An ancient coffin smuggled into the US many years ago is now due to be returned to Egypt.

From:
Press TV

US to return smuggled Egyptian coffin
Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:59:34 GMT

Egyptian Culture Minister Faruq Hosni says his country will reclaim a Pharaonic coffin smuggled into the US more than 125 years ago.

Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass will receive the ornately painted coffin next month, Hosni said in a statement.
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As a reminder that there are at least two sides (& sometimes many more than that) to any issue, some Iranian’s would prefer that the Cyrus Cylinder wasn’t loaned to their country by the British Museum.

Their campaign is based on the fact that they do not believe that the government has any plans to safeguard any heritage that doesn’t relate to the Islamic Republic’s current worldview. Unfortunately though they may find that even under a different government (when they might want the artefact returned), the British Museum would be no more likely to return the artefact than they are now.

Read the petition here.

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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Following China’s plans to track down artefacts looted from Beijing’s Summer Palace, the first reports are now coming back of positive identifications of artefacts. What remains to be seen though is whether China is going to take any sort of action to retrieve any of them.

From:
China Daily

Experts track relics from old palace
By Lin Shujuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-01-19 07:47

Painting dates back to Song Dynasty in Boston Museum: expert

China has recovered significant records of the Old Summer Palace from a recent effort to trace and document relics taken from the garden that are now in foreign countries, a park official said yesterday.
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A new exhibit at the Tate Modern is based on the artist’s experiences with a fragment broken off one of the Pyramids in Egypt that he later returned. What is more interesting though is the comments from the British Museum on the issues raised by this – despite the fact that many of the artefacts in their collection were originally acquired in similar circumstances by untrained excavators without proper permits.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Tate show reveals artist’s pyramid theft
British artist Andy Holden is to reveal how he stole a piece of the Egypt pyramids in a new exhibition at the Tate Britain in London.
Roya Nikkhah, Arts Correspondent
Published: 9:00AM GMT 10 Jan 2010

The artist’s guilty secret began with a seemingly innocent trip to Egypt.

Accompanying his father, who was there on business, Andy, then 12, was taken to the Great Pyramid of Giza: the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still surviving – relatively intact – and the oldest and largest of the pyramids at the Giza Necropolis.

“When we arrived at the pyramids, unthinkingly I broke off a lump of stone from the side of the Great Pyramid in Giza,” said Mr Holden. “I got home and put it on a shelf in my room alongside a collection of other souvenirs I had as a kid, but when my parents found out, they were furious and it ended up becoming this terrible guilt object.
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More details on the conference being organised in Egypt on the retrieval of looted antiquities.

From:
Agence France Presse

Egypt to host conference on the return of antiquities
(AFP) – 2 hours ago

CAIRO — Egypt will host a conference in April for countries demanding the return of their antiquities, stolen but on display in museums round the world, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said Wednesday. The conference will “discuss the question of returning stolen antiquities,” the council said in a statement. It gave no dates for the three-day conference.

Thirty countries, including Greece, Mexico, Peru, Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia and China, will participate in the Cairo gathering, said Egypt’s antiquities director Zahi Hawass, who has made the return of looted Egyptian artefacts the hallmark of his tenure.
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The looting of the Summer Palace in Beijing (an act carried out largely under the instruction of the Eighth Earl of Elgin – Son of the Seventh Earl who took the Parthenon Marbles) continues to cause controversy today, due to the fact that many of the artefacts from the site have ended up in museums around the world – although often they are not even on public display.

Now though, China is making a first step towards resolving the issue, building up a catalogue of the surviving artefacts & where they are located.

From:
Wall Street Journal

China Goes Treasure Hunting
Nationalism, not art history, drives the hunt for Summer Palace artifacts.
OPINION ASIA – NOVEMBER 23, 2009, 1:16 P.M. ET
By PETER NEVILLE-HADLEY

Next year Beijing will mark the 150th anniversary of the burning and looting of the Summer Palace by British and French forces. But the city has hit on an odd way to commemorate these events: In preparation, Palace Director Chen Mingjie recently announced that researchers will attempt to catalogue every item looted from the complex and now in museums overseas.

At first sight this might appear to be a purely academic exercise. Mr. Chen says he wants to identify works of art, not repatriate them, but on closer examination the plan has all the makings of a public-relations effort aimed at the Chinese people themselves.
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Further coverage of the new law passed to allow the return of artefacts looted during the Nazi era held in UK museums. If this law had been in place previously, it would have avoided such (unsuccessful) court cases as Attorney General v Trustees of the British Museum AKA the Feldmann Case.

It will be interesting to see how many cases now come to light following the passing of this new law (to take a cynical point of view, it could be argued that the law was only passed because certain interested parties knew that there were only a very small number of items in their collections that were likely to be affected by it).

From:
BBC News

Page last updated at 14:06 GMT, Friday, 13 November 2009
UK museums can return looted art

Artefacts in national museums found to have been looted by the Nazis can now be returned to their rightful owners, thanks to newly-passed legislation.

The Holocaust (Stolen Art) Restitution Act gives national institutions in England and Scotland the power to return art stolen during the Nazi era.
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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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More coverage of Andrew Dismore’s bill to allow museums to over-ride their governing charters & return artefacts looted during the Nazi era.

From:
Hendon & Finchley Times

Looted artwork from the Second World War could be returned under new bill tabled by Hendon MP Andrew Dismore
12:31pm Tuesday 10th November 2009
By Kevin Bradford

A LAW allowing artwork looted by the Nazis to be returned to families is set for royal approval this week.

A number of historic items, which were taken by the regime from homes during the Second World War, are on display in galleries and museums in Britain, but are prevented by current laws from being handed back to those families.
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Andrew Dismore’s bill on looted art from the Holocaust now looks increasingly likely to become law – this is very significant for UK museums as like the Human Tissue Act before it, it opens up another hole in the anti-deaccessioning clauses that govern them, making clearer the need for a complete rethink of these issues rather than piecemeal legislation that only gets passed by sidestepping some of the other big issues.

From:
Totally Jewish

Fri, Nov 6, 2009
My Bid to Change the Law on Looted Art in the UK
Andrew Dismore

Once a year, Parliament is like the New Year sales, as we’re forced to queue for the remaining slots for Private Members Bills, after the best slots are taken by those who win the ballot.

So, early one evening a year ago, I unrolled my sleeping bag on the Public Bill Office’s floor to be first in line to table my proposed new laws the following morning. Against the odds, one of my Bills has got all the way through and will come into force in a couple of months time – the Holocaust (Return of Cultural Objects) Bill.
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