Showing 4 results for the tag: Sky News.

September 2, 2016

Export bans – is Britain a cultural one way street?

Posted at 1:13 pm in Similar cases

Why do we feel other countries should share their culture, but then place bans on the export of our own

Institutions like the British Museum, along with much of the British Press, regularly denounce as cultural nationalism, claims by countries such as Greece and Egypt that looted artefacts should be returned. These countries are castigated for not sharing and they should be proud of the fact that other countries want their heritage, rather than seeing it as something that they want to retain.

When there is a chance of important British works ending up in foreign collections however, we regularly place export bans on them. While we encourage others to share, we are unwilling to do so ourselves. The situation is even more perverse than it first appears though -while the British items up for export are invariably up for sale in a public auction at the request of the current owner, many of the items that others ask to be returned were seized in times of war, or looted and then smuggled into the country without any permission being given.

Every few years a major export ban crops up in the news. Often, it is not even for a work that was originally British (such as the Picasso in the examples below), but something that we happened to acquire and would like to hang on to. We see something’s existence in Britain as making it a part of our culture, but we decry others for far lesser requests.

Queen Victoria's coronet, currently subject to an export ban

Queen Victoria’s coronet, currently subject to an export ban

From:
BBC News

Export ban placed on Queen Victoria’s wedding coronet
28 August 2016

A temporary export ban has been placed on a sapphire and diamond coronet that belonged to Queen Victoria, preventing it from being sold abroad.

The coronet, designed by Prince Albert for their wedding in 1840, is at risk of being exported unless a UK buyer matches the £5m asking price.
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April 7, 2015

Greece responds to UNESCO marbles mediation rejection

Posted at 10:27 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles

Greek culture minister Nikos Xydakis has responded to the news that his country’s request for mediation over the Parthenon Marbles issue has been rejected by both the British Government and the British Museum.

Part of the Parthenon Marbles, the river god Ilissos in the Duveen Gallery

Part of the Parthenon Marbles, the river god Ilissos in the Duveen Gallery

From:
ABC News (Australia)

Greece condemns British Museum’s refusal to allow mediation over ancient Parthenon sculptures
Posted 28 Mar 2015, 10:02pm

Greece has condemned the British Museum’s decision to reject a UNESCO offer to help resolve a decades-old dispute over returning ancient Parthenon sculptures to Athens.

The sculptures are part of the collection popularly known as the Elgin Marbles which were acquired by Lord Elgin in the early 1800s when he was ambassador to the Ottoman court.
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May 10, 2011

More on the situation in Egypt

Posted at 1:09 pm in Similar cases

Further coverage of some of the problems affecting Egypt’s antiquities at present.

From:
Sky news

Priceless Objects Stolen From Egypt Museum
3:44pm UK, Sunday February 13, 2011
Juliet Bagnall and Lorna Blount, Sky News Online

Looters appear to have made off with some of Egypt’s priceless antiquities during the anti-government protests of the past three weeks.

The minister in charge of antiquities has reported that 18 items are missing from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, including two gilded wooden statues of Tutankhamun.
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January 8, 2009

Lord Elgin’s great great great grandson on the Marbles

Posted at 8:51 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles

One of Lord Elgin’s descendants has written this short piece about the Marbles. He seems to stick to the post-rationalised agenda of his ancestor, that the sculptures were only removed for their own preservation, before reverting to the often repeated argument that return can’t happen because it would set a precedent.

Setting aside whether or not a precedent would be set, I continue to find it disturbing that the fact that one might have to do the right thing again in the future is used as a feeble justification for not doing the right thing today – if something needs to be done, it needs to be done – if you keep hanging onto this reasoning, everything else will end up going back first, before the precedent argument is abandoned to be replaced by some other equally spurious one.

From:
Sky News

MPs Pushing Elgin’s Marbles Back To Greece
Alastair Bruce
January 8, 2009 11:29 PM

Two MPs championing the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece this year, to mark the opening of a new museum at the ancient Acropolis in Athens, have sent letters out this week to all their fellow legislators recruiting Parliamentary support.

My interest in this is because the marbles were brought back to Britain from Athens by my Great Great Great Grandfather, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, at the start of the 19th century. He was passionate about antiquities and wanted to preserve them from the destruction they faced, at a time when war and local indifference was grinding away at the edifice.
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