I came across the book Last of the Warrior Kings by Sarah Mussi recently. It is a fictional story for children, but the plot is heavily based on the story of the removal of the Benin Bronzes from Nigeria by the British, & their subsequent retention by the British Museum in London.

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

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

From:
Eflux

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

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

GENERAL PRINCIPLES ON CONDITIONS OF DEACCESSION FROM MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

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

In view of recent controversial practice with regard to selling art from museum collections, CIMAM states its opposition in the first instance to the notion of deaccession. In those instances where deaccession is deemed defensible or necessary, CIMAM’s General Assembly adopts the following set of principles for the conditions of deaccession, and urges the directors of member institutions to accept these principles as guidelines for their institutions.
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When the return of artefacts is mentioned, institutions such as the British Museum argue that it would empty their collections, leaving them with nothing to display. The reality however is that the British Museum has so many artefacts in their collection (that they are not allowed to sell, return or otherwise de-accession) that only one percent of the collection is currently on public display.

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

From:
BBC News

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

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

Choosing just 100 out of 80,000 objects on display was no mean feat. But what is on public show amounts to just 1% of the institution’s eight million artefacts.
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The British Museum made a deal with Iran in 2005 – that Iran would lend artefacts to the British Museum in for an exhibition on ancient Persia, in exchange for a later reciprocal loan of the Cyrus Cylinder to Iran. The loan from Iran went ahead as planned – but once it came to the loan to Iran the British Museum has dragged their heels at every step of the way.

From:
Press TV

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

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

Cyrus Cylinder is a declaration of kingship, inscribed on the surface of a clay cylinder upon the decree of glorious Persian king, Cyrus the Great, who issued the manuscript following his conquest of Babylonia in 539 BC.
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The Golden Cape of Mold is an currently held in the British Museum, despite the fact that Wales has regularly been calling for its return. The latest plan is to build a new museum to hose it if it was returned. Before rushing into this idea though I think they should bear in mind that a suitable home for the artefact is no guarantee of return – the Acropolis Museum in Athens is currently an example of this although hopefully the situation will change.

From:
The Leader (Flintshire, Wales)

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

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

Mold East councillor Chris Bithell, who is also a member of Mold Civic Society, said: “I think the old courthouse building in Mold would be ideal to house the Mold Gold Cape.
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Egypt has recently had a lot of success at securing the return of artefacts from foreign institutions & collectors. Can other countries manage to copy their example though with their own requests?

From:
Modern Ghana

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

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

Egyptians seem to be having tremendous success in the recovery of their artefacts taken away during the heyday of imperialism and colonialism or stolen since 1970 when States adopted the UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property (1970). (2)
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Any debate on the ownership of cultural property is to be welcomed – however, based on past experiences, any involvement of Robert Anderson will mean that only the view of the issue as seen b the British Museum is represented.

From:
Web News Wire

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

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

Speaking ahead of the event, he said, Antiquities, frequently being valuable and sought-after, often lead exciting, itinerant lives, ending up in places remote from where they originated. They can get into the news by being unexpectedly unearthed, offered surprising identities, sold for huge prices, exported ( sometimes illegally ), stolen, and even deliberately destroyed.
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In an unexpected piece of news today, a hedge fund that has taken on responsibility for much of Greece’s national debt, is hoping to negotiate a purchase of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum to add to its asset portfolio.

From:
Hedgefunds Review

Greek government in sovereign debt hedge fund deal
Author: Margie Lindsay
Source: Hedge Funds Review | 01 Apr 2010

London, April 1, 2010 – EXCLUSIVE – In a bold and unexpected move the Greek government has transferred its entire sovereign debt into three hedge fund vehicles. A further fund will receive Greek ancient monuments and a fifth ownership of several holiday islands in the Mediterranean, Hedge Funds Review has learned.

The hedge funds, all to be domiciled in the Cayman Islands, will pursue a number of strategies ranging from distressed debt to activist, according to sources close to the deal.
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The British Museum has responded unfavourably to MP Angus MacNeil’s proposal that the British Museum could open an outpost in the Western Isles to house the Lewis Chessmen.

From:
Scotsman

Thursday, 11th March 2010
Lewis chessmen must stay in British Museum, minister says
Published Date: 11 March 2010
By David Maddox

A PROPOSAL to create a wing of the British Museum on the Isle of Lewis to house the famous chess pieces found there was yesterday rejected by the UK government.

Western Isles Nationalist MP Angus MacNeil put forward the idea as a compromise solution to allow the 78 12th century Lewis chessmen to go home.
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MP Angus MacNeil has suggested that the Lewis Chessmen could be housed in an outpost of the British Museum located in the Western Isles. This suggestion is not dis-similar to what was proposed for the Parthenon Sculptures by the Greek government in 2003, where it was suggested that the British Museum could have a joint curatorship agreement with the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
BBC News

Page last updated at 16:52 GMT, Wednesday, 10 March 2010
MP calls for return of chessmen

The historic Lewis chessmen could be housed in an extension of the British Museum built on the Western Isles, the islands SNP MP has suggested.

Angus MacNeil told a debate in Westminster that most, if not all, the 93 pieces should be returned to Lewis where they were found buried in 1831.
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Today marks the point at which the website has been running for five years. I had the site registered for some time before that, but only with a single page of links available on it. Today marks the anniversary though of the first posting to the current site (the observant amongst you will notice that it is not the earliest post listed – this is because I later aided numerous saved articles from earlier dates).

The site itself is still largely in the same format as when it was first started – I would however like to think that in that time many of the issues have moved forward. Perhaps one of the most significant steps forward is the opening of the New Acropolis Museum – something that finally put to rest the long standing argument that the Parthenon Marbles could not be returned because there would be nowhere to put them. During the past five years, there have been many high profile (& in a lot of cases unanticipated) restitutions of disputed artefacts, showing that the cultural climate has made a definite shift towards resolving such issues. There are still many cases that remain unresolved however – the first case mentioned on this site involved the British Museum & they continue to drag their heels at every step of the way, hiding behind legal obstacles & refusing to enter into serious debate on issues of restitution. They are far from the only such institution that takes this view, but in the eyes of many, they are one of the worst.

I hope that in the next five year, the situation will have changed again – that some of the world’s great museums will realise that to lead the way in the twenty-first century means taking a radically different approach from that taken by them in the previous two hundred years. The institutions that are first to define a new operational model need to step out & admit that times have changed – that the future of museums is going to be a different one to that which they have been used to – but that if handled correctly it can be a win-win situation for all parties involved.

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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