700 Year-Old Torah Manuscript Seized in Giresun in Turkey; Suspect Wanted to Sell it for $1.5M
Edited by: TJVNews.com
A copy of the Torah, estimated to be around 700 years old, was seized by provincial gendarmerie teams in the Bulancak district of Giresun in Turkey on Thursday, according to a report on the Daily Sabah web site.
While the Torah was handed over to the museum directorate, a suspect was also detained, as was reported on the expatguideturkey.com web site.
Acting on a tipoff about the manuscript’s sale, gendarmerie teams detained a person identified by the initials I.M.P. who wanted to sell the historic relic for $1.5 million, the Daily Sabah reported. During the interrogation at the District Gendarmerie Command, it was revealed that the suspect brought the 700-year-old Torah from Istanbul to the Bulancak district of Giresun to sell it.
It was reported that the Torah manuscript has been handed over to the Giresun Museum Directorate and an investigation into the incident is currently underway, the report indicated.
In late November 2017, Turkish media reported that security forces seized a Torah manuscript earlier that month that was thought to be at least 700 years old and that was up for sale for $1.9 million.
Police, acting on a tip, reportedly detained four antique dealers after they tried to sell the manuscript to plainclothes detectives in Turkey’s southern Mugla province, as was reported by the Times of Israel.
Three of them were released to house arrest and one remained behind bars.
Police gave the manuscript, written on gazelle leather, to Istanbul’s Fethiye Museum for examination.
In 2012, Turkish police arrested four people in the Mediterranean province of Adana for allegedly attempting to sell an ancient Torah scroll they said was nearly 2,000 years old, the private broadcaster NTV reported at the time, as was indicated in the TOI report.
TOI also reported that the oldest known complete version of the Torah is the Leningrad Codex, which dates back to the early 11th century CE. Few existing Torah scrolls are older than 500 years.
