The Neferti bust is one of the most high profile artefacts that Egypt is requesting the return of. Germany’s latest actions only draw attention to this case though, by organising a special exhibition to commemorate the fact that it is 100 years since they acquired the artefact.

From:
Time

The Bust of Nefertiti: Remembering Ancient Egypt’s Famous Queen
By Ishaan Tharoor
Dec. 06, 2012

On a sunny afternoon on Dec. 6, 1912, an Egyptian worker at a dig along the banks of the Nile came across what may be the most striking find in the history of Egyptology. Ludwig Borchardt, the German archaeologist in charge of the excavation, scribbled excitedly in his diary a century ago: “The tools were put aside, and the hands were now used … It took a considerable amount of time until the whole piece was completely freed from all the dirt and rubble.” What emerged was a 3,300-year-old limestone bust of an ancient queen, colored with a gypsum lacquer. A flat-topped crown perched above a finely defined brow. Her cheekbones were high, nose distinguished. A thin, elegant neck — some now describe it “swanlike” — rose from the bust’s base. “We held the most lively piece of Egyptian art in our hands,” wrote Borchardt.

The bust is of Nefertiti, queen of Egypt and wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten, who reigned in the 14th century B.C. A hundred years after Nefertiti’s bust was lifted out of the ground at Amarna, some 480 km south of Cairo, it remains one of the most iconic figures of Egyptian antiquity, far smaller than the pyramids or the Sphinx, but no less globally resonant. The bust adorns souvenir schlock throughout Egypt and history schoolbooks worldwide. When it went on display at a museum in Berlin in the 1920s, it was almost immediately held up as a symbol of universal, timeless beauty. That’s not surprising. Nefertiti’s name means “the beautiful one has come.”
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Yet again, Turkey is in the news with a resolved restitution case. This time, it involves the Dallas Museum of Art. Interestingly though, the museum was the one that contacted Turkey after discovery that the artefact might have been looted – although whether this was as a pre-emptive move, knowing that they would be contacted by Turkey about it is unclear.

From:
Culture Kiosque

DALLAS MUSEUM RETURNS LOOTED MOSAIC TO TURKEY
By Culturekiosque Staff

DALLAS, TEXAS, 3 DECEMBER 2012 — The Dallas Museum of Art today signed a memorandum of understanding with the Turkish Director General for Cultural Heritage and Museums O. Murat Süslü, marking the first initiative in the Dallas Museum of Art’s new DMX international exchange program. DMX (Dallas Museum Exchange) is designed to establish international collaborations for the loan of works of art and sharing of expertise in conservation, exhibitions, education, and new media.

The DMA contacted Turkish officials earlier this year when the Museum discovered evidence that a work in the collection — the Orpheus Mosaic — might have been stolen from an archaeological site in Turkey. With the Museum’s planning for the DMX program already underway, the DMA’s engagement with Turkey regarding the mosaic opened the lines of communication that led to Turkey becoming the Museum’s first partner in the DMX program. As part of today’s ceremony for the signing of the MOU, the DMA returned the Orpheus Mosaic to the Turkish officials. The Republic of Turkey considers the voluntary return of the mosaic a sign of good faith, and both parties will undertake to continue their collaboration with museological education, conservation, symposia, and important loan exhibitions.
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While many disagree with the concept of the Universal Museum, without an international legal framework in place, few challenges relating to pre-1970 acquisitions by such museums have yet been successful. The odd exceptions to this involve items such as Nazi loot, which are covered by different national laws in many countries.

Now, Turkey is putting pressure on the Met – not on recently acquired artefacts, but on items which left Turkey long before the 1970 cut off date. It will be interesting to see how much success they have with this – threats to withdraw cooperation have been criticised by the museums as blackmail – but it still represents a clear obstacle to the museums that must be negotiated around.

From:
Guardian

Turkey’s restitution dispute with the Met challenges the ‘universal museum’
Turkey is flexing its cultural, as well as its economic and military muscles. But objects of art outlive the ambitions of nation states
Jason Farago
Sunday 7 October 2012 14.00 BST

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, like most institutions of its size in the US and Europe, has seen its fair share of lawsuits and controversies surrounding its collection. It returned nearly two dozen antiquities to Italy in 2006, as well as work acquired via Nazi looting.

But now the Met is facing a very different kind of restitution battle. The Turkish government is insisting it is the rightful owner of 18 objects from the collection of Norbert Schimmel, a Met trustee and one of the last century’s most astute collectors of Mediterranean antiquities.
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The return of the Mausoleum of Halicarnasus from the British Museum has been one of Turkey’s longest running restitution claims, but so far with no signs of success.

From:
Hurriyet Daily News

Bodrum seeks return of mausoleum pieces
September/25/2012
MUĞLA – Anatolia News Agency

Some pieces from Bodrum’s famous Mausoleum of Halicarnassus are on display at the British Museum, and work continues to bring them back to Turkey. Lawyer Remzi Kazmaz recently spoke about the mausoleum at a press conference

Work continues to get parts of Bodrum’s Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, which are currently kept at the British Museum in London, returned to Turkey.
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Turkey has had many recent successes in retrieving disputed artefacts from abroad. This has not been without controversy though – there are many who feel that Turkey is applying different rules, depending on how it suits them, and highlight the problems such as the misappropriation of Armenian art by Turkey as an example of this.

From:
Assyrian International News Agency

Looters or Landlords?
Posted GMT 10-4-2012 0:11:55

Since Fatih Sultan Mohammed occupied Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman rulers have been destroying and desecrating churches, castles, architectural monuments of Hittites, Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and other nationalities who had been the indigenous people of Asia Minor, occupied and ruled through blood and sword.

Now, all of a sudden, the destroyers of all these cultures presume to be landlords, claiming treasures originated in Asia Minor to be returned to the present government of Turkey. Those artifacts and treasures which have been preserved in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Getty Museum, the Louvre and Pergamon Museum have been saved from the Turks themselves, becoming part of the legacy of human civilization. Had they been left in the hands of the Turks, they would have been doomed to suffer the same fate as the 2,000 Armenian churches, monasteries and architectural monuments which were systematically destroyed and rendered into ashes. After 200,000 Armenians escaped from Van in 1915, the Turkish Army burned tens of thousands of illuminated manuscripts and Bibles on the island monastery of Leem in Lake Akhtamar.
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Like a lot of the recent posts I’ve made, this was meant to be posted ages ago, but wasn’t.

Anyway – its interesting, as it indicates that the current Greek government wants to deal seriously with the issue of the Parthenon Marbles. However, it shoudl be noted that this is not an independent committee such as Marbles Reunited or the Australian Committee or many others around the world. This committee is instead more of a steering group – of special advisors to the Minister of culture.

I still believe that there is a need for a Greek Committee – that can get involved with raising the profile of the issue as people, rather than politicians – although I understand that the Greek Government want dealing with the issue within Greece to be seen as an issue entirely handled by the government.

From:
Athens News Agency

>New committee established to press for return of Parthenon Marbles
Last Updated Thursday, 20 September 2012

The culture ministry on Wednesday announced that it will re-establish a special advisory committee to coordinate actions aimed at securing the repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles.

The president of the Melina Mercouri Foundation, Christoforos Argyropoulos, archaeologist Eleni Korka, attorney Irini Stamatoudi, who heads the Intellectual Property Organisation, and foreign ministry representative Panos Kalogeropoulos were listed as members of the committee, announced by Alternate Culture Minister Costas Tzavaras.
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This sounds like it was going to be an interesting lecture – unfortunately, I only discovered about it the day after it had taken place though.

Hopefully, they will put it on youtube at some point in the future.

From:
The Athens Centre

Lecture “Returning Lost Marbles’, by Ira Kaliampetsos

The Athens Centre would like to invite you to a guest lecture,
by Ira Kaliampetsos
Director of the Hellenic Society for Law and Archaeology

“Returning Lost Marbles:
Antiquities Restitution and the Law”

Tuesday, March 5, 2013, at 7:00pm

At The Athens Centre

Archimidous 48, Pangrati (Mets)

Wine and conversation follows the event. The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, please call 210-7015242 or 210-7012268.

Ira Kaliampetsos works as a lawyer in Athens. She earned her law degree from the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany and continued her postgraduate studies on ‘Art and Law’ at the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz, Austria. Her professional experience includes working for the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs (a position she still holds), the Delegation of the European Union to Turkey and several assignments for election observation. In 2006 she co-founded the Hellenic Society for Law and Archaeology (www.law-archaeology.gr), a non- profit organization dealing with all aspects of antiquities law – a field in which her law office specializes in. She is also a founding member of the Hellenic Wildlife Care Association, ANIMA (www.wild-anima.gr).

Event information is also available on our Facebook page.

Pictures of the event are available here.

I have to admit, that I’m fairly unconvinced by the plan presented in this book – but perhaps it is still better than having no plan. In my opinion, this particular proposal, draws on too many sources & makes too many slightly tenuous jumps to be seen as completely credible. At the end of the day, it does not come across to me as a clear concise argument that can be used to bring about restitution of the sculptures.

An interesting read nonetheless though.

From:
Neos Kosmos

How the Greeks can get their marbles back
The legal argument for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece
18 Oct 2012
Kathryn-Magnolia Feeley

The Parthenon Marbles will never be handed back to Greece on cultural grounds. That would upset the status quo of museums and collectors worldwide. But any reference of artefacts to present day religious significance sends tremors down the spine of curators of museums, as it would, undoubtedly encroach upon issues of Human Rights.

This must be the basis of the argument for Greece to regain the Parthenon Marbles. In 1801, Greece was under the occupation of the Turks. The Earl of Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time, bribed the Turks in order to get permission to hack away at the sculptures of the Parthenon. Elgin filled over 100 large packing cases with friezes, metopes and figures from the pediments and shipped them to England where they were sold to the British Museum in 1816 for £35,000 to pay his debts.
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More coverage of the effects that the Euro Crisis & Greece’s austerity plans are having on the country’s ancient sites.

From:
USA Today

Greek treasures take a hit
by Nikolia Apostolou, Special for USA TODAY
Updated 9/14/2012 12:05 AM

ATHENS — They survived wars, plunderers, earthquakes, millions of tourists and nearly 2,000 years of time. But they may not survive Greece’s debt crisis.

The great ruins of ancient Greek civilization are being imperiled by massive budget cuts Greece is imposing to qualify for European bailout funds after years of overspending, say preservation experts.
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As part of their ongoing drive to secure the return of disputed artefacts, Turkey appears to have reached an agreement with the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, for the return of various artefacts on an indefinite loan. It is interesting, as it shows that for some museums, the idea of an indefinite loan as a solution to issues is a relatively straightforward option – yet, when the possibility has been raised with the British Museum as a means to return the Parthenon Sculptures, Greece has always been told that it is unworkable, and that any loan must have a definite (usually 3-4 month) period attached to it. This is of course, despite the fact that the British Museum itself has also entered into some fairly nebulous loan agreements in the past – and has been on the receiving end of many more (which it presumably does not complain about.

From:
Philly.com

Penn museum lends possibly plundered items to Turkey
September 07, 2012|By Tom Avril, Inquirer Staff Writer

Following a scientific analysis that suggested its collection of ancient, Trojan-style gold jewelry was looted from northwestern Turkey, the University of Pennsylvania announced this week that it had lent the 24 items to that country for an indefinite period.

In exchange, the Turkish government pledged to lend other artifacts for a one-year exhibit at Penn’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, including priceless items from Gordion, seat of power of King Midas. The country also promised support for ongoing excavations by Penn scholars within its borders.
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The Armenian national committee of International Council of Museums is concerned about the misappropriation of Armenian artefacts by neighbouring countries & is making a representation to the Chairman of ICOM Hans-Martin Hinz, regarding this issue.

From:
Armenpress

Facts regarding misappropriation of Armenian art by Azerbaijan and Turkey will be represented to ICOM
10:20, 22 October, 2012

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 22, ARMENPRESS. Armenian national committee of International Council of Museums (ICOM) is very anxious about the fact of misappropriation of Armenian culture by a number of neighboring countries. In order to find solution of this problem Director of ICOM of Armenia Marine Haroyan will represent the situation to the Chairman of ICOM Hans-Martin Hinz. Marine Haroyan said in a conversation with “Armenpress” that this time the matter is about Armenian museum pieces being represented in Azerbaijani, Turkish and other museums as their own. In Marine Haroyan’s opinion the essence of the problem is the following: “They give the following interpretation to this saying that if these pieces of art had been created in their territory, hence these all belongs to them not taking into consideration the fact that these museum pieces are samples of the Armenian culture”.
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As the modern globalised world becomes more closely connected, it is in some ways easier than ever, to become a collector of rare & ancient artefacts & amass a sizable collection fairly rapidly. Paradoxically though, it is at the same time becoming harder too, as purchases are subject to ever closer scrutiny.

From:
Financial Times

September 13, 2012 12:13 am
Home isn’t always where the art is
By Peter Aspden

As the drive to reclaim national treasures gathers pace, the restitution debate is growing ever more divisive

It is one of the art world’s greatest paradoxes: while the market for cultural treasures becomes more and more globalised, the clamour for those works to be repatriated to their country of origin becomes ever louder. In theory it has never been easier for museums, dealers and collectors to become international players on the art scene; in truth, it is getting more difficult by the day.

The claims for the restitution of works of art that are said to have been plundered from their native land grow apace. The case of the 10th-century Cambodian statue that was put up for auction last year by Sotheby’s, only to be blocked by a last-minute legal bid for repatriation, is only one recent example.
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