In a followup to the story a few days ago about the Lewis Chessmen, the British Museum responds to the criticism, although seems to be missing the fact that the real issue isn’t over technicalities off where the pieces were created, but of the realities of where they were discovered & how the people there see them as a part of their identity.

From:
Press and Journal

MPs hit out at snub to Scots origin of chessmen
British museum project on Lewis artefacts ignores place of discovery
By David Perry
Published: 26/02/2010

A motion which “deplores” the way the Hebridean origin of the fabled Lewis Chessmen has been airbrushed out of a major British Museum project has been put down in the Commons.

Western Isles SNP MP Angus MacNeil has secured the support of two SNP MPs and seven others for his motion, which complains that a poster campaign shows a picture of one of the chess pieces – found buried in sand dunes at Uig, Lewis – with the date AD 1150-1200 and the word “Norway” below it.
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A more recent case of an artefact in a UK museum – that its original owners want returned because they feel that it symbolises more for to them than it does to the museum it is currently in.

From:
Irish Central

The Keane Edge
by Brendan Patrick Keane

Pressure on a British museum to return Gal Gréine to Ireland, and honor Constance Markiewicz, Irish nationalist and feminist leader

During the Easter Rising of 1916, the British administration engaged in a shock and awe campaign to destroy Dublin, and the morale of Dubliners, by the brute force of its army. Destruction and looting was a psychological tactic, and much treasure was whisked from the capital city of Ireland, back to the imperial city of London, as trophies of the British empire’s brutal resistance to self-determination.
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An ancient coffin smuggled into the US many years ago is now due to be returned to Egypt.

From:
Press TV

US to return smuggled Egyptian coffin
Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:59:34 GMT

Egyptian Culture Minister Faruq Hosni says his country will reclaim a Pharaonic coffin smuggled into the US more than 125 years ago.

Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass will receive the ornately painted coffin next month, Hosni said in a statement.
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A few years ago, various major museums around the world released a declaration on the Importance & Value of Universal Museums – a declaration that was essentially an attempt at justifying their own modus operandi. Whether they call themselves Universal, Encyclopaedic or Enlightenment museums, it seems that in their own eyes they must continue to exist in their current form,, rather than dealing with the various repatriation issues that affect them.

From:
Modern Ghana

IS THE DECLARATION ON THE VALUE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE “UNIVERSAL MUSEUMS” NOW WORTHLESS?
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.

David Gill has posed the question whether the Declaration on the Value and Importance of Universal Museums should be considered as worthless in view of the fact that the main objective of providing immunity against restitution claims has not been achieved. With regard to the restitutions made by major US American institutions to Italy – Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and Princeton University’s Art Museum .- he states:

“Such repatriations perhaps demonstrate the flawed thinking behind the “Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums”.
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Scottish MP Angus MacNeil is annoyed about the British Museum’s depiction of the Lewis Chessmen as Norwegian with no mention of the fact that they were found in Scotland before ending up in the British Museum.

From:
The Times

February 24, 2010
MPs angered by ‘Norwegian’ Chessmen

The British Museum has been accused of “airbrushing” history after a poster campaign claimed the world famous Lewis Chessmen were from Norway, and failed to mention any connection to Scotland at all.

Angus MacNeil, the Nationalist MP for the Western Isles, wants the posters removed or the reference to Norway replaced by Lewis. Mr MacNeil, who has raised the issue at Westminster, described the promotional campaign as a “total cheek”.
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As a reminder that there are at least two sides (& sometimes many more than that) to any issue, some Iranian’s would prefer that the Cyrus Cylinder wasn’t loaned to their country by the British Museum.

Their campaign is based on the fact that they do not believe that the government has any plans to safeguard any heritage that doesn’t relate to the Islamic Republic’s current worldview. Unfortunately though they may find that even under a different government (when they might want the artefact returned), the British Museum would be no more likely to return the artefact than they are now.

Read the petition here.

Many years after they were originally taken from Ethiopia during a punitive exhibition by the British army, the Magdala treasures in various institutions in the UK continue to be a source of contention. There has been little headway towards any sort of comprehensive assessment of whether any of these artefacts can be repatriated, despite the fact that they have a religious & cultural significance for many Ethiopians whereas in the UK many of them are not even on public display.

From:
Voice-Online

Should Britain return Africa’s stolen treasures?
BY Davina Morris
Published: 21 February 2010 – Issue: 1411

FANS of the ‘90s BBC comedy show The Real McCoy may remember the sketch when pro-African activist Babylon (played by Felix Dexter) urged black Britons to head down to the British Museum with a big bin liner to “tek back your tings!”

Though the sketch was intended to be comedic (and it was), it highlighted the ongoing issue of whether British institutions should return the many cultural items they possess that were taken from Africa years ago.
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In stark contrast to the rigid anti-deaccessioning policies of institutions such as the British Museum, University College London is asking the public to give their views on which of the items in their collection should be sold off to free up space for new artefacts.

From:
Time

London Museum Asks Public What to Pitch
By Gaëlle Faure / London
Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009

If you’re the type of person who has trouble throwing anything out, then the job of collections reviewer at the University College London’s museums might not be for you. The college is embarking upon a purge of its assorted collections, some 250,000 items in total, only 2% of which are currently on display. A gargantuan task, surely, but the college is not doing it on its own — officials have taken the unusual step of opening the process up to the public. They’re asking visitors what they should keep, what they should give away to other museums — one institution’s trash is another’s treasure — or, as a last resort, what they should just throw away.

“Disposal is still a dirty word. Most museum people are too scared to use it,” says Jayne Dunn, UCL’s collections manager. “We work for the public, but no one’s ever thought of asking them what they want.”
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Among the vast numbers of disputed artefacts in museums & galleries, some have a high profile, whilst others are barely known. Time Magazine has attempted to draw up a list of what they feel are some of the most currently significant cases.

This article was published a few months ago, but I only recently came across it – explaining the fact that the information on the Louvre’s Egyptian Frescos is already out of date.

From:
Time

Top 10 Plundered Artifacts
History is big business. Plundered art and antiquities trade to the tune of at least $3 billion a year, much to the chagrin of nations struggling to reclaim their lost artifacts. In honor of a recent spat between the Egyptian government and the Louvre museum in Paris over the fate of fresco fragments, TIME examines 10 plundered antiquities and the conflicts they’ve created.

The Louvre’s Egyptian Frescos

A set of ancient fresco fragments is at the center of a nasty feud between Paris’s Louvre Museum and the Egyptian government. Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s antiquities department, claims the Louvre bought the fragments last year despite knowing they were taken from a tomb in Egypt’s storied Valley of the Kings in the 1980s, a prime spot for grave-robbers. Egypt, which has made reclaiming ancient art taken from its country a top priority, said they would sever cooperation with the Louvre unless the fragments were returned. A museum representative claimed on Oct. 7 that the Louvre was unaware the fragments were stolen, and said the museum would consider sending the fresco pieces back to Egypt.
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The journal of the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester, the Museological Review, has chosen to focus their most recent edition on the issues surrounding museums, deaccessioning & restitution.

In the first piece, Clare Blakey writes about some of the restitution demands made by Italy to the Getty Museum & the Metropolitan Museum in the USA.

The second article by Jennifer Jankauskas examines some of the ethical concerns which underpin the issue of deacccessioning in American Art Museums.

Finale, Dietrich Heißenbüttel takes a look at German art from the 1930s & 1940s, arguing for museums to take a different approach to restitution demands.

You can read the entire magazine online here.

New research suggests that the portions of the Codex Sinaiticus in the British Library may have been legally acquired. I doubt that this will be the end of disputes surrounding the document however.

From:
RT

Controversy over ancient Greek Bible resolved in Russia
Published 18 February, 2010, 18:05

A document which confirms the British Library’s ownership of Codex Sinaiticus, an ancient hand-written copy of the Greek Bible, has been found in the archives of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The agreement was signed in 1869 by the archbishop of the St. Catherine Monastery at the foot of Mt. Sinai and a representative of the Russian Empire.
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Zahi Hawass is continuing to campaign for the return of Egypt’s cultural treasures, with a clear cut strategy of why he is doing it & of which specific artefacts he is focusing his efforts on.

From:
Agence France Presse

Zahi Hawass, media-savvy guardian of Egypt’s past
By Christophe de Roquefeuil (AFP) – 15th February 20009

CAIRO — Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass, at 62, still bubbles with excitement whenever he announces the latest discovery of a tomb or relic, his eyes lighting up under the brim of his trademark Indiana Jones-style hat.

Aside from his love of the media limelight, Hawass is locked in battle to assert Egypt’s sovereignty over its heritage, even if that means crossing swords with the world’s most prestigious museums.
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