December 26, 2009
Can the location of the Rosetta Stone be set in Stone?
Following recent requests, the British Museum predictably has come up with a long list of reasons why they believe the Rosetta Stone is better of in their institution than it would be in Egypt. With each new raft of reasons though it begins to look more & more as though they are grabbing at straws, desperately trying to preserve the status quo whilst ignoring the fact that the world has changed significantly in the last two hundred years since many of their artefacts were acquired.
From:
Daily Telegraph
The Rosetta Stone can be shared where it is
Despite Egypt’s overtures, the British Museum is the artefact’s natural home, suggests Roy Clare.
Published: 6:24AM GMT 10 Dec 2009It’s a staple question at dinner parties or job interviews: if your house or office was burning down, what’s the one thing you would save? For the staff of the British Museum, the question might seem almost impossible to answer, given the wonderful riches contained in its collection. Yet if you pressed them, they would probably have to admit that the answer would be simple: the Rosetta Stone.
Discovered in Egypt by the French during Napoleon’s expedition, and acquired by the British as part of a peace settlement, the Rosetta Stone is a priceless and extraordinary item. The three languages displayed on it, translations of the same text, enabled us to make the first interpretations of Egyptian hieroglyphs. It is no surprise, then, that each year, millions of visitors to London seek out this exceptional artefact (and the thousands of others) in the galleries that present the world’s cultures in the British Museum.
And it is equally unsurprising that a distinguished academic should come to London from Cairo on a mission to retrieve what he sees as rightfully Egyptian. Dr Zahi Hawass argues that the stone is an icon of the Egyptian past, and the Egyptian identity, and belongs in the country of its creation. As secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, he points to the historical material he has recovered from other countries – why should Britain be different?When dealing with any artefact acquired in the imperial past, there are bound to be sensitivities, and demands for repatriation – witness the controversy over the Elgin Marbles, another gem of the British Museum’s collection. But in this case, the law is not on Dr Hawass’s side. The Rosetta Stone was properly acquired and its provenance within Britain’s national collections is beyond dispute. The trustees of the British Museum could decide to loan it out – although to date, no such request has been received – but their deliberations would take account of the conditions in which the item would be displayed, the risks to its safety and security, and the likelihood of its return. Dr Hawass’s recent public statements would also be considered – which could present an unusual backdrop to any judgment the trustees might reach.
But the decision as to whether to return the stone is not just about the technicalities of ownership. Through its scholarship, the British Museum has developed our understanding of the significance of the Rosetta Stone enormously. Because its entire collection is subject to study and detailed examination, we have a resource for research that is greater than the sum of its parts, home to a process of study, discussion and peer review which helps breathe life into these inanimate objects.
Museums and cultural organisations throughout Britain are actively engaged in scholarly exchange with partners around the world – helping to build the global understanding of the world’s cultural heritage. In this way, cultures are bonded, nations drawn together and divides bridged. Indeed, the British Museum is an impressive proponent of international cultural dialogue and growth. Its director, Neil MacGregor, has rightly won praise for reaching out to museums threatened by war in Iraq, for example: his expertise, and that of his curators, was of great significance in Baghdad in particular.
In other words, it’s not about keeping the objects, but sharing their stories. The ownership of particular artefacts is now far less significant than the fact that people can enjoy them, be enlightened, entertained and brought closer to a real understanding of the inheritance that binds us all. And nowhere is that better achieved than in the galleries of the British Museum.
Roy Clare is chief executive of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council
From:
The Times
From The Times
December 10, 2009
Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone
Great cultural artefacts and great intellectual ideas are no respecters of national boundaries. Everyone must share them
Ben MacintyreIn July 1799, during Napoleon’s brief occupation of Egypt, Captain Pierre-François Bouchard, an army engineer supervising the reconstruction of the Ottoman fort near the port of Rosetta, extracted a lump of dark granite from under the crumbling walls, covered in ancient writing.
The first sight of the Rosetta Stone was so remarkable that the Napoleonic Army, it was said, immediately snapped to attention: “It halted itself and, by one spontaneous impulse, grounded its arms.”
An edict in honour of Ptolemy V, the Macedonian-Greek Pharaoh, written in three scripts, deciphered by a British and a French scholar, the stone not only unlocked the written secrets of Ancient Egypt, but stands as a vivid symbol of how intellectual changes move with physical artefacts, by conquest, colonisation and trade, but also through the free, borderless exchange of ideas.
This object — partly Hellenic in origin, Ancient Egyptian in provenance, the subject of Anglo-French scholarship and an object of universal reverence and importance — is now the focus of a furious repatriation debate.
Zahi Hawass, the formidable secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, has demanded that the stone, which he calls an “icon of Egyptian identity”, be returned from the British Museum to Egypt. “We own that stone,” he told al-Jazeera television recently. “The motherland should own this.”
For Dr Hawass, and many others in so-called “source” countries, this is a simple issue of restoring looted cultural property: “For all of our history, our heritage was stolen from us. They [the British Museum] kept it in a dark, badly lit room until I came and requested it.”
There are several objections to this, beginning with what he means by “we” and “the motherland”. Modern Egypt did not exist in 1799, let alone in 196BC, when the stone was carved. Unlike some controversial items in Western museums, the stone was not smuggled away, but handed over to the British as part of a legal treaty, signed not only by the French and British, but by the Ottoman Government in Egypt.
As for the absurd notion that it was undervalued and poorly exhibited: the Rosetta Stone has been on almost continuous, prominent display since 1802, the single most visited object in the entire museum.
But more than that, the Rosetta Stone is an emblem of universality, and a product of the multiple cultures that existed in the 2nd century BC, in what we now call Egypt. Dr Hawass, a brilliant and inspiring defender of the past, has selected the wrong object over which to fight a narrow, nationalistic political campaign for “repatriation”.
If ever there was a genuinely global object, deserving of a place in a world museum, it is this: the text itself is insignificant, and very boring. Its importance lies in how it was moved outside Egypt, and deciphered: a chunk of builders’ rubble that changed the way we think.
The Rosetta Stone describes a tax amnesty for temple priests, essentially a tax break for fat cats 2,200 years ago. It is toadying in the extreme: “Ptolemy, the ever living, beloved by Ptah, the God manifest and gracious . . .” Blah, blah, ptah. But, crucially, it is sycophantic in three distinct languages: Ancient Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphs and the everyday language of the people.
The inscription was a reflection of cultural diversity and colonial politics, aimed at three separate constituencies: the Greek government, Egyptian locals and the Ancient Egyptian gods. Deciphering these parallel texts restored a lost chapter of history, enabling linguists to begin deciphering hieroglyphics and decoding 4,000 years of Egypt’s past.
It was extracted from the tangle of history through international rivalry, but it came to be understood through international co-operation. Thomas Young, British scientist and polymath, deciphered parts of the demotic text (mostly during weekends in Worthing) and offered up his findings in the Encyclopaedia Britannica of 1819. Jean-François Champollion, the French Egyptologist, corresponded with Young, and produced his own breakthrough in 1822.
Instead of complaining about being pipped to the script, Young was delighted: “Were I ever so much the victim of the bad passions, I should feel nothing but exaltation at Mr Champollion’s success.” Young was a true son of the Enlightenment, fascinated by discovery for its own sake: in addition to the Rosetta code, he left us the word “energy”, as applied to science, “Young’s modulus” of elasticity and “Young’s principles” in life insurance.
But it is Young’s principles of openness to the intellectual riches of ancient objects that should inform the argument over cultural property. Instead of debating ownership and trying to impose modern notions of political sovereignty on ancient cultural patrimony, the argument should be about how to bring the world’s cultural riches to the widest possible audience, regardless of where they physically reside.
Arguments about “stolen” artefacts and national identity seem oddly old-fashioned in a world where the internet enables every object in a public collection to be seen and appreciated anywhere on the planet.
Some curators, fearful of the insistence that all cultural artefacts must stay in the country of discovery, argue for a return of the system of “partage”, whereby discoveries were shared between the source country and the finders. In a globalised world, this system should be universal, allowing the widest possible exchange of artefacts and the ideas that go with them, irrespective of national boundaries and political pride.
The Rosetta Stone is not a national icon, as Dr Hawass maintains, but an international symbol, as demonstrated by its idiomatic usage: the word “Rosetta” has come to mean not just unlocking ideas, but spreading them. Some ideas, and some objects, are so universally important that they demand that we stand spontaneously to attention.
From:
The Herald (Scotland)
Thursday 10 December 2009
Claim to historic artefact is anything but written in stoneHe’s got a little list. Dr Zahi Hawass swept into Britain this week in his trademark Indiana Jones fedora. Since becoming Egypt’s head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in 2002, he claims to have secured the return to his country of 5000 artefacts, which he says were “looted” from his “motherland”.
As the good doctor made clear yesterday, he regards Egypt as its rightful home and has no intention of abandoning his goal of permanent repatriation. In the British Museum, it is seen for free by more of the institution’s 5.5 million annual visitors than any other object, but if the authorities there want to hang on to it, they have something of a, well, let’s call it a stonewalling job to do.
That is exactly what the Rosetta Stone was when a sharp-eyed French soldier spotted it in 1799 in the coastal town of al Rashid (Rosetta, in English), where it had been used as a recycled building block in a 15th-century fortress. It came to Britain as a spoil of war two years later.
To Enlightenment scholars searching for the key to the magic door into Ancient Egyptian culture, it had a double significance. It records a decree issued by the priests in Memphis in 196BC ordering the teenage Ptolemy V to be worshipped in recognition of his “establishing Egypt and making it perfect”. The outcome of a power struggle in the dying years of his dynasty (originally Greek), it was to be displayed in temples. So it was an early form of mass communication, asserting the ruler’s authority.
To emphasise this, the decree is written in three languages, including ancient hieroglyphs, written only by the priestly class, and Greek, the language of administrators. It was this that enabled European scholars – primarily the Frenchman Jean-Francois Champollion and Englishman Thomas Young – to crack the secret of hieroglyphics that had been lost for 2000 years and spark a love
of and fascination with Egyptology that continues to this day, and which accounts for millions visiting the ancient sites every year.
The 4ft-high stone, with its jagged top, is not spectacular but when my family first saw it a few years ago, we all felt the power of its history. It was the sense that such artefacts have important stories to tell.
The claims of Dr Hawass rest on the assumption that artefacts should remain in whatever country they
were found. (Other culturally protectionist nations include Turkey, Greece and, in the case of the Lewis Chessmen, Scotland.)
There are several stock reasons why this may not be true. First, they may not be safe because museums there cannot offer appropriate physical conditions or security. The celebrated Lydian Hoard was repatriated from the US to Turkey only for several of the most valuable bits to disappear. And they may be exploited by political leaders to legitimise their governments. The most disgusting recent example was Saddam Hussein using Iraqi archaeological museums to pass himself off as a latter-day Nebuchadnezzar.
Neither of these situations applies in Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak has no pretensions to reinvent himself as Tutankhamun, and millions flock annually to Cairo’s Museum of Egyptian Antiquities, though last year my partner only avoided queuing for three hours to get in by bribing a taxi driver.
However, there is a much bigger point that needs to be made.
Dr Hawass justifies both his extensive shopping list and the ever-stricter controls and restrictions placed on foreign archaeologists in Egypt like this: “We are the descendants of the pharaohs. If you look at the faces of the people of Upper Egypt, the relationship between modern and ancient Egypt is very clear.” Frankly, this is nonsense. The stone derives from the Hellenistic era. At the time it was found, Egypt was part of the Ottoman Empire and Egyptian historians were more interested in Islamic history. That’s why the Rosetta Stone was being used as building material.
Egyptology (and Egyptophilia) were western European inventions. The fame of the Rosetta Stone owes far more to the Enlightenment than 19th-century Egypt. Without it, the stone would be no more than a curiosity.
As Dr James Cuno puts it in his book Who Owns Antiquity?, without western discovery and study of artefacts such as the Rosetta Stone, “Egyptology would not exist and Egyptians would not know to claim it as theirs”. So, if anyone is guilty of cultural imperialism in this argument, it is Dr Hawass.
As in so many of these cases – the Elgin Marbles is another example – the current rulers of these countries have little in common with the creators of the objects they claim to own. Besides, it assumes a very fixed, false notion of culture, a 1066 and All That version of history in which one thing comes after another.
The reality is a continual process of migration, amalgamation and disintegration. It’s understandable that Greece, Italy and Egypt don’t want all and sundry despoiling their archaeological sites, which is why the 1970 UN agreement making newly unearthed artefacts the property of their country of origin was necessary.
Where objects such as the Sioux ghost shirt, once displayed in Kelvingrove, have a huge emotional significance, repatriation is simply the decent thing to do.
But it’s quite wrong to translate that as meaning that a country has sole rights to investigate its past and hoard its treasures. The notion that Egyptians understand their own past in a way others cannot is completely spurious. In fact, if there was ever an instance of an object that belongs to the world, rather than a country, the Rosetta Stone is it.
As Richard Parkinson, assistant keeper of Egyptian Antiquities at the British Museum, puts it: “It has turned from the booty of conflict into a symbol of cross-cultural understanding.” As Alan Price and Georgie Fame might have sung: “Rosetta, you are better where you are.”
- Egypt to demand the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum : December 16, 2009
- British Museum rejects calls for Rosetta Stone return : July 29, 2003
- The Rosetta Stone will return to Egypt one day : February 9, 2010
- Could a loan be the solution to the return of the Rosetta Stone? : December 22, 2009
- Why Egypt wants the Rosetta Stone returned : December 7, 2010
- Egypt calls for unity over looted antiquities : May 25, 2010
- Did Ludwig Borchardt steal the Nefertiti bust from Egypt? : December 23, 2009
- Where would the Rosetta Stone go to if it was returned? : December 26, 2009
DR.kWAME OPOKU said,
01.05.10 at 10:13 pm
Readers may wish to read the following articles below and decide whether Roy Clare and Ben Macintyre are not defending the indefensible.
RETURN OF THE ROSETTA STONE TO EGYPT: LIMITS TO THE GREED OF THE SELF-STYLED UNIVERSAL MUSEUMS.
“Generally speaking, it is clear that cultural property is most important to the people who created it or for whom it was created or whose particular identity and history is bound up with it. This cannot be compared with the scholastic or even inspirational influence on those who merely acquire such objects or materials. The current arguments about the retention of major objects on the grounds of scholarship are no longer tenable. In most cases the task of learning has been satisfied, as for example with the Rosetta stone, whose hieroglyphics have already been deciphered. The Parthenon and its marbles continue their hold on the imagination but they no longer have a revelatory significance for the twentieth-century Europe. The continued scholastic value of keeping the marbles in Britain is debatable and most scholars would probably welcome their return to Greece or at least not oppose it. Scholasticism can be a high-sounding motive for a selfish and unrelated purpose.”
Jeanette Greenfield (1)
Rosetta Stone, Egypt, now in the British Museum, London, United Kingdom.
It is very strange how the minds of some Westerners seem to work when it comes to discussing repatriation of looted/stolen cultural objects or objects acquired under dubious circumstances or from a people under foreign domination. For example, we have a fairly senior member of the British cultural establishment, Roy Clare, head of Britain’s Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, writing in an article, “The Rosetta Stone can be shared where it is” as if its removal by French soldiers and the subsequent transport to London were perfectly legitimate. (2) Who gave the French the right to remove objects from Egypt? Even the British Museum, in its publication, entitled The Rosetta Stone, by Richard Parkinson, noted the evil colonialist and imperialist aims of Napoleon’s military expedition to Egypt in 1799: “…it colonized, in the name of the Enlightenment, a country that was supposedly the origin of all wisdom. The French justified this imperial enterprise by claiming that it would rescue the ancient country from a supposed state of modern barbarism, but the Egyptian historian Abd al-Rahman al Jabari (1754-1882) saw the start of the occupation in July 1798 from a very different perspective as the beginning of a period marked by great battles…miseries multiplied without end.” (3)
Since the British seized the Rosetta Stone, considered by scholars as having been very crucial to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics, from the French on the defeat of Napoleon’s army in 1801, they cannot claim any right greater than that of the French, except if you concede that the powerful can take whatever they like from any country. The Egyptians never consented to such a seizure or removal. The capitulation agreement, the Treaty of Alexandria (1801), was an agreement between the victorious British and the defeated French. The surrender, resulting in the seizure of Egyptian artefacts under the control of the French, some allowed to be taken to Paris and others, including the Rosetta Stone, taken to Britain, was an affair between two European imperialist powers at the cost of an African country, not recognized by either combatant State as equal partner at the International Law level.
Roy Clare declares that “… it’s not about keeping the objects, but sharing their stories. The ownership of particular artefacts is now far less significant than the fact that people can enjoy them, be enlightened, entertained and brought closer to a real understanding of the inheritance that binds us all. And nowhere is that better achieved than in the galleries of the British Museum”.
When you have looted, stolen and dubiously acquired thousands of cultural objects of others, it is perfectly understandable that you are not interested in discussing the keeping of objects but rather in telling stories about them. The British Museum and its director, Neil MacGregor are very good in telling stories. But those from the aggrieved countries where these object were seized are more interested in their histories rather than in stories fabricated by those who now feel they need stories, in the face of constant demands by owners for restitution. They also obliged to convince their own people of the necessity of keeping foreign artefacts which, despite several decades in the museums, have not become part of their culture.
To state that “the British Museum is an impressive proponent of international cultural dialogue” may impress the ignorant. How many objects has the British Museum returned to their countries of origin as required by several United Nations and UNESCO resolutions and conferences? How many British cultural objects (as opposed to looted or seized objects of others) has the British Museum exchanged with other countries or institutions? The requests, for example, by the people of Benin to have back some of the bronzes looted by the British in 1897 in the notorious Punitive Expedition has been treated with incredible disdain and contempt by the British Museum and other Western museums, such as the Art Institute of Chicago, Field Museum, Chicago and the Ethnology Museum, Berlin
What the community of nations now requires is the possibility for all peoples to develop their own cultures with their own cultural objects without interference and impediment by erstwhile colonial powers. This implies at least the necessity to return some of stolen/looted and illegitimately acquired objects that now fill Western museums and putting a definite end to the nefarious colonial era and its practices of detaining cultural objects of subjugated peoples. A-M. M’Bow, former Director-General of UNESCO has correctly affirmed that
“The return of a work of art or record to the country which created it enables a people to recover part of its memory and identity, and proves that the long dialogue between civilizations which shapes the history of the world is still continuing in an atmosphere of mutual respect between nations”. (4)
With specific reference to Egypt, Westerners should be ashamed to be seen or heard arguing with Egypt over any particular Egyptian cultural artefact. They have collected thousands of Egyptian objects. The number of museums in Britain as well as other Western States with collections of Egyptian artefacts is indeed impressive. (5) The British Museum alone has some 110,000 objects. (6) How many British cultural artefacts does Egypt have? How many Egyptian towns have collections of British cultural artefacts? Or do the Egyptians not need to know about British culture? Roy Clare declares that:
“Museums and cultural organisations throughout Britain are actively engaged in scholarly exchange with partners around the world – helping to build the global understanding of the world’s cultural heritage.” Have the British museums and cultural organizations that are said to be engaged in building “global understanding of the world’s cultural heritage” not considered it useful for Egyptians to have easy and direct access to artefacts produced in their own culture and history such as the Rosetta Stone or the bust of Nefertiti? What is global understanding worth when Egyptians, like other Africans and Asians have incredible difficulties in entering the United Kingdom? Would the British accept from a young Egyptian as valid ground for seeking visa to enter London his desire to see the Rosetta Stone? Any schoolboy in Britain can see this Egyptian artefact but not many Egyptians have this possibility. So is global understanding only a one-way affair? The Rosetta Stone which Clare and others are busy trying to convince the world that it is not a symbol of Egyptian culture but of world culture, was described by those who brought it to Britain, according to a publication by the British Museum, as a “proud trophy of the arms of Britain”. (7)
Those who accuse Zahi Hawass and others demanding restitution as nationalists should remember that “The Rosetta Stone still bears nationalistic texts painted on the sides:
CAPTURED IN EGYPT BY THE BRITISH ARMY IN 1901 on the left edge of the slab, and on the right: PRESENTED BY KING GEORGE III. (8)”
Western States – USA, Great Britain, France, Germany and others – are the most nationalistic of all. (9) It is true though that their nationalism has advanced to the stage of imperialism and their attempts to impose their will and world view on other States and peoples have been at the source of several wars in the last 200 years. Their control of sources of information has enabled them to mislead and blind others to the facts of our times. Some even earn Noble Prize for Peace whilst in the very process of increasing their military engagement in the territories of others with consequential loss of lives and the destruction of infrastructures. In the acceptance speech at the seat of the Nobel Prize, the recipient of 2009 had the audacity to proclaim, in front of cameras and televisions, that war is sometimes necessary and some applauded.
Clare writes that: “The trustees of the British Museum could decide to loan it [Rosetta Stone] out – although to date, no such request has been received – but their deliberations would take account of the conditions in which the item would be displayed, the risks to its safety and security, and the likelihood of its return. Dr Hawass’s recent public statements would also be considered – which could present an unusual backdrop to any judgment the trustees might reach.” Roy Clare is here repeating the well-known contempt of the British Museum for all who dare to seek the return of their cultural objects. The ploy of a possible “loan” was used on the Greeks but it never worked. The Egyptians are now being treated to a tea party of a “loan” of their own cultural artefacts even though Zahi Hawass, the dynamic Secretary-General of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, like the Greeks, has rejected this possibility. The sheer impudence and the obvious contradiction involved in stating that an owner of an object has not requested a “loan” should worry everyone. Expressions about conditions in which the work will be displayed as well as its security is a summary of standing arguments that those whose cultural objects are now in the British Museum are incapable of looking after them properly. This argument is unworthy of the British Museum, its officials and their supporters.
Similar arguments were used regarding the Parthenon Marbles but once the Greeks built an ultra modern museum, New Acropolis Museum in Athens, Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, declared that the question of location was an issue of the past. (10) Once the new Grand Museum at Giza is finished in 2013, the Egyptians will be informed that the location of the Rosetta Stone was never an issue. The British Museum should be a little more serious in these matters and not belittle the intelligence of those reclaiming their cultural property. Scorn and contempt for others are not necessarily conducive to smooth international cultural cooperation.
Clare states that no request has been made by Egypt for the loan for the Rosetta Stone. He is here resorting to another well-established game of the British Museum. This game is a play of words about whether a request has been made or not even though everybody is arguing about the matter, including Clare himself. The impression is also created that this is a new issue. Egypt’s request for the Rosetta Stone goes back several years and has been repeated enough everywhere. Zahi Hawass has repeated often enough the request for the Rosetta Stone as well as for other Egyptian artefacts such as the bust of Nefertiti in Berlin. Yet we are told no request has been made. There is, of course, a difference between loan and straightforward return but the play here is devious and not worthy of the British Museum and its allies.
This game was played as regards the Parthenon Marbles for which the unforgettable Melina Mercouri even went to London in 1985 and earned the insults of the then British Museum director, David Wilson. At some point in the discussions on the Parthenon Marbles, we receive information that the Greeks have not made any request for the loan/return of the Parthenon Marbles. The same game has also been played as regards the Benin Bronzes.
The Nigerian Parliament, the Nigerian Government and the Oba of Benin have all, at one time or other called for the return of some of the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. Delegations have been sent to the British House of Commons and the records of that legislative body contain the reports of the demand. The late
Bernie Grant, Member of the British Parliament, always reminded that body of the pending case of the Benin Bronzes. In the course of the recent Benin exhibition, delegates from the Benin Royal Family as well as from the Nigerian Government reiterated the demand. The catalogue of that exhibition contains a demand by the Oba of Benin. Yet we have people like MacGregor and others pretending there has been no such demand for the return of the Benin Bronzes. (11)
A similar request was made at the opening of the Benin exhibition at Chicago and the Director of the Art Institute of Chicago, James Cuno, was obliged to concede that if a demand were submitted it would be seriously considered. A formal written letter was subsequently submitted on behalf of the Benin Royal Family in 2008 but the Art Institute of Chicago and the Field Museum, Chicago, have not even had the courtesy to acknowledge receipt of the formal letter. (12)
The Germans have also been playing this British game. We have had a senior official of the Berlin Museum denying that Egypt has made any demand for the return of the bust of Nefertiti at the same time that there are announcements
about future meetings between the Germans and Egyptians on the very issue of Nefertiti.
One can only conclude that this misleading game of persistent denials is only intended to confuse the Western public about the true status and nature of the demands for the return of cultural artefacts. The public is deceived into believing that the deprived peoples are not really angry about their cultural objects having been looted/stolen by the colonialists. On the contrary, the impression is created that they are happy that their national treasures are being properly preserved and protected in London, Paris and Berlin, world capitals.
In any case, there is no requirement in either International Law or Municipal Law that the owner of stolen/looted cultural objects must make a formal request for return before the present holder can act. Countless United Nations and UNESCO resolutions have urged the holders of such artefacts to take the initiative and start negotiations for return. This has been reiterated by Athens International Conference on the “Return of Cultural Property to its Country of Origin”, 2008. (13) A similar requirement is contained in the ICOM Code of Conduct for Museums. that the British Museum and other Western museums arrogantly disregard. Paragraph 4. 4. of the Code entitled, Return and Restitution of Cultural Property, provides, inter alia, that
“In response to requests for the return of cultural property to the country or people of origin, museums should be prepared to initiate dialogues with an open-minded attitude based on scientific and professional principles (in preference to action at a governmental or political level). In addition the possibility of developing bilateral or multilateral partnerships with museums in countries that have lost a significant part of their cultural or natural heritage should be explored.”
When some writers attempt to present Zahi Hawass as a lonely fighter, somebody out there on an ego trip, they are making a very grave mistake. The famous Egyptian archaeologist is no doubt the most prominent exponent from outside the Western world to articulate the need of many Africans, Asians and others for their cultural objects illegitimately removed during the heyday of Western imperialism. There is definitely a strong desire to recover cultural and religious objects taken to the West as war trophies or as evidence of backward, dominated peoples. A redress of the balance is absolutely necessary and Western intellectuals and politicians would do well to pay heed to this profound desire. Clare writes: “Indeed, the British Museum is an impressive proponent of international cultural dialogue and growth. Its director, Neil MacGregor, has rightly won praise for reaching out to museums threatened by war in Iraq, for example: his expertise, and that of his curators, was of great significance in Baghdad in particular.” Is this statement to be taken seriously? How are Egyptians to understand this example?
Can one offer such an argument to those reclaiming their cultural property from the West? Can one seriously offer such a statement to Egyptians or Nigerians seeking the return of their cultural property from the British Museum? Clare does not explain that the museums in Iraq were threatened by a war launched by Western States including Britain. How can the British Museum be presented as more or less a saviour of the Iraqi National Museum or Iraqi artefacts? We may recall that the British Museum has always been more concerned with ensuring that it has access to the archaeological artefacts of Iraq. (14)
The looting of the Baghdad Museum is often offered by some as a reason why the so-called source countries should not keep all their national treasures in their country since an attack might result in the loss, through looting or destruction, of such objects. It is suggested that these treasures are best kept in the so-called universal museums in London, Chicago, Berlin, Paris and New York. The basic principle here is that we should not keep all our eggs in one basket. This is a fairly intelligent proposition but when we apply it seriously to the museum context, we begin to see the hypocrisy involved and the self-serving nature of the presentation by Western writers and museum directors. Where do we have the greatest accumulation of thousands of precious cultural objects under one roof? Surely, the answer would be London, Paris and Berlin. There are the museums holding looted/stolen treasures of other peoples and nations. A strict application of the idea of not keeping too many treasures at one place should lead to dispersing some of the thousands of accumulated objects in Western museums. However none of those preaching this insurance or security idea has made such a suggestion. Indeed, they use this very argument to justify their unlimited desire for more cultural objects. MacGregor, Montebello, Cuno and others have always argued that since the so-called universal museums have already treasures from all over the world, they are the best places for keeping the Parthenon Marbles and the treasures of others. This is a strange justification for holding on to the property of others. The argument used to deprive others of their treasures, is used to support others holding on to looted/stolen objects or objects illegitimately acquired. Principles are easily bent to serve the interests of Western museums by those we could have expected to be more rigorous in their thinking.
Clare begins his article with the statement: “It’s a staple question at dinner parties or job interviews: if your house or office was burning down, what’s the one thing you would save? For the staff of the British Museum, the question might seem almost impossible to answer, given the wonderful riches contained in its collection. Yet if you pressed them, they would probably have to admit that the answer would be simple: the Rosetta Stone”. If this mind-game-Gedankenspiel- were modified and transposed to countries in Africa and Asia where people might play it anytime since many may not have any meal in the day, the results might be quite interesting. What cultural object would you like to take from the British Museum, if you had the possibility of doing so? The Rosetta Stone might not necessarily be the first object mentioned because of its dimensions and weight but other objects, such as the Benin bronzes come readily to mind. (15) But supposing a group of young Egyptians thought the Rosetta Stone was what Egyptian culture absolutely required? Should one continue this mind-game any further or return to the concrete issue of the Egyptian request? In this connection, a reflection on how the British Museum obtained its large collection of Egyptian artefacts might indicate caution in such mind-games. (16)
Many of those writing in defence of the retention of cultural property of others do not seem to realize that the world has changed profoundly since the 1940s; they use arguments that basically reinforce imperialist and colonialist positions. They seem unaware that what is being challenged is the hegemony of the former imperialist States and their epistemological pretences and subterfuges. The very claim that London, Paris and Berlin are the better places for keeping stolen/looted cultural artefacts reinforces the suspicion that the successors to imperialist powers are only fighting to maintain the status quo. Who looked after the various artefacts before they were stolen, looted or otherwise illegitimately taken out of the countries of origin? Roy Clare may, like many Westerners, see the British Museum as the natural place for the Rosetta Stone, the Benin bronzes and the thousands of cultural artefacts of others now in the museum. We hope he will understand that not many outside the circle of Western museum officials and their supporters view the situation in the same way.
Western writers should finally wake up to the fact the quest for the restitution of cultural artefacts stolen/looted during the colonialist and imperialist eras is part of a wider struggle to restore the dignity of the erstwhile colonial subjects. The presence of these cultural objects in Western museums constitutes constant painful reminders of our defeat, oppression, subjugation and humiliation at the hands of the former colonial powers. Arguments about London, Berlin and Paris being world centres of culture are further aggravations of the damage and re-opening of the wounds. They also indicate that many Westerners have no idea about slavery, colonialism and imperialism. They write as if colonialism were a mere picnic in the neighbour’s garden which disturbed him a little. The massive destruction, dislocation and annihilation Africa experienced in the encounter with Europe, the effects of which are still visible, should indicate to Westerners a less arrogant approach to questions of restitution. But would those sitting comfortably in their undisturbed cultural environments in London, Paris and Berlin, understand the depth of the wounds inflicted on others and the need for a healing process to be commence by conciliatory gestures? The have no experience of being obliged to use the languages of others, adopt their religions, assume their names and be under the control of powerful foreigners ever-ready to use military force.
Cultural objects seized in the past by Western nations should have been returned at Independence. Egypt had been regarded for decades as some sort of archaeological supermarket where Western States collected whatever objects they wanted with connivance of occupational forces. Given the enormous amount of Egyptian cultural artefacts found in Western States, should their museums officials and other representatives not feel ashamed that now in the 21st century they even dare to argue with the Egyptians about returning individual cultural artefacts such as the Rosetta Stone and the bust of Nefertiti? There is definitely lacking here a sense of balance and proportion which we find difficult to understand especially when it appears that even some intellectuals accept this as a natural order of things. (17)
The return of the Rosetta Stone to Egypt would symbolize the beginning of the end of a long period in which Western States have felt entitled to steal, loot or otherwise seize the cultural artefacts of those they considered inferior peoples in the belief that only the West entitled to keep the important cultural achievements of others. Britain was involved at the commencement of large-scale looting and should be there at the beginning of the end of that process. Russell Chamberlain has underlined Britain’s pivotal role in the process of plunder in cultural artefacts in Egypt:
“Britain’s abstraction of the Rosetta Stone marks the beginning of an open season for the plunder of Egypt that was to last for 150 years, virtually until the country at last gained independence. Savants and tourists, plain thieves and solemn scientific expeditions all took their toll, feeding the hungry museums first of Europe, then of America.” (18)
Russell Chamberlain also refers to the great number of Egyptian artefacts in the West: “The sheer quantity of Egyptian artefacts that found their way into the museums of Europe and North America is staggering. From the great national galleries, with their colossal stone statutes, their rows of mummies, their ranks of figurines and tools, their acres of frescoes and papyri, to the little county museum ,housed in some antique merchant’s home, devoted to local exhibits but proudly boasting a scab or mis-shapen chunk of stone – all bear testimony to an obsession. Egyptology was the sacred cow of scholarship, the great museums being fully prepared to starve their other collections so long as they could lay hands on yet another statue, more papyri, another mummy.”(19)
Surely, there must be some limits to the desire to acquire the cultural objects of others, especially if the means used have not always been fair and cause constant disputes with those who produced those objects or whose history culture and identity are bound up with the objects disputed.
Bust of Ramesses II, weighing 7.25 tons, Egypt, now in the British Museum, London, United Kingdom.
Kwame Opoku, 20 December, 2009.
NOTES
1. Jeanette Greenfield, The Return of Cultural Treasures, Cambridge University Press, Third Edition 2007, p.411.
2. Daily Telegraph, 10 December, 2009 http://www.telegraph.co.uk
3. Richard Parkinson, The Rosetta Stone, The British Museum Press, 2005, p.24.
4. A-M. M’Bow, “A Plea for the Return of an Irreplaceable Heritage to those Who created It”. An Appeal by the Director-General of UNESCO (1979) 31 Museum 58; reproduced also in John H. Merrymann, Albert E.Elsen and Stephen K. Urice (Eds.), Law, Ethics and the Visual Arts, Kluwer Law International, 2007,p.342.
5. http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk The British towns listed as having Egyptian collections include, Bolton, Bristol, Cambridge, Dublin, Durham,Edingburgh,Glasgow,Leicester,Liverpool,London,Manchester,Plymouth,Sheffield,Swansea and Ulster.. The list of other European and North American museums with Egyptian collections can also be found at this link.
6. http://en.wikipedia.org
7. Richard Parkinson, op.cit, p.30.
8. Parkinson, ibid. p.31.
9. K.Opoku, “Is nationalism such a dangerous phenomenon for culture and stolenl/looted cultural property?
http://www.modernghana.com
10. K. Opoku, “The amazing director of the British Museum: Gratuitous insults as currency of cultural diplomacy?
http://www.modernghana
11. K. Opoku, “Once in the British Museum always in the British Museum: Is the de-accession policy of the British Museum a farce?
http://www.modernghana.com
12. K. Opoku, “Formal demand for the return of Benin Bronzes: Will Western museums now return some of the looted/stolen Benin artefacts?”
http://www.modernghana
13. See conclusions of the Athens Conference in the Annex below.
14. According to Ana Filipa Vrdoljak, International Law ,Museums and the Return of Cultural Objects,( Cambridge University Press, 2006, p.86.) at the end of the British Mandate over Iraq in 1932, “…the trustees of the British Museum aired concerns about Iraqi legislation, by which it was rumoured the Baghdad Museum sought to retain “ everything of any value” and “insist on control over expeditions, by attaching a native inspector” C. Leonard Woolley maintained that the proposed law ignored “the interests of science” and that these antiques were usually best conserved by Western institutions. The trustees sought and got assurances that the Iraqi parliament would not table new antiquities legislation” without consulting foreign archaeologists.”
15. The Rosetta Stone is 112.3 cm in height at highest point, 75. 7cm. wide, and 28. 4 cm. thick and weighs 760 kg. http://www.britishmuseum
16. The homepage of the British Museum gives interesting information about how the museum acquired its large collection of Egyptian artefacts. Those who argue against returning the Rosetta Stone should perhaps look at how the other objects were obtained in order to appreciate, in a larger context, the seriousness of such demands for return of cultural property and the absolute need for the British and other Western States to make conciliatory gestures towards countries such as Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria and others. http://www.britishmuseum
17. In her excellent book, already mentioned, Dr. Greenfield remarks on the extraordinary accumulation of Egyptian artefacts in the West as follows:
“Considering the vast quantities of material which found their way from Egypt to the museums of the world, particularly in Europe and North America, the Egyptian request for a fragment of the Sphinx appears to have been a singularly modest one. Many thousands of objects were removed from Egypt over a 2,000 year period, including mummies, frescoes, figurines, tools and papyri. Three of the more commonly known objects were the 200-tonne obelisks, one of which now stands in Central Park, New York, one in the Place de Concorde in Paris, and the other, known as Cleopatra’s Needle, on the Victoria Embankment, London.”. Greenfield, op. cit. p.117.
18. R. Chamberlin, Loot! The Heritage of Plunder, Thames and Hudson, London, 1983. p. 51
19. Russell Chamberlin, ibid. p.40.
ANNEX
Conclusions of the Athens International Conference on the Return of Cultural Objects to their Countries of Origin, Athens, 17-18 March 2008. *
Experts on the issue of the return of cultural objects to their countries of origin, who participated in the first International Conference held in Athens, on 17th and 18th March 2008, within the framework of the meeting co-organized by the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation and the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, in the presence of the Member States of the Committee have reached the following conclusions:
• It is important that UNESCO organise international conferences, so that experts intensify their study of the issue of the return of cultural property to its country of origin, in order to produce viable and realistic solutions;
• Cultural heritage constitutes an inalienable part of a people’s sense of self and of community, functioning as a link between the past, the present and the future;
• It is essential to sensitize the public about this issue and especially the younger generation. An information campaign may prove very effective toward that end;
• Certain categories of cultural property are irrevocably identified by reference to the cultural context in which they were created (unique and exceptional artworks and monuments, ritual objects, national symbols, ancestral remains,
dismembered pieces of outstanding works of art). It is their original context that gives them their authenticity and unique value;
• The role of the Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in case of Illicit Appropriation must be strengthened through the necessary means, resources and infrastructure. Effort should be made to encourage mediation either through the Committee or by other means of alternative dispute resolution;
• Requests and negotiations for the return of cultural goods can work as a vehicle for cooperation, collaboration, sharing, joint research and economic promotion;
• In recent years a clear tendency towards the return of cultural objects to their countries of origin has been developed on legal, social and ethical grounds. The return of cultural objects is directly linked to the rights of humanity (preservation of cultural identity and preservation of world heritage);
• Museums should abide by codes of ethics. On this basis, museums should be prepared to initiate dialogues for the return of important cultural property to its country or community of origin. This should be undertaken on ethical, scientific, and humanitarian principles. The cooperation, partnership, goodwill and mutual appreciation between the parties concerned could lead to joint research programs and exchange of technical expertise.
*http://portal.unesco.org
WHERE THE ROSETTA STONE BELONGS MAY NOT BE SET IN STONE BUT IS STATED IN DOCUMENTS:
ROSETTA, EGYPT.
“The time has come when the British Museum should recognise the change in relative status between Britain and the rest of the world. We are no longer the imperial masters and increasingly need to build constructive working relationships as between equals.”
Peter Groome (1)
Rosetta Stone, Egypt, now in the British Museum, London, United Kingdom.
It is indeed really remarkable that so many Western writers seem to have great difficulty in keeping to logic and facts when it comes to writing about restitution of cultural objects which have been looted, stolen or illegitimately acquired from non-Western peoples. A recent example of this type of writing is an article by Ben Macintyre, entitled “Where the Rosetta belongs can’t be set in stone”, published in the British daily, The Times, of 10 December 2009. (2) The article may appear at first sight to contain convincing arguments but a cursory examination of the statements by the author shows that it is not well argued; it is mainly intended to support the stubborn refusal of the British Museum to return the Egyptian Rosetta Stone as the Egyptians have been demanding. We comment briefly on some of the statements in the article to examine some of the weaknesses of this line of thought.
“There are several objections to this, beginning with what he means by “we” and “the motherland”. Modern Egypt did not exist in 1799, let alone in 196 BC, when the stone was carved. Unlike some controversial items in Western museums, the stone was not smuggled away, but handed over to the British as part of a legal treaty, signed not only by the French and British, but by the Ottoman Government in Egypt”.
Macintyre asks what Zahi Hawass, the dynamic Egyptologist, and Secretary of the Egyptian Supreme Council on Antiquities, meant when he stated: “We own that stone.” With all due respect, when Zahi Hawass uses, “we” in this context he can only mean “we the Egyptian people. What else could he mean? The author goes on to repeat the rather doubtful argument, favoured by James Cuno and others that modern Egypt did not exist in 1799, let alone in 196 BC when the Rosetta Stone was carved. If we apply the logic involved here, namely that you cannot own something which was created at a time when you were not born, the basic unsoundness of the argument becomes clear. Has Macintyre heard something about the law of succession? How many persons own property in objects which were created some hundreds of years before they were born? How many of the present existing States, including Great Britain, United States, France and others, were in existence when the properties and cultural objects they now claim to own were created? How old is the United States? Macintyre quite correctly states that the Rosetta Stone was handed over by the French to the British in accordance with the treaty signed by the French, British and the Ottoman Government in Egypt. Does he realize that the Ottoman Government was a foreign occupying-power and that such transfers by occupying forces are of questionable legal validity?
“But more than that, the Rosetta Stone is an emblem of universality, and a product of the multiple cultures that existed in the 2nd century BC, in what we now call Egypt. Dr Hawass, a brilliant and inspiring defender of the past, has selected the wrong object over which to fight a narrow, nationalistic political campaign for “repatriation”.
Macintyre calls the Rosetta Stone an “emblem of universality”. Some of us were taught that it is an important evidence of Egyptian civilization and a crucial element in understanding Egyptian hieroglyphics which are by no means universal mode of communication. In other words, the stone is inevitably linked to Egypt and Egyptian culture but not to any vague “universal” culture. The attempt here to displace an object linked to a particular culture, from the land of that particular culture into an undefined culture, with the aim of reducing the strong claim of Egypt to that object, is a failure from the start. It is an echo of the dishonest theory presented by the discredited infamous Declaration on the Value and Importance of Universal Museums (2002). (3). This Declaration, initiated by the British Museum which cunningly did not sign it, proclaimed that the cultural artefacts of others which are now in the so-called universal museums, have become part of the culture of those countries where they are now. But everyone knows that the average person in those countries is most likely not aware of the presence of these objects in the museums and definitely would reject any suggestion that these African and Asian objects in the museums are part of his culture.
Macintyre again follows the dishonest line of thinking of Cuno and others who accuse those seeking restitution of their objects in Western museums as “nationalists”. What about the British, Americans, French and Germans who seek to keep these objects in their national museums, are they not nationalists? (4) Political scientists in the Western world should clarify for the museum directors and their supporters, the concept of nationalism, its history and development, so that they may recognize the excessive nationalism in the Western world and the absence of strong nationalism in many countries outside the Western world. To accuse Zahi Hawass of having chosen the Rosetta Stone in order to fight a narrow, nationalistic political campaign for “repatriation” is a baseless accusation which assumes that only nationalists seek the return of the cultural objects wrongfully detained in the West. This is a serious mistake and shows how little many Westerners know about the rest of the world and its peoples. There are many who support repatriation of cultural objects but would strongly object to any suggestion that they were nationalists. Some of us have supported restitution to Egypt, Ethiopia, Greece, Italy, Mali, Turkey, Kenya and other States. Are we nationalists of no particular nation or international nationalists? A short reflection would show the accusation of nationalism is devoid of serious basis. In any case, nationalism is, by itself, is no enemy of culture, as the history of the West clearly shows.
“If ever there was a genuinely global object, deserving of a place in a world museum, it is this: the text itself is insignificant, and very boring. Its importance lies in how it was moved outside Egypt, and deciphered: a chunk of builders’ rubble that changed the way we think”.
Macintyre exceeds himself in this statement. I leave it to the experts to decide whether the text on the Rosetta Stone is “insignificant, and very boring.” What we cannot let go is this idea implicit in the statement that the British Museum is a “world museum” whereas the new Grand Museum at Giza, to be completed in 2013 is not. What the new Egyptian museum would be can only be definitely determined when it is completed but from all that we have read, it will be a first class museum, comparable to the best in the world.(5) We know, at least since the completion of the new Acropolis Museum in Athens, that the British Museum and its supporters throw in the argument about the quality and security of museums outside the Western world only when there is a demand for repatriation but in reality, they are not at all concerned by this aspect. They were not impressed by the new museum in Athens and will equally not be impressed by the new museum at Giza.
Macintyre and others should stop confusing the world by telling us that the British Museum is a world museum. It is not. It is a British institution, no doubt with first class standards but that does not make it a world museum. (6) Those in the so-called universal museums keep saying they are world museums but they would be the very first to object to any suggestion or proposal to create a world museum where every people and State would freely make their contribution and have a say in the presentations in the museum and its governance. British Museum and other such museums, such as the Louvre and the Berlin State Museums, can only be described as “world museums” in the sense that they have in their inventories, large numbers of stolen/looted articles from every corner of the world. Is that what Macintyre means?
“Instead of debating ownership and trying to impose modern notions of political sovereignty on ancient cultural patrimony, the argument should be about how to bring the world’s cultural riches to the widest possible audience, regardless of where they physically reside.”
Macintyre, like many of those who oppose restitution, does his best to convince the rest of the world that the question of location of cultural objects is not important. When a museum has so many stolen or looted cultural objects, it is logically not interested in discussing the question of location of objects. When you are in possession of looted objects, the question of ownership becomes tiresome. This is very similar to the aversion of many rich persons to discussions on money and property. They seek quite enjoyment and not, what they consider, unnecessary and useless discussions. Is there an iota of evidence that the rich museums and States are genuinely interested in “how to bring the world’s cultural riches to the widest possible audience, regardless of where they physically reside”? I have not seen any such signs and the recent statements about the Rosetta Stone, Nefertiti and the Benin Bronzes give the impression that most Western museums have not moved from the position of their predecessors in previous centuries that all that is best in the world can only be properly located in the West.
The dismissal of the importance of the location of objects is another version of the theory of decontextualization favoured by some museum directors, dealers and grave robbers, tombaroli. They all work on the assumption that the social and archaeological context of objects is not very decisive. The objects can be admired independently of the functions and origins. That they deprive others of objects made for definite functions or as records of events in a given context does not worry them greatly. They ignore the insistence of archaeologists that such removal of objects from their contexts deprive us of possibility of further knowledge.
“Arguments about “stolen” artefacts and national identity seem oddly old-fashioned in a world where the internet enables every object in a public collection to be seen and appreciated anywhere on the planet.”
Again, arguments based on the availability of internet are not very serious in so far as internet is not available to many persons in the towns and villages from which the cultural objects were stolen or looted by Western States. Can Macintyre explain to people in Africa and elsewhere, how the presence of internet affects the absence of the objects they need for cultural activities and performances? How do you dance in a masquerade with a mask in the internet?
Does Macintyre really believe that “the internet enables every object in a public collection to be seen and appreciated anywhere on the planet.”? Somebody should inform him that not all the objects on public display are shown in the internet.
“Some curators, fearful of the insistence that all cultural artefacts must stay in the country of discovery, argue for a return of the system of “partage”, whereby discoveries were shared between the source country and the finders. In a globalised world, this system should be universal, allowing the widest possible exchange of artefacts and the ideas that go with them, irrespective of national boundaries and political pride.”
Macintyre, like many opponents of restitution, deliberately overstates the arguments of the supporters of restitution. Nobody, including Zahi Hawass, has ever argued that “all cultural artefacts must stay in the country of discovery”. Many people argue that some significant objects. among the thousands of objects that were stolen, looted or otherwise illegitimately acquired in the heyday of Western imperialism, should be returned. Hawass has recently insisted on the fact that he is only asking for the Rosetta stone, the bust of Nefertiti and a few other objects that are significant for Egyptian culture and identity. He is not asking for the return of the 100.000 Egyptian objects in the British Museum nor the several thousands that are in the Berlin State Museums. The Benin Royal Family has appealed orally and in writing to Western museums and their governments to return some of the Benin Bronzes stolen in the nefarious British invasion of Benin in 1897. This appeal has fallen on the deaf ears of those who have the audacity to keep repeating that there has been no such request. (7) But Macintyre and other Western writers keep on giving the impression that those seeking restitution seek to empty Western museums. They know this is not true but do they really care for the truth? They talk about sharing the rich cultural heritage of the world but keep quite on the astonishing imbalance that exists and the fact that most objects are lying in depots of Western museums, unused and undisplayed. Are they worried by the fact that the best of the arts of most African countries are to be found in Western museums? The best places for seeing African arts are Berlin, London, Lisbon, New York and Paris and not Abidjan, Accra, Bamako, Lagos, Luanda or Yaoundé. Have many thought of the implications of this situation for the development of the cultures of those countries?
Macintyre refers to the system of “partage” and suggests it should be “universalised”. It is the system which allowed directly or indirectly the departure of many cultural objects such as the bust of Nefertiti and other objects to the West. It undoubtedly enabled the former colonial powers to deprive others of their cultural objects. The system was rejected by many States when they regained their independence. I wonder if Macintyre has read the writings of those who support that system. They indirectly or directly point to the unfair nature of that system. (8)
“The Rosetta Stone is not a national icon, as Dr Hawass maintains, but an international symbol, as demonstrated by its idiomatic usage: the word “Rosetta” has come to mean not just unlocking ideas, but spreading them. Some ideas, and some objects, are so universally important that they demand that we stand spontaneously to attention”.
What should we make of the above statement? Macintyre tries to turn an Egyptian cultural object into an international object because of the usage of its name in Western languages. Current Western popular linguistic usage surely cannot displace facts of Egyptian history and culture. (9)
Western writers should move away from defending the unjustified colonialist and imperialist looting of the cultural objects of peoples they disrespected and sometimes even considered as people without culture whilst at the same time stealing their cultural objects. The past generations of colonialists and imperialists may have acted according to their own beliefs and standards but what are the justifications of our Western contemporaries who defend the murderous and nefarious colonial past of slavery and oppression by insisting that the looted objects are best kept in the former colonial capitals? Do they need to add insults to injuries? In many ways, the present upholders of colonial and imperialist loot are worse than the original looters and their assistants. Whereas the latter may have acted under pressure, the former are acting in leisure.
Kwame Opoku, 1 January, 2010.
NOTES
(1) “It’s time to gracefully relinquish the Rosetta Stone”, http://www.independent.co.uk
http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/elginism
2. http://www.timesonline. See also comments on a similar article by Ben Macintyre: Kwame Opoku, “Tickets for all to the “Universal Museums” but without the Africans?”
3. K. Opoku, “Is ICOM becoming an instrument of the so-called universal museums? Comments on statement by the Director-General of ICOM that the Parthenon/Elgin Marbles should stay in the British Museum”. http://www.modernghana.com
4. K. Opoku, “Is nationalism such a dangerous phenomenon for culture and stolen/looted cultural property?” http://www.modernghana.com
5. See the links below for information on the Grand Egyptian Museum http://www.kenseamedia.com
http://en.wikipedia.
http://pmanuelian.wordpress.com
http://www.grand-egyptian-museum
6. K. Opoku, “When will everybody finally accept that the British Museum is a British institution? Comments on a lecture by Neil MacGregor.” http://www.modernghana.com
7. K. Opoku, “Formal demand for the return of Benin Bronzes: Will Western museums return some of the looted/stolen Benin artefacts?” http://www.modernghana.
8. See the annex below.
ANNEX
CUNO ON PARTAGE
James Cuno, a vehement supporter of the partage system who has called for a return to that system, has some very interesting remarks on partage in his book Who Owns Antiquity? (Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2008)
“The question then is: should the fate of the archaeological record-and of antiquities alienated from their archaeological context-remain under the jurisdiction of national governments? Is there an alternative? Yes. And it was once in place and encouraged the scientific excavation of the archaeological record and the preservation and sharing of ancient artifacts between local governments and international museums. It is called partage. Under that policy, foreign-led excavation teams provided the expertise and material means to lead excavations and in return were allowed to share the finds with the local government’s archaeological museum. That is how the collections of archaeological museums at the University of Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and Harvard and Yale Universities were built; as well as important parts of the collections of the British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was also how the collections in archaeological museums in Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Turkey were built. Foreign museums underwrote and led scientific excavations from which both the international archaeological and local political communities benefited. While local tensions increased over time as nationalist aspirations took hold, partage served both communities well. It was only with the flood of nationalist retentionist cultural property laws in the second half of the twentieth century that partage all but disappeared. The collections of the university museums mentioned above now could not be built, and the directors and faculty curators of those museums, many of whom are the loudest proponents of national retentionist patrimony/cultural property laws,.could not teach and research as they do now. Much of their work is dependent on a policy no longer legal in the countries with jurisdiction over the archaeological materials they study.” pxxxiii (Preface).
Cuno writes further as follows:
“For many decades in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, archaeological finds were shared between the excavating party and the local,host country through partage.
This is how the great Ghandaran collection got to the Musée Guimet in Paris (shared with Afghanistan), the Assyrian collection got to the British Museum in London (shared with Iraq, before the formation of the modern, independent government of Iraq), the Lydian materials from Sardis got to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (shared with the Ottoman Empire, now Turkey), the Egyptian collection got to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, a number of collections got to the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and of course how the great collections were formed at the university archaeological museums, like the Peabody Museums at Harvard and Yale, the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, and the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania.” But this principle is no longer in practice. With the surge in nationalism in the middle decades of the twentieth century, it has become almost impossible to share the archaeological finds. All such finds belong to the host nation and are its property. Only the state can authorize the removal of an archaeological artifact to another country, and it almost never does. Even when one lends antiquities abroad, it is for severely restricted periods of time.” p.14
Further in his book Cuno writes:
“The history of archaeology in Iraq has always been closely linked to the cultural and political ambitions of its governing authorities. During the late Ottoman period, Iraqi archaeology was dominated by teams of Europeans and North American excavators working on pre-Islamic sites at Babylon, Khorsabad, and Nippur. They had been drawn to the area intent on confirming the historical existence of Biblical events and places and with the view that the ancient history of what they called Mesopotamia was in fact part of the West’s subsequent Graeco-Roman and Judeo-Christian history. The term Mesopotamia itself was a classical Greek term used by Westerners to mark the lands known locally since the advent of Islam as al-’Iraq in the north and al-Jazira in the south. Its use by Orientalists has been interpreted politically as a “reconstructive act severing ‘Mesopotamia’ from any geographical terrain in order to weave it into the Western historical narrative”: Mesopotamia as a pre-Islamic source for Western culture; Iraq as an Islamic, geographically determined – and thus limited – construction.
Under the British Mandate, from 1921 to 1932, archaeology in Iraq was dominated by British teams – including the British Museum working with the University of Pennsylvania at Ur, the fabled home not only of Sumerian kings but also the Biblical Abraham – regulated by British authorities. The Oxford-educated, English woman Gertrude Bell, who had worked for the British Intelligence in the Arab Bureau in Cairo, was appointed honorary Director of Antiquities in Iraq by the British-installed King Faysal in 1922. A most able administrator, having served as the Oriental secretary to the High Commission in Iraq after the war, Bell was responsible for approving applications for archaeologists, and thus for determining where in Iraq excavators would work. She was also a major force behind the wording and passage of the 1924 law regulating excavations in Iraq, a result of which was the founding of the Iraq Museum and the legitimization of partage:
Article 22: At the close of excavations, the Director shall chose such objectsfrom among those found as are in his opinion needed for scientific completeness of the Iraq Museum. After separating these objects, the Director will assign [to the excavator]… such objects as will reward him adequately aiming as far as possible at giving such a person a representative share of the whole result of excavations made by him.
Article 24: Any antiquities received by a person as his share of the proceeds of excavations under the preceding article may be exported by him and he shall be given an export permit free of charge in respect thereof”. (Cuno, pp. 54-55).
After reading these extracts from Cuno’s book, one wonders how he could even think of recommending such a system to African and Asian countries, Greece and Italy. By his own account, the system of partage was dominated by the British and the Americans who determined where excavated cultural objects should be. So why should those countries which have experienced this system want to return to it? Cuno even urges Western archaeologists to boycott “source countries” that refuse to return to the partage system. This is very interesting. If the partage system was beneficial to both sides as Cuno tries to make it appear, why is it necessary to resort to threats of boycott to persuade those countries to continue with the old system? Surely, these countries must recognize where their interests lie. Cuno thinks one must threaten them to follow the path which is clearly in their interest! Macintyre and those who suggest that we return to the partage system should seriously ask themselves why the system came to an end with the independence of the so-called source countries.
(9) Readers may wish to visit http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/elginism for an interesting article on attempts by a private Western commercial enterprise, the language teaching company, Rosetta Stone, to claim ownership and exclusive use of the designation “Rosetta Stone”.