1,500-YEAR-OLD TORAH recovered from Turkish smugglers.

In addition to the Torah, many other historical artifacts belonging to the Hellenistic (of or relating to the history, art, etc. of ancient Greece and other countries of theEastern Mediterranean, especially during the 4th to the 1st century BC) and Seljuq periods (Great Seljuq Empire, modern Turkey), including statues, stone rubbings, jewelry, and coins were recovered.

The Torah, inscribed on leather, was handed over with the other artifacts to the Balikesir (city, NW Turkey) Museum Directorship. 

Turkish law enforcement detained two suspects and later released them on probation, and believe the smugglers brought the artifacts from Istanbul and Bingol (is a city in Eastern Turkey), an eastern Turkish province. 

So far, this has been a big week for the recovery of stolen Jewish antiquities. A 50-year-old Palestinian man was arrested on Tuesday after police seized 
 hundreds of stolen rare antiquities from the Second Temple period stored (which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem during the Second Temple period,between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon. ) in his West Bank home in the village of Huwara, near Nablus. 

According to police, jewelry, pottery and hundreds of coins valued at tens of thousands of shekels were found following a joint investigation with the Archaeology Department of the Civil Administration in Judea (a region named Land of Israel and Palestine) and Samaria (is a mountainous region in the Southern Levant) into illegal trafficking on the black market.