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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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I only recently came across it – explaining the fact that the information on the Louvre’s Egyptian Frescos is already out of date.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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An exhibition of artefacts from Benin has taken place at the Ethnography Museum in Stockholm. Despite many calls for the repatriation of Benin artefacts though, it seems as though most are only displayed in museums outside the region.

From:
Nigerian Compass

Repartration of looted artefacts in Europe: Benin’s case can’t be different
Tuesday, 02 February 2010 00:00

Recently, the ethnography museum of Stockholm, Sweden hosted an exhibition and seminar on Benin court art and culture. Prince Edun Akenzua who headed the delegation from His Majesty, Omo n’ Oba n’ Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, Eriduawua II of Benin to the international event discusses it and other salient issues relating to the Edo kingdom’s stolen artifacts in European museums with EMMANUEL AGOZINO. Excerpts:

What was the exhibition at the Ethnography Museum of Stockholm, Sweden, all about?
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The French government has returned two looted artefacts to Nigeria. The question is whether this is the start of an extended process of dialogue over disputed cultural property, or merely a one-off isolated act of restitution.

From:
Modern Ghana

FRANCE RETURNS LOOTED ARTEFACTS TO NIGERIA: BEGINNING OF A LONG PROCESS OR AN ISOLATED ACT?
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Sat, 30 Jan 2010

According to a report in the Nigerian Compass reproduced below, the French Government has returned to the Nigerian Government two artefacts looted during the colonial days. This is good news.

We have in various articles demonstrated the illegality, the illegitimacy and the immorality of detaining the cultural artefacts of others against their consent, whether the objects were looted, stolen or acquired under other dubious circumstances. We have urged Western museums that are full of such objects to endeavour to come to some acceptable arrangements with the owners. However, most Western museums have remained deaf to all reasonable pleas and demands for restitution.
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A forthcoming conference on cultural property organised by Egypt will hopefully help the cause of many other restitution campaigns across Africa & Asia.

From:
Deutsche Presse Agentur

Egypt to aid return of stolen Asian, African artifacts (Roundup)
By Shabtai Gold Dec 23, 2009, 15:34 GMT

Cairo – Egypt’s antiquities chief announced plans on Wednesday for a conference to help coordinate the strategy of African and Asian countries who had artifacts ’stolen’ from them.

‘At the end of March we will hold a conference to meet with others who suffered like us from stolen artifacts and to discuss how to help all of us in efforts to return the stolen artifacts,’ said Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council for Antiquities.
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The return of various fresco fragments to Egypt by the Louvre in Paris is the end of a chapter for those particular artefacts – but could be the beginning of many further restitution claims by other parties who observed how successfully the process was handled.

From:
Nigerian Compass

France’s return of Egyptian artefacts reawakes repatriation debate
Tuesday, 22 December 2009 00:00 Chuka Nnabuife

FRANCE’S surprise hand-over of four fragments of an ancient tomb mural to Egyptian antiquities authorities recently makes art authorities around the world pop questions about Nigeria’s steep in the nitty-gritty of art politics.

Probes about what the Nigerian government in the campaign to retreive its thousands of antiques scattered across the western art collections and museums filled internet art discourse platforms.
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A Nigerian expert is suggesting that legal action may be necessary if African countries are to be successful in retrieving many of their disputed artefacts. Looking at similar cases in the past – particularly those involving Italy, it has become clear to many people that the threat of legal proceedings can be the only thing that museums will listen to – something that they can’t just bury their heads in the sand & ignore.

From:
African Press Agency

Nigeria-Artifacts-Court
Nigerian expert advocates legal action in retrieving stolen artifacts
APA – Lagos (Nigeria) jeudi 17 décembre 2009, par daj

The Director of Nigeria’s Centre for Black and African Arts and Civilisation (CBAAC), Professor Tunde Babawale, says Nigeria should take legal action to retrieve its stolen artifacts.

Babawale told journalists on Wednesday in Lagos that Nigeria’s quest to retrieve the artifacts could be done through the International Court of Justice.
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Much is said about context – not least by the British Museum. The reality though is that the original context for which many artefacts were designed was very different from the museum environments in which they are currently displayed.

From:
Modern Ghana

Forever Bronze
By Tam Fiofori

According to Omo N’Oba N’Edo Erediauwa, Benin bronzes were not meant to be kept in museums and used as decorative pieces. Rather, bronzes filled in for the absence of photography in Benin traditional society and the Oba’s court as bronze castings were specifically used to depict and document important events and activities of a reigning Oba of Benin.

Put another way, the thousands of Benin bronzes which were looted by the British from the Oba’s palace in 1897 and, are now in the British Museum, London, and in other museums and private collections in the ‘western’ world represent a ’stolen library of the history of the Benin Kingdom’ and their rightful place remains the various ancestral spiritual altars/shrines within the Oba’s palace in Benin City.
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Kwame Opoku looks at how the bust of Nefertiti, on display in Berlin’s Neues Museum, is in many ways isolated from its original context – showing that context is not just important for understanding large in-situ pieces such as the Parthenon Sculptures.

From:
Modern Ghana

NEFERTITI, IDIA, TIYE AND OTHERS REVISITED: NEFERTITI IN SPLENDID ISOLATION?
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Mon, 16 Nov 2009

“The history of the bust of Nefertiti shows very clearly how hollow it can sound when Germans and other Europeans refer to legal principles in relation to the “Third World.”
Gert von Paczensky and Herbert Ganslymayr (1)

The intensive and extensive publicity surrounding the re-opening of the Neues Museum in Berlin and the renewed demands by Zahi Hawass made it inevitable that all those interested in restitution of looted/stolen cultural objects would pay attention to the recent celebration of the renovated museum on the Museums Island in Berlin.(2)
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Once again, Egypt is repeating requests that they have made previously for the return of looted artefacts held in museums abroad.

From:
Afrik.com

Egypt demands return of stolen artifacts from Europe and U.S.
The artifacts are of great historicity and culture
Thursday 12 November 2009 / by Konye Obaji Ori

Egypt is asking European countries in possession of Egyptian artifacts, historical and cultural monuments to return the items to the country for the opening of Egypt’s Grand Museum at Giza, due by 2013. So far, their request has been overlooked.

“I’m not asking for all the artifacts of the British Museum to come to Egypt. I’m only asking for the unique cultural objects,” he added, referring to items of great archaeological value, such as the Rosetta Stone,” says Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.
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This is the second part of Kwame Opoku’s article on the reasons given by museums against restitution as a way of avoiding confronting the real issues.

From:
Modern Ghana

WOULD WESTERN MUSEUMS RETURN LOOTED OBJECTS IF NIGERIA AND OTHER AFRICAN STATES WERE RULED BY ANGELS? RESTITUTION AND CORRUPTION*
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | 12 hours ago

[...]

IV. What is to be done?
In view of the very clear position of the major Western museums not to return any of the looted/stolen African artefacts, what should be done? Below are few proposals in this regard.

1. Urgent examination of existing cooperation agreements and arrangements between African museums and Western museums.
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Many of the museums of the West, when faced with restitution claims, have insisted that they would consider returning the artefacts – but they are unable to do so. Common reasons given include the security of the artefacts if they were returned, the lack of a suitable place to house them, or statutes that forbid deaccessioning. Are these institutions really speaking the truth though, ore merely trying to throw up more barriers to prevent any sort of serious discussion of the real issues involved.

Due to the length of this piece I am reproducing it here in two parts.

From:
Modern Ghana

WOULD WESTERN MUSEUMS RETURN LOOTED OBJECTS IF NIGERIA AND OTHER AFRICAN STATES WERE RULED BY ANGELS? RESTITUTION AND CORRUPTION*
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | 12 hours ago

Corruption, like tango, requires two partners.

A seminal study by Peju Layiwola, dealt with the question of the cultural memory of a people whose development has been brutally interrupted and their cultural objects seized by a foreign invader. (1) In the specific case of Benin, the British seized more than 3000 artefacts during their nefarious invasion in 1879. (2) This date and the invasion have remained memorable for the people of Benin, Nigeria and the continent of Africa.

Peju Layiwola whose mother, Princess Elisabeth Olowu, is a well-known artist, was born in the Palace of the Oba in Benin City during the reign of Oba Akenzua II, her maternal grandfather. Peju spent her childhood in Benin City, went to school there and did her first degree at the University of Benin. Her doctoral dissertation at the University of Ibadan dealt with contemporary Benin brass casting. Peju is therefore from family affiliation, from childhood experience and education linked to Benin and inevitably, since she was drawn to art in her infancy, to the arts of Benin and the tragic loss of the Benin bronzes through the British invasion. The important question then is not why Peju is concerned by the continued loss of the Benin Bronzes but rather why some people are less concerned or even indifferent to attempts to recover looted or stolen artefacts.
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