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The year is 1973..
Datça, you see, is a remote town, far from sight and heart..
No birds fly, no caravans pass..
A woman arrives, an American..
Is she impressive? Very much so..
Prof. Iris Cornelia Love..
This lady is an archaeologist..
She holds a document like a deed.
She obtained it from Ankara..
She is going to excavate Knidos..
She’s like a female Indiana Jones..
With a pickaxe and shovel, she sets to work with a team of twenty..
She strikes the pickaxe..
No one watches, no one supervises..
She riddles the beautiful Knidos with holes..
Just like a mole..
She breaks the marbles..
She smashes the sarcophagi..
They claim to be searching for the so-called Naked Aphrodite Statue..
What a joke!..
Ceramics, statues, busts are secretly taken out..
And the precious historical artifacts are smuggled abroad..
Ankara is asleep but our villagers are not..
"This American woman is up to something," they say..
They report the matter to the Yakaköy village headman..
The headman of Yakaköy at that time is a party man..
Addicted to alcohol..
A libertine..
The American woman finds his weak spot..
She takes our headman to drinking tables and chats him up..
She keeps him drinking until he is dead drunk at night..
The headman sleeps during the day..
While he sleeps, the plundering of Knidos continues..
Four whole years pass..
The year is 1977..
Finally Ankara wakes up..
Finally it seizes Knidos..
The excavation permit of the American woman is revoked..
She is promptly sent back to her country..
*. *. *
A few years after Prof. Iris Cornelia Love was sent back to her country, a relative comes to Datça..
Like an ordinary person..
His name is Richard Rosenberg..
He buys a large piece of land in the area now known as Güllerdağı Farm in Reşadiye.
Then he immediately applies for Turkish citizenship..
Richard becomes Reşat..
Our Reşat starts olive farming..
He also establishes a company called "Olive Farm" in his home country..
In Oregon..
He exports the olives and olive oil products he produces in Datça to America under the "Olive Farm" brand through his own company..
Every month, truckloads of products go to America..
But as we said, our villagers are alert..
They become suspicious of this American too..
They report our Reşat..
During a raid on the farm, dozens of historical artifacts are found..
Hidden among the olive oils, packed to be sent to America..
Reşat, caught red-handed, is immediately arrested and imprisoned..
In his statement at the Duty Magistrate's Criminal Court, he claims that some of the artifacts were purchased by workers from various places during the establishment of the farm, and some were brought from different parts of Datça years ago and placed on the farm..
However, he does not have a collector’s license..
Later, by an order from Ankara, he is released on condition of trial without detention..
And Reşat disappears..
No one knows where he fled or what he did..
But maybe, as you read these lines, our Reşat and Prof. Iris Cornelia Love are drinking thousands of dollars worth of wine in Portland, Oregon..
In memory of Knidos..
In honor of what they smuggled from Knidos..
(Sedat Kaya, Datça)
