Showing 4 results for the tag: The National.

May 14, 2012

Is the “Universal Museum” the museum concept of the future?

Posted at 12:52 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

A lot of effort has been expended in recent years in arguments for & against the idea of the Universal Museum. The fact remains though, that the whole concept only seems to have existed within the last ten years. Certainly, there are no mentions of the phrase in this context, prior to Neil MacGregor becoming director of the British Museum.

Surely, if it was a valid approach in the first place, more would have been heard of it prior to this point?

The fact is, that Universal Museums are self appointed. No other countries have asked them to look after their cultural treasures – and then to refuse to return the later. As such, they have no moral right to hang on to the huge numbers of items that were acquired in very dubious circumstances, carefully omitted from the labels on the artefacts today.

From:
The National

Will the museum of the future be universal or defined by its borders?
Kanishk Tharoor
May 12, 2012

When I was a 10-year-old tourist visiting London’s museums, I had a nationalist episode. It began, somewhat narcissistically, with the coins of Kanishka, the ancient king after whom I and all the world’s Kanishks are named. Something stirred in me. “Why are they kept here and not in India?” I asked my mother (never mind that the historical Kanishka hardly ever set foot in what is now India). I marvelled at the curving sword of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, austere and proud, reduced to forlorn captivity in the display case. “Why is it here?” I trembled. And then I found Tipu Sultan’s tiger, a fierce mechanical beast engineered to ravage a wooden British soldier. That was the final straw. The very symbol of Indian resistance to British conquest now lay caged in London as an eternal reminder of our defeat. Quaking with rage, I approached the nearest security guard. “Give it back!” I yelled. “Give it back!” He refused to oblige me.

But my childish protests augured the changing spirit of the times. A rash of similar demands – more sophisticated and reasoned than my own – prompted a group of agitated museum directors to issue a defensive proclamation in late 2002. Dubbed the “Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums”, it united venerable institutions in cities across Europe and North America, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to the Louvre in Paris to the Hermitage in St Petersburg. The directors responded to what they perceived as a fundamental threat to the existence of their museums: the righteous calls and legal attempts to “repatriate” artefacts.
Read the rest of this entry »

November 22, 2010

When replicas are as convincing as the real thing, do museums still need to keep the originals?

Posted at 2:01 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles

In the past, the British Museum has suggested to Greece that as a solution to the dispute over the Elgin Marbles, they will send the Greeks high quality copies. In the mind of the British Museum, this seems to solve the situation & anyone who rejects this offer is ungrateful. At the same time though it raises a new question of why the British Museum isn’t happy to keep the copies & return the originals.

From:
The National

Tutankhamun’s replica treasures in Manchester
Ben East
Last Updated: Nov 3, 2010

It’s quite a sight. The golden treasures of King Tutankhamun’s tomb look as arresting as they may have been on the day archaeologists happened across his virtually intact resting place in 1922. There are statues, chests and the pièce de résistance , the glittering death mask that caused the man who first discovered the tomb, Howard Carter, to remark breathlessly: “We were astonished by the beauty and refinement of the art… the impression was overwhelming.”

Except they’re not the originals. The Tutankhamun – His Tomb And His Treasures touring exhibition, just opened in an unlovely corner of a Manchester shopping complex, is instead stocked with costly reproductions of some of the most famous archaeological artefacts of all time.
Read the rest of this entry »

November 17, 2010

Keeping cultural treasures where they were created

Posted at 1:41 pm in Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

This is an old article, but I was only alerted to it a few weeks ago. It echoes my thoughts though, about the difference in approach to the Staffordshire Hoard (which should be kept where it was found) & the Parthenon Sculptures (which should be kept in the British Museum some 1000 miles from where they were originally designed to be).

From:
The National (UAE)

When troves are treasured: priceless relics far from home
Ben East
Last Updated: Jan 21, 2010

Oh the irony. The popular historian David Starkey is leading a campaign to keep the largest-ever discovery of Anglo-Saxon treasure in England’s Midlands, where it was found last year. If £3.3 million (Dh20m) is not raised in three months, the hoard could be sold on the open market – and broken up. The UK’s minister of culture, Patricia Hodge, said she was “confident” the money could be found and “aware of how much the treasure had captured the imagination of the local people”.

This, of course, is all happening in the same country that “owns” Greece’s Parthenon Marbles (famously known as the Elgin Marbles), Egypt’s Rosetta Stone and Iran’s Cyrus Cylinder. The three precious treasures are stars of the historical warehouse that is the British Museum. A visit to the much-loved attraction immediately reveals that it’s barely a museum of the British at all – it’s a museum of the world. It’s difficult not to feel slightly guilty about many of the exhibits, which were plundered when the empire was at its height.
Read the rest of this entry »

November 26, 2008

Looted Iraqi antiquities siezed in Dubai

Posted at 2:05 pm in Similar cases

Ever since the fall of Iraq, the lawless nature of much of the country has led to unchecked looting of many of the world’s most significant ancient sites & museums. There have been notable efforts to recover artefacts though & seizures such as this let collectors & dealers know that such actions will not be tolerated.

From:
The National (UAE)

Iraqi antiquities seized in Dubai
Gregor McClenaghan
Last Updated: November 25. 2008 10:05PM UAE / November 25. 2008 6:05PM GMT

DUBAI – Customs officers have seized more than 100 looted Iraqi antiquities and artefacts as they were being smuggled through the emirate.

The objects, believed to be between 5,000 and 1,000 years old, will be displayed to the press today but officials declined to indicate beforehand how they were intercepted.
Read the rest of this entry »