Showing results 13 - 24 of 25 for the month of May, 2010.

May 22, 2010

When deaccessioning from museums is possible

Posted at 2:25 pm in British Museum, Similar cases

The British Museum (& most state / local authority owned museums in the UK), often stand behind the screen of anti-deaccessioning regulations, using these as an excuse to avoid restitution claims, stating that there is no point even entering into discussion, as they would not be allowed to return the artefacts if they did want to. In many countries though, deaccessioning is far less of a problem & can be relatively commonplace, as evidenced that the International Council of Museums publishes specific guidelines on the subject.

The guidelines are in fact published for the entirely different reason, that recently, a number of US art collections have tried to sell off large chunks of their collections. Therefore, it is clear that deaccessioning, while not perhaps legally regulated, should have clear ethical guidelines in place for institutions to sign up to as they wish – on the other hand, this is a completely different thing to outlawing the practice altogether.

From:
Eflux

Museum deaccessioning:
April 4, 2010
International Committee of ICOM for Museum and Collections of Modern Art

The International Council of Museums
General Principles on Conditions of Deaccession from Museum Collections
http://www.cimam.org

GENERAL PRINCIPLES ON CONDITIONS OF DEACCESSION FROM MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Ethical codes must evolve in response to the evolving nature of standards and practices in museums and in society, and need to be periodically reviewed, discussed and updated.

In view of recent controversial practice with regard to selling art from museum collections, CIMAM states its opposition in the first instance to the notion of deaccession. In those instances where deaccession is deemed defensible or necessary, CIMAM’s General Assembly adopts the following set of principles for the conditions of deaccession, and urges the directors of member institutions to accept these principles as guidelines for their institutions.
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May 21, 2010

99% of the British Museum is not on public display

Posted at 6:53 pm in British Museum, Similar cases

When the return of artefacts is mentioned, institutions such as the British Museum argue that it would empty their collections, leaving them with nothing to display. The reality however is that the British Museum has so many artefacts in their collection (that they are not allowed to sell, return or otherwise de-accession) that only one percent of the collection is currently on public display.

They do allow the public to visit the items not on display – but for most people this is not possible, for the simple reason that as the artefacts are not on display, they don’t know that they are there in the first place.

From:
BBC News

Page last updated at 08:38 GMT, Wednesday, 31 March 2010 09:38 UK
The 99% of the British Museum not on show

In the BBC Radio 4 series A History of the World in 100 Objects, the rise of civilisation is depicted with a hand-picked selection of the British Museum in London.

Choosing just 100 out of 80,000 objects on display was no mean feat. But what is on public show amounts to just 1% of the institution’s eight million artefacts.
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Earth Hour at the Acropolis

Posted at 6:45 pm in Acropolis

Earth Hour circles the world, where many famous monuments turn off their lights for an hour to highlight the need to conserve energy. As in previous years, the Acropolis will be amongst other Athens landmarks taking part in this event.

From:
Christian Science Monitor

Earth Hour 2010 aims to get 1 billion to turn off the lights
By Will Buchanan, Contributor / March 27, 2010

For this year’s Earth Hour, set for 8:30 p.m. Saturday, more businesses and governments are expected to take part in the campaign to turn off the lights. The aim: at least 1 billion participants.

The Earth Hour concept is simple: Turn off the lights for an hour to acknowledge climate change and advocate sustainability.
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Iran v British Museum

Posted at 6:38 pm in British Museum, Similar cases

The British Museum made a deal with Iran in 2005 – that Iran would lend artefacts to the British Museum in for an exhibition on ancient Persia, in exchange for a later reciprocal loan of the Cyrus Cylinder to Iran. The loan from Iran went ahead as planned – but once it came to the loan to Iran the British Museum has dragged their heels at every step of the way.

From:
Press TV

Iran vs. British Museum: Who will be the Loser?
Fri, 26 Mar 2010 18:59:56 GMT
By Kourosh Ziabari

In early February 2010, the longstanding conflict between Iran and Britain, over a temporary exhibition of an ancient Persian artifact in Tehran, reached a conclusion that Iran had warned against: the severing of cultural ties with British Museum over the loan of the Cyrus Cylinder.

Cyrus Cylinder is a declaration of kingship, inscribed on the surface of a clay cylinder upon the decree of glorious Persian king, Cyrus the Great, who issued the manuscript following his conquest of Babylonia in 539 BC.
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May 20, 2010

Staffordshire Hoard saved from the nation

Posted at 1:18 pm in Similar cases

Following donations from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Staffordshire hoard will be saved for the nation & displayed in a museum in the region where it was found. This is great news for the preservation of Britain’s cultural heritage, but yet again I find the difference in opinions about retaining our heritage to the importance of others retaining their heritage astonishing.

From:
The Independent

23-03-2010
Staffordshire Hoard ‘saved for the nation’
By Danielle Dwyer, Press Association

The Staffordshire Hoard has been “saved for the nation” after a cash boost from a Government heritage fund, it was announced today.

The collection – the largest ever find of Anglo-Saxon gold – was unearthed on Staffordshire farmland by a metal detector enthusiast last year and later valued at £3.3 million.
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May 18, 2010

Manchester conference on Museums & Restitution

Posted at 8:19 am in British Museum, Elgin Marbles, Events, Similar cases, Uncategorized

On 8th – 9th July 2010, Manchester University’s Centre for Museology is organising a two day conference on Museums & Restitution.

For more details of the conference & to book a place on it, go to their website.

A provisional programme of the conference is also available to download.

From:
Centre for Museology

Museums and Restitution – International Conference
Museums and Restitution is a two-day international conference organised by the Centre for Museology and The Manchester Museum at the University of Manchester. The conference examines the issue of restitution in relation to the changing role and authority of the museum, focussing on new ways in which these institutions are addressing the subject.

Restitution is one of the most emotive and complex issues facing the museum world in the twenty first century. Its current high profile reflects changing global power relations and the increasingly vocal criticisms of the historical concentration of the world’s heritage in the museums of the West. The 2002 Declaration of the Importance and Value of Universal Museums, which was signed by the directors of eighteen of the world’s most prominent museums, pushed the subject to the forefront of debate as never before.
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May 14, 2010

Award winning Greek-Australian writer plans to raise issue of Elgin Marbles with the Queen

Posted at 1:04 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles

Greek-Australian writer Christos Tsiolkas has won the Commonwealth Writers Prize. When he meets the Queen, he says that he plans to ask her to return the Parthenon Sculptures.

While the Queen has not got the power to return the Parthenon Sculptures, her endorsement of campaigns for their return would carry a lot of wait. I wish him luck & look forward to hearing what the response was.

From:
Global Greek World

Monday, March 22, 2010
Global Greeks: Greek Australian Award Winning Writer Christos Tsiolkas – “I Will Ask the Queen to Return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece…”

Christos Tsiolkas is ‘one of Australia’s pre-eminent contemporary novelists’ (The Age).

Born, raised and educated in Melbourne where he continues to live, Christos is one of our Global Greek Writers and one of twelve of Australia’s best writers who recently came together at Melbourne Town Hall for a night of celebration and reflection, sharing the common and different experiences that define Australia’s past and present, to mark the opening of Australia’s newest cultural institution, The Wheeler Centre.
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Flintshire councillor wants to build museum to allow return of Mold Golden Cape

Posted at 12:54 pm in British Museum, Similar cases

The Golden Cape of Mold is an currently held in the British Museum, despite the fact that Wales has regularly been calling for its return. The latest plan is to build a new museum to hose it if it was returned. Before rushing into this idea though I think they should bear in mind that a suitable home for the artefact is no guarantee of return – the Acropolis Museum in Athens is currently an example of this although hopefully the situation will change.

From:
The Leader (Flintshire, Wales)

‘Let’s open a museum for Gold Cape’ says Flintshire councillor
Published date: 22 March 2010 | Published by: Lois Hough

A CALL has been made for a new museum to be opened in Mold to house a historic Welsh artefact.

Mold East councillor Chris Bithell, who is also a member of Mold Civic Society, said: “I think the old courthouse building in Mold would be ideal to house the Mold Gold Cape.
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Parthenon frieze fragment returns to Palermo

Posted at 12:44 pm in Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

Although it was always agreed that the Parthenon Frieze fragment from Palermo was being loaned to Greece for a limited period, it was always hoped that this loan might be extended, or in some way made semi-permanent. Unfortunately it appears that this was not the case however.

One positive side to this though is it weakens one of the arguments from the British Museum for rejecting the possibility of loans to the New Acropolis Museum – That they only loan items that they expect to be safely returned at the end of the loan period.

Hopefully Italy will see the benefits of returning the fragment permanently at some point in the future.

From:
ANSA (Italy)

CULTURE: PARTHENON FRIEZE FRAGMENT RETURNS TO PALERMO

(ANSAmed) – PALERMO – A ship sailing from Naples has brought a fragment of the Parthenon’s frieze back from Athens where it has been on show since September 2008. The find had first been housed at the city’s old Museum of Archaeology, where it was visited by Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano, before being transferred to the new Acropolis Museum. The art treasure, a piece of stone measuring 34 by 35 centimetres, is being kept in Palermo in a double strong box before being returned to the region’s ‘Antonino Salinas’ archaeological museum, where it has been an exhibit for over a century. The stone is a fragment of Phidias’ eastern frieze of the Parthenon and features a foot of Peitho, the Greek goddess of persuasion. The piece had been part of the collection of a British diplomat before it was donated by his widow to the University of Palermo in 1836; it then passed into the collection of Palermo’s National Museum when it was founded in the second half of the 19thcentury. The fragment will be on view when the Antonino Salinas Museum reopens. (ANSAmed).

May 13, 2010

Can other countries emulate Egypt’s success at artefact restitution?

Posted at 1:08 pm in British Museum, Similar cases

Egypt has recently had a lot of success at securing the return of artefacts from foreign institutions & collectors. Can other countries manage to copy their example though with their own requests?

From:
Modern Ghana

EGYPTIAN SEASON OF ARTEFACTS RETURNS: HOPEFUL SIGN TO BE FOLLOWED BY OTHERS?
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Sun, 14 Mar 2010

”There is a moral imperative for museums around the world to return certain artefacts to the countries they came from, and we are going to identify how we can help each other to increase the pressure on the keepers of those artefacts.”
Zahi Hawass. (1)

Egyptians seem to be having tremendous success in the recovery of their artefacts taken away during the heyday of imperialism and colonialism or stolen since 1970 when States adopted the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970). (2)
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When cultural nationalism isn’t cultural nationalism

Posted at 12:58 pm in Similar cases

This (& many other articles) talk about the importance of the fight to keep the Staffordshire Hoard in Britain. When other countries ask for the return of their artefacts for similar reasons though, this is regularly described in a derogatory way with terms such as cultural nationalism.

From:
The Times

March 14, 2010
The long battle for the Staffordshire treasure hoard
For 1,400 years, a stash of Anglo-Saxon artefacts remained buried — until it was found last year by a man with a metal detector. It throws fascinating new light on clashes in the Dark Ages, but now we must win the fight to keep this precious hoard in Britain

It’s a misty dawn in Middle England, some time in the 7th century. A small band of armed men struggle up a wooded hill. At the summit they pause. While one keeps watch, the others tip their loot on to the ground. They divide up the jewels and coins, then they turn to the rest of the booty: swords, crosses, saddle fittings, which are mostly gold and exquisitely made. They hammer at them with stones and the hilts of their knives, they rip the pommels from the swords and stuff the blades into their jerkins, smash the helmets and bend the arms of the crosses until they look like nothing more than twisted pieces of metal. They stuff the small gold and bejewelled fragments into leather pouches, grub out a hole in the earth, and bury their cache. Then they disappear over the hill as swiftly as they came.
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May 11, 2010

Who owns antiquities

Posted at 12:48 pm in British Museum, Events, Similar cases

Any debate on the ownership of cultural property is to be welcomed – however, based on past experiences, any involvement of Robert Anderson will mean that only the view of the issue as seen b the British Museum is represented.

From:
Web News Wire

Who owns antiquities?
Submitted by editor on May 11, 2010 – 11:32

Dr Robert Anderson, former Director of the British Museum and Vice-President of Clare Hall at the University of Cambridge, will examine who really owns antiquities lost, stolen and unearthed over recent years.

Speaking ahead of the event, he said, Antiquities, frequently being valuable and sought-after, often lead exciting, itinerant lives, ending up in places remote from where they originated. They can get into the news by being unexpectedly unearthed, offered surprising identities, sold for huge prices, exported ( sometimes illegally ), stolen, and even deliberately destroyed.
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