This interview with Sharon Waxman indicates that the Getty’s reaction to her recent book on looted artefacts has not been particularly positive, due to her coverage of some of the institution’s practises.

Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World
Author: Sharon Waxman
Publisher: Times Books
ISBN: 0805086536

From:
Boston Globe

Sharon Waxman: On the trail of ‘Loot’
Posted by David Beard, Boston.com Staff December 2, 2008 07:22 AM

Sharon Waxman, a former Washington Post and New York Times culture reporter, appears in Cambridge on Wednesday to speak about “Loot” (Times Books), her account of the US and European plunder of Third World antiquities — and the return home for some of the art. She spoke from her home in Los Angeles.

Q: Your last book, “Rebels on the Backlot,” was about six Hollywood bad boy film directors of the 1990s. Could “Loot” be any more different?
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The Peruvian government intends to Sue Yale University for the return of historic artefacts, following problems with the agreement previously reached with the institution.

From:
All News Web

Peru wants Machu Picchu artifacts back from Yale
2-12-2008
Peru wants Machu Picchu artifacts back from Yale

The government of Peru is moving ahead with plans to sue Yale University over thousands of valuable and historically significant artefacts that were sent there by Hawaiian born Hiram Bingham, the explorer and politician who rediscovered Machu Picchu in 1911. Peru’s justice ministry has already appointed a team of lawyers to deal with the case however details of where the case will be heard remain unconfirmed. It is believed that the case will be heard in the US so as to be binding on the Connecticut University.
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Sharon Waxman, author of Loot, looks at the Metropolitan Museum’s upcoming change of director & how the museum might handle future cultural property restitution claims.

Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World
Author: Sharon Waxman
Publisher: Times Books
ISBN: 0805086536

From:
New York Times

Op-Ed Contributor
How Did That Vase Wind Up in the Metropolitan?
By SHARON WAXMAN
Published: December 1, 2008
Los Angeles

THE imminent arrival of Thomas Campbell as the director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is much more than a simple changing of the guard after the long tenure of his predecessor, Philippe de Montebello. Mr. Campbell, who will take over one month from today, is a 46-year-old curator from the Met’s department of European sculpture and decorative arts, and he has a unique opportunity to shift the tone of an enduring and increasingly hostile debate in the world of art and museums: Who should own the treasures of antiquity?

Up to now, the parties on either side of this dispute have stood in opposing corners with their fingers in their ears. The governments of Italy and Turkey have filed lawsuits to force the return of plundered and looted artworks. Egypt has threatened to suspend excavation permits if iconic artifacts are not repatriated. Greece has built a new museum in Athens in large part to justify its renewed demands for the return of the Elgin Marbles from Britain.
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The New Acropolis Museum in Athens once opened may provide the strongest argument yet for the return of the Parthenon Marbles.

From:
Financial Times

A manifesto for the Parthenon Marbles
By Peter Aspden
Published: November 29 2008 00:30 | Last updated: November 29 2008 00:30

It stands like a giant modernist spaceship that has belly-flopped by curious accident opposite one of the most important cultural sites on the planet. Polemics and controversy have been hard-wired into its being. It has taken decades in the planning, years in the realisation, and an extra few months beyond its intended inauguration in the fine-tuning. But, finally, the new Acropolis Museum (left), fresh home to the extraordinary artistic legacy of ancient Athens, is ready to open its doors to the public.

Next spring, visitors will set foot inside Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi’s glass-and-concrete edifice, all sharp edges and skewed angles, and address for themselves one of the the most intractable cultural disputes of modern times. When they travel to the museum’s top floor, they will see marble panels from the famous frieze that used to encircle the Parthenon, the symbol of Athenian democracy that stands like a staid, elderly relative, looking wearily across at the upstart building from its incomparable vantage point on top of the Acropolis a few hundred metres away.
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Sharon Waxman’s new book seems now to have been reviewed in almost all the major news publications in the US – perhaps an indication of the current level of interest in the subject.

Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World
Author: Sharon Waxman
Publisher: Times Books
ISBN: 0805086536

From:
San Francisco Chronicle

Nonfiction review: ‘Loot’ by Sharon Waxman
Reagan Upshaw, Special to The Chronicle
Saturday, November 29, 2008

Loot
The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World
By Sharon Waxman
Times Books; 414 pages; $30

The title, stamped in gold capital letters on the dust jacket, gives away the author’s agenda: This is a muckraking book about art objects from ancient cultures that have found their way into major museums of Europe and the United States. Sharon Waxman has a nose for scandal and spends much of the book following up on reports of thefts by grave robbers, smuggling by dealers and sexual hanky-panky between museum personnel.
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Further coverage of yesterday’s return of a fragment of the Parthenon Sculptures by the Vatican following previous requests. The British Museum state that this does not alter anything – they continue to follow this line though, despite events carrying on outside their reach suggesting that the rest of the world is moving in a different direction.

It is notable, that whilst the Palermo & Heidelberg fragments already returned were from relatively small museums, the Vatican Museums are a vast collection by any standards – this shows that larger institutions which tend to be less flexibly governed are also able to return pieces of the sculptures.

From:
International Herald Tribune

Vatican returns Parthenon fragment to Greece
The Associated Press
Published: November 5, 2008

ATHENS, Greece: The ancient marble head of a youth was fitted into place Wednesday at a museum in Athens in a deal that Greek officials hope will serve as a model for returning other treasures.

The one-year loan from the Vatican’s Museo Gregoriano Etrusco could be used as a way to regain other iconic Parthenon sculptures that have been systematically removed from Greece in the past. Several European museums — especially the British Museum in London — hold Parthenon artifacts and Greece has long campaigned for their return.
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The Vatican have so far only returned one piece of the Parthenon Marbles from their collection – this article however hints that another of the two remaining ones will be on its way to Greece in the coming months.

From:
Athens News Agency

11/06/2008
Vatican returns Parthenon fragment

A fragment of a Parthenon frieze returned to Greece by the Vatican’s Museum Gregoriano Etrusco was presented by Culture Minister Michalis Liapis stressing that “this gesture by one of the most important museums in Europe sets an example for others to follow and eventually restore the unity of the Parthenon Marbles”.

The special event on Wednesday was held at the New Museum of the Acropolis in the presence of Vatican’s ambassador to Greece Patrick Coveney, Greece’s ambassador to the Vatican M. Hiskakis, head of the Vatican museum’s classical antiquities department Giandomenico Spinola and Organization for the Construction of the New Museum of the Acropolis President Prof. Dimitris Pantermalis.
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Some further coverage of the loan to Greece of a Parthenon Frieze fragment by the Vatican.

Dorothy King has covered this & posted some images of the frieze fragment (& of the other two fragments that remain in the Vatican) on her website.

From:
Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Vatican returns fragment of Parthenon Marbles to Greece
Submitted by Mohit Joshi on Wed, 11/05/2008 – 14:29.

Athens – The Vatican returned a small fragment of the Parthenon Marbles to Athens Wednesday on a one-year loan, setting in motion what Greece hopes will be a precedent for the British Museum to return the sculptures it has.

“This is a gesture from one of the most important museums in Europe,” Greek Culture Minister Michalis Liapis said.
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As each day goes by, more & more demands are made for the reunification of looted artefacts. Many institutions continue to ignore such issues, hoping that they will go away – whilst rather than disappearing the campaigns are getting stronger with each day that they are ignored.

From:
Modern Ghana

MORE DEMANDS FOR THE RESTITUTION OF STOLEN/LOOTED BENIN ARTEFACTS

Hardly a day passes by without some call for the return of the stolen cultural objects of Benin. In the whole of Africa people are incensed when they hear about the unjustified invasion of Benin by the British in 1897 and above all, the looting and burning of Benin City. Most Africans cannot believe that the Europeans who preached Christian morality could at the same time have been involved in stealing cultural objects of Africans, who according to European propaganda had an inferior culture. Many an African is even more infuriated to realize that the so-called primitive objects are on show in respectable museums in the United States, Great Britain, Germany and France that refuse to contemplate the return of these objects. One starts wondering about the relations between the museums and the plunderers.
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Zahi Hawass has championed the cause of cultural property restitution in Egypt in recent years. What can other countries learn from his approach?

From:
Afrikanet

Written by Dr. Kwame Opoku
Friday, 17 October 2008
SHALL WE LEARN FROM ZAHI HAWASS ON HOW TO RECOVER STOLEN/LOOTED CULTURAL OBJECTS?

We may not all agree with Zahi Hawass in his style and manner of approach to the issue of restitution of stolen or looted artefacts but there is no denying that the famous Egyptologist, Secretary-General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt, has been extremely effective in his tasks and knows his job. This is no mean feat in a period where some of those having the fate of millions in their hands do not seem to have mastered their jobs.
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In today’s globalised climate of art exhibitions drawing artefacts from around the world, much is made of the benefits to everyone of sourcing these pieces that might otherwise have not been seen. Is this something that really benefits the source communities though, or is it more of a one way process?

From:
Modern Ghana

DOES COLLABORATION BETWEEN NIGERIAN AND EUROPEAN /AMERICAN MUSEUMS BRING US CLOSER TO RESTITUTION OF NIGERIA’S STOLEN/LOOTED ARTS?
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Sat, 08 Nov 2008

As readers may know, many Africans are very suspicious of collaboration with museums and institutions that have shown by their history and practice that they do not care much for the interest and feelings of Nigerians and Africans generally. In the article below by Tajudeen Sowole, a Nigerian art critic raises several issues concerning the cooperation between Nigerian museums and institutions with European/American museums. In particular, he wonders whether the collaboration between the Nigerian institutions and American/European museums in the recent exhibition Benin: Kings and Rituals-Court Arts from Nigeria has brought us closer to the restitution of the Benin artifacts or whether these objects will remain in Europe under the pretext that they are part of the universal heritage of mankind.
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There are Benin Bronzes in what seems like almost every one of the large museums in Europe & the US. This article tries to summarise the key issues regarding their continued retention.

From:
Afrikanet

European and US American Museums and the Benin Bronzes
Written by Dr. Kwame Opoku
Sunday, 05 October 2008
TEN ESSENTIAL POINTS ON THE CONTINUED DETENTION OF THE BENIN BRONZES BY EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN MUSEUMS

The following are some of the essential points about the Benin bronzes that the reader must know and always bear in mind when reading about the looted cultural artefacts now in European and American museums.

1. Thousands of beautiful and fine Benin art objects were stolen by the British in 1897 when they illegally invaded Benin City, executed some nobles, exiled the Oba (King) and burnt the city.
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