artifacts were found in the Crimea and they are a part of its history, so they should be returned there and the state borders are not important in this case.

Now, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal needs additional information related to the ownership of the parties to pass a proper judgment. There were given 2 months to collect it. The final decision can be expected in 6–9 months.