Showing results 349 - 360 of 792 for the tag: Cultural Property.

April 10, 2012

Turkey asks British Museum to return the Samsat Stele

Posted at 12:54 pm in British Museum, Similar cases

As part of their ongoing campaign for the restitution of looted artefacts, Turkey has written to the British Museum asking for the return of the Samsat Stele, a stone tablet that is over two thousand years old.

From:
Today’s Zaman

Turkey requests return of Samsat Stele from Britain
9 April 2012 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL

The Turkish government has requested from Britain the return of a stone tablet dating back to the first century.

The Samsat Stele, which is currently held at the British Museum, is a stone tablet dating back to the first century B.C. portraying Commagenian King Antiochos I Epiphanes greeting Greek god Zeus’s son Herakles. The hole in the center of the Samat Stele, which is made of basalt, reflects its later use as an oil press.
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April 4, 2012

Should Britain return the Elgin Marbles? The messy rules of cultural repatriation

Posted at 12:57 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles

A humorous look (which raises a lot of important issues) about whether the Parthenon Sculptures should be returned to Greece & some of the implications that such a move might have if it did take place.

From:
Huffington Post

Losing Our Marbles: Should Britain Return the Elgin Marbles to Greece?
Posted: 4/04/2012 00:00

The unwritten rules of decorum state it is impolite to discuss sex, politics or religion at dinner parties. I would like to add one more topic to that list – cultural repatriation. As discursive stink-bombs go it’s not often a headline act, but there are few controversies more likely to invoke a full-on food fight during the middle of the cheese course than the concept of returning archaeological heritage to various peoples around the globe. Now, just months from the Olympics, the campaign is being stepped up once more for the return of the Elgin Marbles to the Greek nation, and another messy argument seems inevitable.

First thing’s first, why are they the Elgin Marbles? Well, here lies our first trip hazard – we do not refer to them as the Parthenon Marbles (the building they were intended for) or the Phidian Marbles (the sculptor who crafted them), but instead they have taken the name of the aristocrat who nabbed them from Greece. As far as I am aware, lumps of rock are unaffected by Stockholm Syndrome, so it’s not the Marbles themselves who are identifying with their kidnapper. No, it’s the British people who have dubbed them Elgin’s Marbles, in gratitude for the Lord’s generosity in selling them, at a reduced price, to the nation in 1816. So, already Britain has committed an act of appropriation through nominative rebranding. The name implies they were Elgin’s to sell in the first place.
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Greek heritage a casualty of the financial crisis

Posted at 12:51 pm in Greece Archaeology, Similar cases

More coverage of the problems facing Greece’s ancient sites, as a result of the country’s continuing financial difficulties. Unfortunately, it seems at the moment that the end of these problems is a long way off, so the issues are not going to disappear quickly, although help from other countries in blocking sales of looted artefacts helps to limit the market for such items.

From:
Agence France Presse

Amid debt crisis, archaeology Greece’s Achilles heel
By Isabel Malsang (AFP)

ATHENS — Faced with massive public debt, Greece is finding that its fabled antiquity heritage is proving a growing burden — with licensed digs postponed, illegal ones proliferating, museum staff trimmed and valuable pieces stolen.

“Greece’s historic remains have become our curse,” whispered an archaeologist at a recent media event organised to protest spending cuts imposed on the country for the past two years as a condition for European Union and International Monetary Fund loans.
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April 3, 2012

Turkey’s requests for the return of looted artefacts in US museums

Posted at 12:57 pm in Similar cases

As well as eighteen artefacts in the Metropolitan Museum, Turkey is requesting the return of many other disputed artefacts in other museums across the USA.

From:
Los Angeles Times

Turkey asks U.S. museums for return of antiquities
By Jason Felch, Los Angeles Times
March 30, 2012, 8:48 p.m.

The government of Turkey is asking American museums to return dozens of artifacts that were allegedly looted from the country’s archaeological sites, opening a new front in the search for antiquities smuggled out of their original countries through an illicit trade.

The J. Paul Getty Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Cleveland Museum of Art and Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection are among the institutions that the Turkish government has contacted, officials say.
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Why the Parthenon Marbles are a special case for restitution

Posted at 12:48 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

This article appears as a response to the previous article in the Guardian. There are many things that make the Parthenon Sculptures a special case – the fact that they form part of a greater whole & that they were designed to be seen in a specific context, not as an object could be easily relocated are just a couple of them. This is not to deny that other cases have merit to them as well – each case should be judged alone, as they are so different. The differences are not just in the objects themselves, but in their cultural significance, where they were taken from, when they were taken, the circumstances surrounding their removal etc.

In cases such as the Parthenon Marbles, Greece has previously made clear offers that if the sculptures were returned, they would provide Britain with other temporary exhibitions of similar value (a very hard thing to assess). Temporary exhibitions are the main thing that draws people back on return visits to the British Museum, so surely having these regularly arranged for them would result in win-win situation for the museum?

From:
Guardian

Are the Parthenon marbles really so special?
Mike Pitts
Monday 2 April 2012 20.30 BST

The British Museum has had only one request to return something from its vast collections that it regards as official. The Greek government has asked the British government if it can have the Parthenon marbles back. Stephen Fry also thinks the issue of these sculptures is unique. In December last year, in a blog picked up over the weekend by a restitution lobby group, Fry wrote: “The Parthenon affair is a special case.”

Which it is. That stunning building embodies the culture that gave us democracy, the Olympic Games and all that classical stuff we used to be taught at school. It inspired the Renaissance and Byron, and now the many who would like to see the bits in the British Museum – about half the surviving sculptures – given back to Greece.
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March 30, 2012

Why Britain should back the world ban on artefact looting

Posted at 1:47 pm in Similar cases

For reasons that are unclear to me, Britain has never ratified the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict. This is despite declaring in 2004 that they would ratify the convention. The only reason I have ever been given was that it conflicted in some places with existing laws in Britain, that would need to be amended first.

From:
Independent

Letters: Back the world ban on looting
Friday 30 March 2012

The March 2003 invasion of Iraq by a coalition led by the US and the UK failed to prevent the immediate and appalling looting of museums, libraries, archives and art galleries, followed by years of looting of archaeological sites across the country.

On 14 May 2004, the UK Government announced its intention to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and its protocols of 1954 and 1999. Today, on the ninth anniversary of the invasion, it has still to honour this commitment. This is despite all-party support for ratification and recently reiterated support for ratification from the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The USA ratified the Convention in 2009. This leaves the UK as arguably the most significant military power, and certainly the only power with extensive military involvements abroad, not to have ratified it.
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Thessaloniki Archaeological Museum hosting exhibition about antiquities trafficking

Posted at 1:28 pm in Greece Archaeology, Similar cases

“End to Antiquities Trafficking”, a new temporary exhibition about looting of antiquities in Greece, at Thessaloniki’s Archaeological Museum, runs until September.

From:
Greek Reporter

Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki to Host “End to Antiquities Trafficking” Exhibition
By Stella Tsolakidou on March 29, 2012

A temporary exhibition entitled “End to Antiquities Trafficking” will open in April at the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki. The exhibition will run until September and aims at highlighting the sensitive issue of antiquities smuggling by showcasing stolen artifacts that have been confiscated.

The exhibition will feature six sections with a total of 170 artifacts from the Museum’s collections, the 6th and 7th Ephorates of Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and the Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities. Moreover, archive material from the Directorate for Protection of Cultural Heritage of the Tourism Ministry will also be on display.
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Trial of Robert Hecht ends with no verdict

Posted at 12:48 pm in Similar cases

The trial in Italy of Robert Hecht, the art dealer suspected of selling many looted artefacts, has ended without verdict. The reasons for this result were similar to those that ended the trial of former Getty curator Marion True in 2010.

From:
Los Angeles Times

Italian case against antiquities dealer ends
January 19, 2012

The trial of Robert E. Hecht Jr., the alleged mastermind of an international black market in ancient art, ended with no verdict this week when a three-judge panel in Rome found the time allotted for the trial had expired.

Hecht, a 92-year-old Baltimore native now confined to bed at his home in Paris, has cut a wide swath through the art world since the 1950s, supplying museums and collectors around the world with some of the finest examples of ancient Greek, Roman and Etruscan art.
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British Museum director speaks about Elgin Marbles & Indian artefacts

Posted at 8:01 am in Similar cases

The British Museum is working with the Indian Ministry of Culture, to help to improve their country’s museums. This is a great idea, & shows a useful way that museums can collaborate with one another abroad. During an interview about this, MacGregor was also asked about the Parthenon Marbles & stated that they had been offered to Greece as a loan. In much the same way though, as the British Museum claims that Greece has never in recent years made an official restitution request, it could be argued that the British Museum has never really made any sort of official offer to Greece. There have been statements in the press, but as far as I’m aware, no sort of proper discussions with high level Greek officials. The British Museum seems instead to rely on previous assertions of ownership by Greece as rejections of such as loan offer, allowing them to assume that the loan would be unacceptable on this basis & therefore never even make a proper offer…

From:
Times of India

‘Get people into your museums’
TNN Jan 15, 2012, 06.20AM IST

Indian museums badly need overhauling and who better than the director of British Museum, Neil MacGregor, to help do it. In Delhi recently on an ambitious project in collaboration with the ministry of culture to train Indian professionals, he tells Archana Khare Ghose that exchange between all parts of the world has to go up.

Your team will be training Indian museum professionals. What do you think are the disadvantages that Indian museums suffer from but could improve upon? Fortunately for India, it has two of the hardest things to acquire in a museum – scholarship and great collections. All you need now is to get people into the museums. I think Indian museums are right now focused on their collections but it would be of immense interest for the public if they were to get opportunities to see collections from say, Mexico, China, Iran, etc., in their own museums through loaned exhibitions. The collection of the British Museum is available to see for free to all those who are “curious or studious, native or foreign” and we could loan them for exhibitions.
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March 29, 2012

Greece wins court ruling in Switzerland over looted coin

Posted at 1:02 pm in Greece Archaeology, Similar cases

As a country rich with archaeological heritage, Greece has always faced problems stopping illegal looting of its ancient sites. The more cases that get stopped before the artefacts can be sold on though, the less incentive there is for people who think that they can excavate illegally without facing any penalties.

From:
Washington Times

Greece wins Swiss court ruling over ancient coin
By Costas Kantouris
Associated Press
Thursday, January 12, 2012

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — A Swiss court has ordered the confiscation of a very rare ancient silver coin that was allegedly illegally excavated in northern Greece and sold at auction in Switzerland, Greek and Swiss officials say.

The lawyer representing Greece in the case said Thursday that the ruling in October opens the way for the early 5th century B.C. coin’s return to Greece. The debt-crippled country’s rich cultural heritage has long suffered depredations from antiquities smugglers supplying a lucrative international market.
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Christopher Hitchens and the Elgin Marbles

Posted at 12:56 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles

Following the death of Christopher Hitchens, an article on the Malathronas blog looks particularly at how strongly he put forward the arguments for the reunification of all the surviving Parthenon Sculptures in Athens.

You can view this article here.

Dorotheum attempts second auction of African artefacts – is provenance any better this time?

Posted at 8:24 am in Similar cases

Viennese Auction House, Dorotheum, last year auctioned an assortment of African artefacts, but questions were raised about the unclear provenance of many of the items.

Another auction is planned this year, but will the provenance of the items be any clearer than at the previous one?

From Kwame Opoku via email.

ANOTHER AUCTION OF AFRICAN ARTEFACTS BY VIENNA AUCTION HOUSE, DOROTHEUM: BETTER PROVENANCES?

Dorotheum, the Viennese auction house, is holding another auction of African artefacts on 2 April, 2012. Readers may recall that in an article entitled Auction of Arican Art by Dorotheum, Vienna. But what are the Provenances of the Artefacts? reference was made to the absence of proper and adequate provenance for most of the artefacts which were part of the African collection of the late Prof. Rudolph Leopold, founder of the Leopold Museum. Museum of Modern Art, Vienna.

The artefacts in this second auction raise the same problems as the first. The provenance given is often extremely vague e.g. from the “collection of a German missionary”, “Belgian collection,” “Austrian collection”, “private South African collection,” etc. This imprecision does not facilitate the determination of the mode of acquisition of the artefacts and their legitimacy. Nor do we have any precise dates. Thus we cannot follow the history of the ownership of the object.
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