For some artefacts, museums hold onto the excuse that at the time, it was accepted practice. But for many more recent artefacts that are looted, that excuse holds no water. Who should be blamed for this though – the dealers or the collectors? Are too many people / institutions willing to accept items with fairly questionable provenances that if investigated properly would clearly not be valid?

From:
Financial Times

December 2, 2011 12:02 am
Lost treasures
By Feargus O’Sullivan

In March this year, a statue of Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of love and beauty, left the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, its home since 1988, to return to the Sicilian town of Aidone, where it was discovered.

Six months later, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts returned the Weary Herakles to Turkey, so the torso of the mythological Greek hero could be reunited with the legs and pelvis of a statue discovered near Antalya in the early 1980s.
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Following the cancelled auction of a Tjuringa stone in Kent, the current owner hopes to be able to hand it back to the Arunta Aboriginals in Australia.

From:
Independent

Row over sale of sacred Aboriginal stone
Rob Sharp
2011-10-28 00:00:01.0

A cultural conflict between Britain and Australia sparked by the attempted sale of a sacred Aboriginal artefact in Kent looks set to be reignited.

The etched stone “tjuringa”, which only Aboriginal male elders are permitted to handle, was withdrawn from sale after provoking international demands for its return to Australia. But its elderly seller is said to be still considering the future of the priceless item.
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Nationally funded institutions like the British Museum, often take the line that they are helping other countries protect their heritage, by “looking after” items such as the Parthenon Marbles. It seems though, that often, less attention is given to maintaining the UK’s heritage than should be. I’ve commented before on the failure to build any sort of suitable building for the Stone Henge visitor centre, despite commenting on the Greeks lack of a proper Acropolis Museum in the past – but there are many other similar cases across the country.

From:
Guardian

If Britain fails to protect its heritage we’ll have nothing left but ghosts
The Welsh mining settlement of Dylife once thrived but now it lies forgotten, like so much of our industrial past
Simon Jenkins Thursday 1 September 2011 20.29 BST

Fling off the cares of the world this autumn and climb up from the tidy mid-Welsh town of Llanidloes, north over the mountain road towards Machynlleth. Near a wild summit you enter a moonscape of old mineral workings and slag heaps. Here metals were mined in Roman times, and here the Victorians erected reputedly the largest wheel in Britain, the Martha pump, to serve what by the 1860s was the most productive lead mine in Wales’s “wild west”.

At the time the settlement of Dylife boasted three places of worship, three inns, a school and a thousand inhabitants. Then, in the 1880s, prices fell and the ore lodes were exhausted. Between the wars the place emptied and the buildings collapsed or were demolished. Today only ghosts flit the high mountain air. A lonely inn remains, the Star, amid a community of sheep.
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When the UK was beset by episodes of riots & looting in August 2011, parliament was (quite rightly) quick to condemn the actions of a small minority. It seems though that many of our museums are filled with artefacts acquired through episodes of similar behaviour – the only difference being that it took place in the past & in foreign countries.

On a similar note, some in the UK were quick to sit back smugly during the looting of Egypt’s museums, noting that it was fortunate that the UK had so many of their antiquities to protect them from such episodes. One wonders though, during bouts of lawlessness in the UK, whether the same people support the idea of shipping British artefacts abroad to safer places… permanently… with little chance of ever getting them back – and little choice in the matter?

From:
Guardian

UK riots: When is a looter a heroic entrepreneur?
Edward Lawrence
guardian.co.uk, Friday 19 August 2011 10.00 BST

Parliament denounced the 21st century Britons who looted their own high street, but 18th century looters who plundered distant nations to build the British Empire became heroes

The scenes of widespread mayhem and looting that were the main news items of the last week were profoundly shocking, and for me personally, a cause of deep anxiety. Because of my disability I felt vulnerable, which isn’t a sensation I exactly relish. It isn’t as if since my severe brain injury I have had a surfeit of good experiences.
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The Marbles Reunited campaign’s latest newsletter is now available to download from their website.

Download it here.

More coverage of the blocked sales of various icons looted from monasteries & churches in Northern Greece.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Greece want British gallery to return ‘stolen icons’
Greek officials want to block the sale of six religious icons by a London-based dealer claiming they were stolen from orthodox monasteries.
By Nick Squires, Rome
5:59PM GMT 16 Mar 2011

The icons, which are at least 300 years old and worth between 5,000 (£4,340) and 15,000 euros (£13,000) each were found being offered for sale in London, according to Kathimerini, a Greek newspaper.

Greece’s antiquities theft department were alerted after they received a telephone call from a woman who said she had spotted a famous icon of the Virgin Mary on the gallery’s website. The icons were subsequently moved from the website of the dealer.
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More coverage of David Cameron’s rebuttal of Andrew George’s Prime Minister’s Questions on the Parthenon Marbles.

You can watch the video coverage of it on the BBC’s website. The relevant part is 20:40 into the clip.

From:
The Guardian

David Cameron rejects call to return Parthenon marbles to Greece
PM dismisses suggestion by Liberal Democrat that collection of classical Greek marble sculptures should be returned to Athens
Hélène Mulholland, political reporter, Wednesday 22 June 2011 14.50 BST

David Cameron has rejected a call for Britain to “put right a wrong” that dates back just short of two centuries by returning the Parthenon marbles to Greece.

Andrew George, the Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, reopened the issue of the marble sculptures, currently in the British Museum, when he incorporated the Greek financial crisis in a Commons question.
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A few days ago, various people in Australia were claiming that the Flinders Map was Australia’s equivalent of the Elgin Marbles. This was a fairly spurious comparison to make, as there is no real connection between the two cases, which involve entirely dissimilar circumstances. Unsurprisingly, Britain has taken the point of view that the map is legally owned by the British Hydrographic Office.

From:
The Australian

UK claims first map to identify ‘Australia’ made by Matthew Flinders is theirs
From: AAP
January 26, 2011 4:03AM

AUSTRALIANS may claim it to be the nation’s “birth certificate” but that does not mean English authorities are going to be handing it over easily.

A campaign has been launched to take ownership of the first map to use the name “Australia”, which is currently located in the archives of the United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) in Taunton, Somerset.
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Following on from this earlier article, it appears that the British Museum once again being treated as an organisation that is not entirely independent of the government.

In this instance, the British Museum is taking over the role of administering the Portable Antiquities Scheme from the MLA which is being disbanded. This is an interesting development, as while it can be carried out by any organisation, it does to a certain extent pull the museum closer to the government, removing some of its independence & impartiality. This separation from the government is regularly emphasised when dealing with restitution requests, where the assertion is made that they are a matter to be dealt with entirely by the trustees of the British Museum. At the same time though, actions such as this & the previous one over denial of access to funding indicate that the government continues to maintain a strong hold over the museum & could, if it chose to, influence the actions of the museum.

From:
Museums Association

ACE takes over MLA functions
Sharon Heal
23.11.10

Speaking this morning at the British Museum, culture minister Ed Vaizey announced that Arts Council England (ACE) is likely to take over the functions of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA).

If approved, all of MLA’s functions will transfer to ACE, including Renaissance, cultural property and accreditation by March 2012. The export reviewing committee, the government indemnity scheme and the acceptance in lieu scheme will also be transferred.
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The British government is causing controversy by ordering various artefacts to be sold by liquidators to pay the tax bill of collector Robin Symes, despite the fact that, with no export licenses, it is likely that these artefacts were illegally looted from Italy.

From:
The Guardian

UK accused over sale of ‘looted’ Italian treasures to pay tax bill
Rome wants back the 3,000-year-old Etruscan artefacts that came into the hands of a dealer – but ministers aim to sell them
Dalya Alberge
Sunday 11 April 2010

Ministers have been condemned for forcing through the sale of up to 1,000 antiquities allegedly stolen from Italy, in order to pay the debts of a bankrupt private collector.

The Home Office has sparked outrage by allowing Roman bronzes, Etruscan gold and other treasures to be placed on the market by liquidators acting for the government in an attempt to recover unpaid taxes from the former owner, Robin Symes, a dealer with alleged links to the smuggling trade and a UK prison record.
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I wrote before about Nick Clegg’s support for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. Some newspapers (predictably) aren’t particularly thrilled with this aspect of him though.

From:
Daily Express

UK NEWS
GENERAL ELECTION 2010: EU ZEALOT NICK CLEGG’S BID TO RETURN ELGIN MARBLES

DOUBTS over Nick Clegg’s commitment to British interests in the EU intensified last night after it emerged he once led a campaign to return the historic Elgin Marbles to his friends in Greece.

As an MEP, the Lib Dem leader berated the British Museum for guarding the statues, saying it was like displaying Big Ben’s clock in the Louvre. He told a Tory MEP who dared to criticise his campaign: “you appear to have lost your marbles.”
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In an unexpected piece of news today, a hedge fund that has taken on responsibility for much of Greece’s national debt, is hoping to negotiate a purchase of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum to add to its asset portfolio.

From:
Hedgefunds Review

Greek government in sovereign debt hedge fund deal
Author: Margie Lindsay
Source: Hedge Funds Review | 01 Apr 2010

London, April 1, 2010 – EXCLUSIVE – In a bold and unexpected move the Greek government has transferred its entire sovereign debt into three hedge fund vehicles. A further fund will receive Greek ancient monuments and a fifth ownership of several holiday islands in the Mediterranean, Hedge Funds Review has learned.

The hedge funds, all to be domiciled in the Cayman Islands, will pursue a number of strategies ranging from distressed debt to activist, according to sources close to the deal.
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