British Museum director Neil MacGregor responds to any queries people might have had about the ownership of the artefacts in the British Museum’s latest exhibition in Kenya. MacGregor says that “repatriation is yesterday’s question” however, recent cases in the US involving the Getty & the Metroplitan Museum would suggest that this is not the case. Furthermore the British Museum’s own action in the Feldmann case & the return of Aboriginal artefacts would suggest that MacGregor’s most recent statement only applies to the artefacts that he wants it to. Furthermore, it is an argument that has two sides to it – it is only over once people stop calling for the return of their artefacts – and there doesn’t seem to be any sign of that happening yet.
Perhaps what MacGregor means is that he doesn’t think it should be an issue any more – so if he repeats this often enough then people might start listening to him.

From:
The Guardian

Into Africa: British Museum’s reply to ownership debate
Charlotte Higgins in Nairobi
Thursday April 13, 2006
The Guardian

A circumcision mask from western Kenya and a headdress made from human hair from Uganda are among 140 artefacts from the British Museum that have gone on show in Nairobi – the first time the museum has lent objects to Africa.

But the exhibition has sparked debate about whether such objects should be returned to their home countries for good. “We feel this is going to be the central theme [of debate]: why are these objects, which come from here, kept in Britain?” said Idle Omar Farah, director-general of the National Museums of Kenya.
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More on the British Museum’s temporary loan of African objects back to Africa for an exhibition. Despite the controversy surrounding acquisition of many of the pieces in the exhibition, the Kenyan curator Kiprop Lagat tries to take a more pragmatic approach. Many who read what he has written here & elsewhere will feel that he has bought too much into the British Museum’s own ideology of how the world is supposed to work.

From:
The East African

Artefacts on loan
April 10, 2006

It is the first time in history that a former colonial government is loaning cultural objects to Africa. Fred Oluoch reports

KENYANS WILL HAVE AN opportunity to see some unique cultural artefacts that were carted from the continent almost 100 years ago
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For a while now, the British Museum has been talking about the creation of an exhibitions of African artefacts held within Africa rather than just at the museum itself.
Unfortunately many of the artefacts that will be displayed in this exhibition are of questionable provenance & many in Africa are campaigning for their permanent return. The British Museum has however engineered it such that temporarily lending looted artefacts back to their original countries is seen as a grand philanthropic gesture, whereas the reality is that some of the pieces should never have left Africa.

From:
The East African

April 10, 2006
Exhibition mooted to link Africa with UK
By FRED OLUOCH Special Correspondent

THE CONCEPT OF AN “Africa in Africa” exhibition was mooted in 2003 during celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of the British Museum.

It was conceived two years earlier when leading Western museums – such as the British Museum and the Louvre Museum in France – declared themselves universal museums, and broached the issue of partnership and collaboration with countries where their exhibits came from, especially in Africa.
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In 1905, Richard Meinertzhagen, a British soldier in Kenya acquired some sacred tribal ticks belonging to the Nandi tribe. Now, more than one hundred years on, a Kenyan Warwick University with the help of an Egyptologist have tracked the sticks down to Captain Meinertzhagen’s son’s home.
On discovering the significance of these sticks to the Nandi tribe, the son, Randle Meinertzhagen, has decided that they to return them to Kenya.

From:
icBirmingham

Lost sacred sticks found in Midlands
Apr 10 2006
By Rhona Ganguly

Three sacred African tribal sticks that were allegedly stolen by a British army captain more than a century ago have been tracked down to the officer’s son’s home in Shropshire.

The three staffs once belonged to the chief of the Kenyan Nandi tribe, or the Kalinjin as the tribe is now known.
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A bronze ding or tripod, excavated in Shaanxi one hundred years ago was recently spotted by a French Archaeologist, when he was asked to authenticate some other artefacts in a collection. The archaeologist, Bernard Gomez realised the value of this piece & decided to buy it of the current owner & have it returned to China. Gomez had previously set up the Association for the Protection of Chinese Art in Europe in 2004 to help locate some of the ten million Chinese artefacts that are believed to have been lost overseas.
This is not the first instance where Chinese artefacts abroad of unknown provenance have been purchased with the sole intention of returning them to their country of origin – a practice that is questioned by many archaeologists because of its potential to perpetuate the trade in looted art.

From:
China Radio International

2,300-Year-Old Ding Returned to China
2006-04-10 23:55:17
Xinhua

A 2,300-year-old bronze ding, or three-legged tripod, returned to China from Europe on Monday to a new home in Xi’an, capital of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.

The relic was presented to the Shaanxi Provincial Cultural Heritage Bureau by Bernard Gomez, a noted French archaeologist and an expert on Chinese antiquities.
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Following a successful term as Mayor of Athens from 2002 until February of this year, Dora Bakoyanni has now taken the job of Foreign Affairs Minister. Her glamorous persona has added something to Greek politics in the same way as Melina Mercouri once did.
In this article we hear her views about why the Elgin Marbles should return to Athens.

From:
Cyprus Mail

08-04-06
The Amazon Queen and the Elgin marbles
By Lauren O’Hara

ON WEDNESDAY night I met an Amazon Queen. She stood head and shoulders above all the men on the terrace of the Greek ambassador’s residence. The man on my right, beguiled, whispered, ” I have just met a Greek goddess”.

It was easy to see why he felt that Dora Bakoyanni might qualify: not only does her size make the rest of us mere mortals feel well, simply human. Everything about her is larger than life. She has amazing eyes. Great pools of molten chocolate. Then I was told, “this woman has known suffering and overcome it”. Those eyes have courage too.
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The British Museum has organised a much publicised exhibition in Africa – people have questioned though, the fact that many of the artefacts that they are lending should still be in Africa. One statement from the article sums up the problem: “the British have more knowledge of African in the UK than Kenyans themselves“.
While teaching people in the UK about other cultures is admirable as a goal when seen in isolation, is it still such a good thing if it leads to the people of these cultures knowing les about it themselves because it has all been taken away from them?

From:
The Nation (Nairobi, Kenya)

Kenya: Artefacts Back Home, Briefly
April 8, 2006
Posted to the web April 7, 2006
Carol Odero
Nairobi

“Evocative” perfectly captures one of the most comprehensive artwork collections in recent Kenya, the noisy end of Nyayo House being the perfect escape.

A joint exhibition by the British Museum and the National Museums of Kenya (NMK), which started on March 30 and runs through to September 30, showcases Hazina – Kiswahili for treasure – describing items of beauty, value and interest.
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Following the decision by the British Museum to return Aboriginal cremation ashes to Tasmania, indigenous groups within the country are claiming that they were never consulted properly on the matter. From the results of the negotiations between Britain & Australia, it is clear that government-to-government negotiations can lead to a much faster resolution of the problem. However, at what point does this end up as a purely political exercise – artefacts leaving one country where their original owners have no control over them to be returned to another country where those who argued for the restitution still have little say in how they are managed? On the other hand, it is unclear at this point, if the complaint is one made by all Aboriginal groups, or only a small number who disagree with the way that the case has been handled.

From:
Sydney Morning Herald

Aborigines ‘not consulted on remains’
April 6, 2006 – 7:49PM

The federal government is morally disgraceful for bringing back Aboriginal remains from England without consulting indigenous communities, an activist says.

Bob Weatherall, a lobbyist for the repatriation of Aboriginal remains and cultural artefacts, said the government had not consulted indigenous communities on the issue.
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Earlier this year, London’s Metropolitan Police seized a medieval casket from the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The casket dating to 1200AD was originally designed to hold the remains of Thomas Becket, the murdered Archbishop of Canterbury.
The casket had been bought from a private owner in 1954 for the personal collection of Margaret Drey, a Jewish art dealer in London. After her death in 1964, it passed to her son who offered it to the museum as a long term loan in 1981. The seizure of the casket follows a claim submitted in November 2005 to the British Spoliation Advisory Panel by the Polish Czartoryski family. Some dispute though that the casket looted from the Czartoryski family was the same one as in the V&A, based on images of it from an exhibition catalogue. Moreover, the family of Margaret Drey insist that as someone who herself suffered greatly in Germany would not have knowingly dealt with looted artefacts.
Perhaps the most problematic aspect of this case is the involvement of the police – something that somewhat contradicts the supposed mediatory role of the Spoliation Advisory Panel. Whatever happens, at the end of this case, it seems likely that the result will set a precedent for how further claims relating to the Nazi period are dealt with in the UK.

From:
The Independent

6 April 2006 08:43
Art treasures and the Gestapo: The casket, the Nazis and why the police came calling at the V&A
By Louise Jury, Arts Correspondent
Published: 06 April 2006

For 25 years, this exquisitely enamelled medieval casket had been on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Made in the French city of Limoges in about 1200, it was designed to hold the relics of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury famously murdered in Canterbury Cathedral. It had been on public display until 2000 when it was put into storage while the new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries were prepared.

Like its sister work, a slightly earlier Becket casket which was bought with the support of a public appeal 10 years ago for £4.3m, it was likely to have proved one of the centrepieces of the new galleries when they open in a few years’ time.
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In recent years, the historic central district has fallen into a state of disrepair. Buildings are being torn down & replaced with little thought about preserving this part of the history of the city. At the end of the day a lot of the responsibility for the problem seems to rest with the municipality that is supposed to look after this district.
The author of this article puts forward the idea that possibly others appreciate the culture more than the people who see it every day – he highlights the issue discussed in the New York Times recently, where museums from other countries had worked together with local groups to protect cultures from damage. Unfortunately for Jeddah though, their case does not to me appear to require outside support in the way of those discussed in the article – for instance, it is not at risk through being in a war zone or occupied territory. Furthermore, while many countries cannot afford to preserve their own cultural remains, I find it hard to believe that such a problem could exist in a country as wealthy as Saudi Arabia.
The problem that exists here, while related to others that are discussed is one that needs to be dealt with from within. People must be made to think about how they would like this area to be preserved – why they would like to keep it & must have the motivation to do so. If they followed the path of getting others to help, there is likely to be more anguish in the future, when people decide that the want to re-manage the area themselves & have to fight to regain control of it once more. At the end of the day if someone wants to destroy their own culture, should they be stopped? Who is to say that in their mind the destruction of the culture is equally important to the preservation of it in the mind of others?

From:
Arab News

Thursday, 6, April, 2006 (07, Rabi` al-Awwal, 1427)
It Is High Time We Thought of a Plan to Save Jeddah’s Old Buildings
Abeer Mishkhas

The Saudi newspaper, Al-Madinah, recently carried an interesting article on the problems facing Jeddah’s downtown historic district.

The article featured a range of opinions on how best to preserve the district’s old buildings. Many buildings in the area are several hundred years old, but one casual stroll will show that they may well not survive much longer given present conditions.
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Indian journalist Ramesh Seth ponders on the fate of rare antiquities & what is the best option for them – should the be taken & isolated within a museum, or should they remain where they always were, possibly to be forgotten forever. The problem with this construct though, is that in reality each story is far more complex than this. we are led to believe that pieces were unappreciated in their native context, but was this truly the case, or were they being appreciated in a different way that was not understood by those who rescued them? Surely if one truly wanted to act as a preservationist, the first option would be to alert the owners or government of the country where the artefacts were found to their importance – to highlight why they ought to be preserved. Only if they were ignored at this stage & destruction was continuing should pieces actually be removed & even then only with agreement by their owners. Unfortunately, the original acquisitions leading to today’s restitution cases never (that I am aware of) happened in this way. More often they are stories of confusion, subterfuge, bribes & fraudulent representations on the part of the acquisitors.

From:
Economic Times, India

Marble marvels: Elgin Marbles
RAMESH SETH
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
[THURSDAY, APRIL 06, 2006 12:10:51 AM]

Strolling through the marbles gallery of British Museum, you will surely wonder at the creative output of
the Periclean Athens.

IT’S now cheaper to fly to London than Kochi — and there are more flights too! No wonder so many of us hoof it to the former first city of the British Empire when the mercury rises in India.
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The Prince of Wales has in the past taken an interest in the Greek Orthodox church which has included visits to the holy site of Mount Athos. The British Museum has over one hundred orthodox icons in its collection, but only sixteen of them are on display with the rest in storage.

The Prince has written to Neil MacGregor, director of the museum suggesting that this is a waste & that the icons should have their own room at the museum. MacGregor suggests though that the icons should not be seen as works of art in their own right, but merely as documents to the changing role of faith and society. Both these points of view raise the issue though, of whether there is a single true correct context for any artefacts? Can the views of the Prince & MacGregor not be seen as equally correct? Is it not possible for these two views to exist simultaneously? It is likely that other people will see these artefacts in a way that corresponds to neither of these outlooks, but who is to say which approach is the one that should be taken. It could be argued that the museum is trying to lead people into seeing history in a certain way through the way in which it chooses to present its artefacts, whereas surely in an ideal world, the display should be more open & unstructured in its representation, with the public free to interpret it in whichever way feels appropriate to them.

In the case of the Elgin Marbles & numerous other restitution claims, the same thinking could easily be applied. The British Museum takes the argument that it is a global universal museum in the spirit of the Enlightenment, displaying each context within the context of other cultures. They seem to have trouble understanding though that this is only one possible approach however (the approach that they take in practise does not necessarily seem to reflect this theory anyway – the concept that they describe of a museum where pieces are judged by comparison to others would seem to be far better represented by the uniquely Victorian Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford). Surely though, an equally plausible approach would be that the artefacts are better displayed in a situation as close as possible to their original context. Artefacts were formed in an area, reflecting many aspects of that area, from the geology & topography, to the quality of light & the views from the site. There are of course many other original contextual aspects that are now gone, such as the social, political & religious environments that led to the creation of the artefacts. Who are the Universal Museums to say that everyone should see cultures through the framework of a universal museum structure, dictating that this method is somehow preferable to any of the other options.

From:
The Independent

Pandora
5 April 2006 09:13
Prince of Interference and the museum’s missing icons
By Guy Adams
Published: 05 April 2006

Prince Charles doesn’t just use angry “black spider” letters to harass politicians. They’re also helping him to stick a nose into the day-to-day running of Britain’s foremost cultural institutions.
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