Don't hold your breath. Unlike the Oknins, who were arrested in Turkey and released thanks to diplomatic intervention, the "hostage" known as the Siloam inscription won't be freed so quickly from the golden cage in which the Turks have kept it prisoner for over 100 years. The reason is simple: possession of the inscription isn't just another whim of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
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In this case, there is method to the madness. The person who has restored study of the Ottoman language to schools in his country and holds receptions for soldiers of the caliphates won't rush to return the stolen Siloam inscription to Israel.
Erdogan, who sees himself as the representative of the Muslim civilization and the heir of Saladin and Suleiman the Magnificent – who with the stroke of a pen turned the 1,400-year-old Hagia Sophia church into a mosque – won't relinquish control of antiquities that the Ottoman sultans stole.
The inscription itself, which is so exciting to us and contains so much history of the Jewish people, is of no importance to Erdogan. The documentation from the days of King Hezekiah of Judah, the meeting between two groups of Jewish quarry workers in the darkness of the tunnels that took the water of the Gihon spring to the Pool of Siloam, is trivial to him. What is important to him is to prove, in part by keeping the imperial antiquities, that his Turkey is the real thing, and mostly – superior to lower cultures and religions, like it was during the Ottoman Empire.
The conditions of Omar from the beginning of the eighth century, which codified the status of dhimmis – Jews and Christians living under Muslim rule – as non-Muslim subjects governed by Islamic law might not be relevant in modern-day Turkey, but in Erdogan's world, their spirit lives.
According to the basic outlook of the Muslim Brotherhood, of whom Erdogan sees himself as the global patron, the Jews are a religion, not a people, and a collection of communities that belong to different peoples and places. Judaism has been cancelled out by Islam – the true religion. In Erdogan's view, the goal of Islam is to supplant Judaism and Christianity, which can exist only as dhimmis, dependent on a Muslim ruler. This is why Turkey isn't rushing to give up valuable antiquities identified with "lower" religions and cultures.
The Istanbul Antiquities Museum is also home to the Soreg or Temple Warning inscription, which is mentioned in the writing of Yosef ben Matityahu. It warns: " No stranger is to enter within the balustrade round the temple and enclosure. Whoever is caught will be himself responsible for his ensuing death." The Soreg panel was discovered in 1871 on the wall of an Arab school to the north of the Temple Mount. It was removed, like the Shiloh inscription was, and they both wound up in Turkey.
Turkey is also in possession of Crusader inscriptions taken from the Latrun area, as well as a mosaic from the fifth century. The mosaic was taken from the floor of a Byzantine-era church that was discovered north of Damascus Gate in the 19th century, and features a depiction of the Greek god Orpheus playing a harp.
The Turks also took the Gezer inscription, a calendar that dates back to the ninth century BCE, which for a time was believed to be the oldest archaeological inscription in proto-Hebrew writing. The panel is inscribed with seven rows of the months of the year, alongside the agricultural work of each month.
Even the beautiful Megiddo seal, which was sent to Sultan Abdel Hamid as a gift during World War I, was stolen by the Turks. The seal features the name of Shema Ebed Jeroboam and the image of a roaring lion. It was discovered in the first excavations at Tel Megiddo at the start of the 20th century by Gottlieb Shumacher of the Templar community in Haifa. The seal apparently belonged to Shema, a commander in the army of Jeroboam II, who ruled Israel from 784-748 BCE.
Erdogan's Turkey, even at a time of reconciliation and amid fervent attempts to curry favor with Israel, isn't letting go of cultural artifacts rooted entirely in the Land of Israel and the history of the Jewish people. You could say their return is a litmus test of Erdogan's true intentions. When he gives them back, we'll know that something has really changed.
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