In Beijing, the Eighth Earl of Elgin has a similar reputation to that which his Father (The Seventh Earl) enjoys in Greece. China is now fighting back, trying to block auctions involving artefacts that were looted by the Eighth Earl.

From:
The Times

January 21, 2009
China tries to halt Yves Saint Laurent art sale
Charles Bremner in Paris and Jane Macartney in Beijing

China is trying to block the sale in Paris of two 18th-century bronze animal heads from the collection of Yves Saint Laurent, the late French couturier, because they were looted from Beijing by a marauding Franco-British army.

A team of Beijing lawyers is to lodge a suit with French courts to prevent the sale during a three-day auction by Christie’s from February 23.
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Returning of looted artefacts can often be seen simultaneously as a good thing & a bad thing by the same party, depending on what side of the argument they are on.

From:
Modern Ghana

Thomas Gaetgens on “Challenging the Encyclopaedic Museum – Berlin’s Museum Island” at the Art Institute of Chicago.
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Mon, 19 Jan 2009

I listened with great interest to the lecture by Thomas Gaehtgens on Challenging the Encyclopedic Museum – Berlin’s Museum Island at the Art Institute of Chicago.

His performance was quite remarkable. Even though he mentioned that the Russians had taken away artworks from Germany and that this constituted a problem between the two countries, he was silent about the artworks that the Germans had taken from other countries, such as Poland and the Benin Bronzes stolen from Nigeria by the British and sold to the Germans. Did these not constitute a problem for the Germans and for the “universal museum” or the “encyclopaedic museum” about which he spoke so eloquently? Obviously, he wasted no time on Nazi-looted art. Are the museums in Berlin not confronted with this problem?
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The ever pugnacious Zahi Hawass has issued a formal request to Sweden asking for the return of 212 artefacts.

From:
International Herald Tribune

Egypt asks Sweden to return artifacts
The Associated Press
Published: January 19, 2009

CAIRO, Egypt: Egypt has formally asked Sweden for the return of 212 artifacts taken out of the country by a Swedish collector in mid 1920s, Egypt’s chief archaeologist said Monday.

Zahi Hawass, the head of the Council of Antiquities, said in a statement that the council’s lawyer has been in touch with Ostergotlands County Museum in Sweden.
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The British Museum is celebrating its two 250th birthday. Maybe this should be seen as the ideal point for making a grand gesture regarding the disputed artefacts in their collection. The world has changed a lot since the founding of the museum – perhaps now, the museum can re-invent itself to once again lead the way in the world rather than dragging its heels whenever the issue of restitution is raised.

From:
The Times

January 15, 2009
It’s 1759 and all that … or the history you never learnt at school
Ben Hoyle, Arts Correspondent

[...]

One of the salient achievements of an extraordinary year will be celebrated at the British Museum, which opened 250 years ago today. The Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew were also new in 1759.
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A response to Norman Rosenthal’s statements about why museums should not return artefacts looted during the holocaust.

From:
Modern Ghana

RESPONSE TO JONATHAN JONES: “SHOULD ALL LOOTED ART BE RETURNED”?
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Tue, 13 Jan 2009
Feature Article

“The public interest must surely be in upholding the rule of law, rather than promoting an international free-for-all through the unrestricted circulation of tainted works of art. Do we really wish to educate our children to have no respect for history, legality and ethical values by providing museums with the opportunity freely to exhibit stolen property? ”
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Whilst some argue that Africa is not yet ready to receive returned artefacts, Kwame Opoku argues that the original owners will derive more importance from these sculptures than the West can.

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 10.01.09 15:03
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
Africans need their cultural objects more than Europeans & Americans

My attention has been drawn to an interesting article entitled “Looted memorial statues returned to Kenyan family” (Text as pdf file to downlad at the end of this article) by Monica Udvardy and Linda Giles which appeared in SAFE (Saving Antiquities For Everyone) that demonstrates in an abundant way the above title which in a normal world would be self-evident but in the world of antiquities appears to be contested by some Western European and US American writers; they even argue that Africans are not yet ready or developed enough to recover their cultural objects which were stolen/looted by Europeans and are now adorning Western museums or are in depots.
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This review compares four different books all covering the field of looted cultural property, from different perspectives. The fact that there are so many current books on the subject proves that it is an issue that is definitely on the radar – museums should think twice before dismissing it as an irrelevancy that the public aren’t bothered about.

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

Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage: Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage
Author: James Cuno
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691137129

Catastrophe! the Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past
Author:
Publisher: Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago
ISBN: 1885923562

Thieves of Baghdad: One Marine’s Passion to Recover the World’s Greatest Stolen Treasures
Author: Matthew Bogdanos
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
ISBN: 1596911468

From:
The Nation

Tales from the Vitrine: Battles Over Stolen Antiquities
By Britt Peterson

This article appeared in the January 26, 2009 edition of The Nation.
January 7, 2009

On a 1984 visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a Turkish journalist named Ozgen Acar noticed a group of fifty artifacts labeled “East Greek treasure” that resembled a collection that had gone missing some twenty years before. The treasure, Acar suspected, had been snatched by grave robbers from Sardis, an ancient city in western Turkey, which served as the capital of the Lydian empire at its peak in the sixth and seventh centuries BC. (Herodotus tells us that its last king, the affluent Croesus, was the first person to mint coins of pure silver and gold, hence the saying “as rich as Croesus.”) Acar, who had spent the previous decade tracking antiquities looters in the small towns surrounding Sardis, took his suspicions to the Turkish Ministry of Education. It turned out that the Lydian Hoard had passed through a number of smugglers and semireputable dealers before reaching the Met in the 1960s, and there was plenty of evidence that the Met had known something of the provenance of the objects at the time and willfully ignored it. The Turkish government sued the Met for the unconditional return of the cache and, after a six-year legal battle, finally won. In 1995 the Lydian Hoard was returned to the small town of Usak, in Sardis, sparking an outpouring of national pride and a flurry of copycat lawsuits.
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Seeing the successes of other countries such as Egypt & Italy, in recent years, Turkey has become more vociferous in its requests for the return of artefacts by foreign institutions.

From:
Today’s Zaman

03 January 2009
Smuggled Turkish artifacts adorn world museums

A number of historical artifacts originally from Anatolia that were smuggled to foreign countries in the late 1800s and 1900s are now either exhibited in leading museums or auctioned.

The Culture and Tourism Ministry’s General Directorate on Cultural Assets and Museums notes that there are a number of historical works and artifacts smuggled from Turkey and currently based in other countries, including the US, Germany, Russia, Croatia, Denmark, Italy, France, Switzerland, Serbia, Montenegro, Ukraine and England.
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Kwame Opoku reponds to the news that Neil MacGregor has been named Briton of the Year by The Times.

From:
Modern Ghana

CAN NATIONALISM BE SOLD AS INTERNATIONALISM VIA THE BRITISH MUSEUM? SANCTIFICATION OF BRITISH SPOLIATIONS AND LOOT
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
03 January 2009

The choice of a personality as “Briton of the year” is clearly a matter for British nationalists and a non-Briton has no business examining the basis of such a choice. It is up to the British to indulge in such a game if they consider it worthwhile. However when a leading British newspaper, The Times, making such a designation for the first time, writes in this connection that the “British Museum is the best in the world”, that it is a museum for the world and refers to an “international society” and “global society”, calls its director whom it has selected as Briton of the year”, “Saint Neil” and declares that “his most profound belief is that the British Museum was established for the benefit of all nations”, then non-Britons are provoked to comment.

The respectable British newspaper is repeating what it must know to be incorrect, namely that the British Museum is there for the world or humanity.
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This article is about Archaeology in Egypt in 2008 – which due to the events of the past year, means that there is a lot of focus on restitution cases. (The relevant section is towards the end of the article)

From:
Daily Star (Egypt)

2008: the year of archaeological restorations
By Ahmed Maged
First Published: December 26, 2008

CAIRO: While stunning archaeological revelations are expected to make headlines by the beginning of 2009, archaeology-enthusiasts were let down by unfulfilled promises of exciting excavations made in 2008.

What marked the year 2008, however, were the landmark restorations that highlighted archaeological events, especially in the field of Islamic architecture.
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Kwame Opoku talks about the accusations from museums that there is no formal demand for the return of artefacts – when in many cases there is a demand, but the institution would prefer to ignore it or not acknowledge it as a formal request.

From:
Afrikanet

Will western Museums now return some of the looted/stolen artefacts?
Datum: 14.12.08 21:46
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst

Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku

FORMAL DEMAND FOR THE RETURN OF BENIN BRONZES: WILL WESTERN MUSEUMS NOW RETURN SOME OF THE LOOTED/STOLEN BENIN ARTEFACTS?

“The restitution of those cultural objects which our museums and collections, directly or indirectly, possess thanks to the colonial system and are now being demanded, must also not be postponed with cheap arguments and tricks.”
Gert v. Paczensky and Herbert Ganslmayr, Nofretete will nach Hause (1)

We have often heard from those holding on to the looted/stolen Benin artefacts that there has not been any demand for their return by the owners. This is, of course, a blatant lie which often reminds one of an absurd theatre piece. A performer states clearly a view point and immediately thereafter, another character tells the audience that so far no such statement has been made. We have the remarkable situation in which the King of Benin, the Oba, writes in an introductory note in the catalogue of the exhibition Benin: Kings and Rituals -Court Arts from Nigeria requesting the return of some of the Benin cultural artefacts. Almost immediately thereafter, we have directors of four museums organizing the exhibition with the co-operation of Nigeria declaring in a preface that they have no intention of returning these objects and advising the Nigerians to forget the past and look to the future. (2) The Benin demand was also stated by the Enogie of Obazuwa, brother of the Oba, at the opening of the exhibition on 9 May 2008. Some months after the exhibition in Vienna, the show which went to Paris (October 2, 2007-January 6, 2008) moved to Berlin (February 7-May 25, 2008) and we had people from the Berlin Ethnology Museum creating the impression that there had been no request for the return of the Benin bronzes even though at the opening of the exhibition, the Nigerian Minister of Tourism, Culture and National Orientation, Prince Adetokumbo Kayode, had clearly stated the wish of the Nigerians to have back their cultural objects. (3) What kind of game is this?
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Kwame Opoku gives some thoughts on Colin Renfrew’s review of James Cuno’s book.

Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage: Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage
Author: James Cuno
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691137129

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 04.12.08 14:54
Kategorie: Kolumnen
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
COMMENTS ON LORD RENFREW’S STATEMENTS ON LOOTED ARTEFACTS
CAN WE CONDEMN CONTEMPORARY LOOTING OF ARTEFACTS WITHOUT CONDEMNING COLONIAL LOOT AND PLUNDER? COMMENTS ON LORD RENFREW’S STATEMENTS ON LOOTED ARTEFACTS

In his review of Cuno’s Who owns Antiquities?, (www.savingantiquities.org) Lord Renfrew sees as a weakness in Cuno’s argument a confusion between antiquities looted in recent times and plunder by imperial powers and declares:

“But the issues in the two cases – modern, clandestine looting, versus colonial or imperial appropriation, mainly during the nineteenth century and by the leading world powers of the day – are not the same”.
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