Scythian gold will have to be returned to Ukraine. The Dutch Supreme Court decides this

Thegold of Scythia, the valuable set of works that had been loaned for an exhibition at the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam in 2014(Crimea: Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea) by four Crimean museums and one in Kiev, will have to be returned toUkraine. The important nucleus of works had been at the center of an international dispute for nearly a decade, because while the works were on display in the Netherlands, Russia occupied Crimea and then decreed its annexation in a referendum not recognized by the vast majority of UN countries. As a result, Ukraine, which owned the objects as they belonged to its state collections, demanded their return, but the same claim was made by the museums that had lent them, which then ended up under Russian administration.

The dispute had been settled by the Dutch courts , which had confirmed in the first two instances that Ukraine was the rightful owner of the Scythian gold. This morning came the final confirmation, with the Supreme Court of the Netherlands, the country’s highest judicial body, delivering its verdict: the Scythian gold should be returned to Ukraine. The decision of the Amsterdam Court of Appeal dating back to October 2021 is thus confirmed.

Indeed, the Supreme Court rejected the Crimean museums’ appeal in cassation, thus upholding the decision of the court of appeals but also that of the Amsterdam court on December 14, 2016, which had decided to return the gold to Ukraine. However, in January 2017 the Crimean museums began appealing the decision, eventually appealing to the Supreme Court, which ruled on June 9 that the treasures are a cultural heritage of Ukraine as a whole. Now, with the Supreme Court’s decision, the litigation has finally come to an end.

“The Supreme Court’s decision puts an end to this dispute. The Allard Pierson Museum must transfer the artistic values to the state of Ukraine, not to Crimean museums,” the court ruling said.

Image: the golden helmet belonging to the treasury of Scythia. Photo by Monique Kooijmans (Allard Pierson)

Scythian gold will have to be returned to Ukraine. The Dutch Supreme Court decides this

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