Journalist & author Michael Gross looks at some of the controversies brewing at New York’s Metropolitan Museum following last years agreement to return the Euphronious Krater.

From:
Michael Gross

Fracas at 1000 Fifth
Michael Gross
Posted on February 27th, 2007

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is about to open its five-years-in the-making new galleries for Greek and Roman antiquities, centered around what it calls the “majestic” and “monumental” Leon Levy and Shelby White Court, formerly the museum’s restaurant. I’ve been researching a history of the Metropolitan, to be published by the Doubleday-Broadway division of Random House. What I heard this weekend can’t wait for the book.

The press will surely chronicle the bold-face attendees at the April 20th opening. But they should also pay attention to who doesn’t turn up, for that may signal whether the reign of longtime Met director Philippe de Montebello, 71, will end with well-deserved laurels or a controversy like those which followed his predecessor Thomas Hoving out the door thirty years ago.
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Representatives from both Greece & the British Museum were in Greenland for a conference which focussed on the repatriation of all artefacts from Greenland by Denmark.

From:
The Art Newspaper

Saturday, 24 February 2007
Could the “Greenland example” help resolve the Parthenon Marbles dispute?
Denmark has returned over 30,000 objects to its former colony in an unusual case of cooperative repatriation
By Martin Bailey | Posted 24 February 2007

LONDON. A possible solution to the Parthenon Marbles dispute between the British Museum and the Greek government has come from a most unlikely source — a gathering in Greenland. Meeting in the depths of the Arctic winter, museum professionals and representatives of indigenous peoples recently assembled in the tiny capital of Nuuk (formerly Godthab) to discuss global strategies on repatriation of cultural heritage.
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A legal battle to stop testing on Aboriginal remains is to be delayed until the seventh of March.

From:
Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia)

February 24, 2007
Battle over Aboriginal bones
Fiona Hudson
London

A LEGAL battle to stop scientists from a British museum pulverising the remains of Australian Aborigines has been delayed until March 7 after the British and Australian governments weighed in.

Lawyer for the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre Geoffrey Robertson, QC, told the High Court in London that the delay in proceedings was disappointing “but it’s taken 100 years thus far”.
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Is the legal argument started by Australia’s Aboriginals a waste of public money?

From:
The Australian

Museum bones legal fight ‘a waste’ of $1m
* Matthew Denholm, Peter Wilson
* February 24, 2007

AN Aboriginal group has broken ranks to oppose costly legal action aimed at stopping a British museum conducting tests on indigenous remains.
Tasmania’s Lia Pootah community yesterday attacked the case against London’s Natural History Museum as a waste of money, as lawyers predicted legal fees could top $1 million.

Indigenous leader and Labor national president Warren Mundine also expressed concern about the cost, as well as the loss of information obtained from the tests, which he said could benefit Aborigines.
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Further coverage of the legal battle going on in Australia to stop testing on Aboriginal Remains in Britain.

From:
The Australian

Source: AAP
Australia, UK in court over artefacts
* February 22, 2007

THE Australian and British governments today will be pitted against each other in a heavyweight court battle over whether scientists can conduct tests on Aboriginal remains.

The Australian Government yesterday announced it would seek to join the legal fight to stop researchers at London’s Natural History Museum testing the skulls and bones of 17 Tasmanian Aborigines.
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The Australian government has agreed to assist Aboriginal groups with their bid to stop testing on human remains in the Natural History Museum in Britain.

From:
ABC News (Australia)

Government to fund Aboriginal remains case
Friday, 16 February 2007. 07:14 (AEDT)

The Federal Government has agreed to fund the court action in Britain to try to stop testing of Tasmanian Aboriginal remains.

The British Natural History Museum has agreed to return the remains of 17 Tasmanian Aborigines but it first wants to do scientific tests.
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The first direct benefits from the British Museums collaboration with China is going to be a major exhibition later this year on the Terracotta Army.
Here it is clear that the museum has realised the benefits for both sides of collaboration – with many cases though such as those involving restitution requests they have tried as hard as possible to avoid getting involved in any sort of joint discussions, not realising that agreements could be made which would have a positive outcome for all parties.

From:
The Anchor (Rhode Island College)

LETTER TO AMERICA – Moving to England, Staying for the Museums
Written by Stephen Morse, Anchor Senior British Corresponent
Tuesday, 13 February 2007

[…]

It was announced on Thursday 8th February that twelve of the 8,099 figures from China’s famous ‘Terracotta Army’ are to be shipped to England as an exhibit in the British museum in London. These life-seized figures were originally created in order to guard the tomb of Emperor Qin Shihuangdi, and were buried with him in roughly 210 BC to be discovered only as recently as 1974. Visited in their native China by two-million people annually, people are getting very excited by the prospect of the Army’s first voyage to England. Well, if it’s good enough for Miss Brazil, then it’s certainly good enough for a dozen aging warriors.
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The Australian government is considering whether to get involved in the arguments surrounding the proposed testing to be carried out on Aboriginal remains in Britain’s Natural History Museum.

From:
ABC News (Australia)

Last Update: Tuesday, February 13, 2007. 9:00pm (AEDT)
Govt to consider funding legal bid for Aboriginal remains

The Federal Government says it is happy to consider a request to help fund a legal bid to stop the testing of Tasmanian Aboriginal remains held by a British museum.

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) has accused the Government of shirking its responsibility.
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Australian Prime Minister John Howard has been urged to put pressure on Britain to put a stop to testing on Aboriginal remains prior to their restitution.

From:
ABC News (Australia)

Howard urged to stop museum testing Indigenous remains
AM – Tuesday, 13 February , 2007 10:40:28
Reporter: Stephanie Kennedy
TONY EASTLEY: Last year in a landmark decision, Britain’s Natural History Museum agreed to return the remains of 17 Indigenous Tasmanians.

But before sending the remains back to Australia, the Museum wanted to collect scientific data.

That sparked an angry outcry from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, and it’s now fighting the Museum in the High Court in London.
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The first steps of a fight to stop testing on Aboriginal remains in Britain’s Natural History Museum appear to have been successful.

From:
ABC News (Australia)

Last Update: Friday, February 9, 2007. 7:35pm (AEDT)
Aboriginal Centre wins battle in war over museum remains

The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre has been successful in the first step of its fight to stop a British museum performing tests on Aboriginal remains.

The Tasmanian Supreme Court has ordered that the centre becomes the administrator of the estates of 17 Tasmanian Aborigines, whose remains are in the Natural History Museum in London.
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The Times has published an obituary of Peter Derow, ancient historian & long time supporter of the campaigns to return the Parthenon Marbles.

From:
The Times

From The Times
February 09, 2007
Peter Derow
Historian of Ancient Rome who was a sympathetic and artful practitioner of the tutorial teaching system

Peter Derow was a scholar for whom the highest priority, and the greatest pleasure, was to teach undergraduates.

The claim on the website of Marbles Reunited (one of the two pressure groups he long supported for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece) that he was “responsible for much of the teaching in ancient history at Oxford” is only a little exaggerated. And the long string of his undergraduate pupils who have gone on to distinguished careers as ancient, usually Greek, historians proves the power of inspiring example.
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More info on the UNESCO summit about the new challenges facing museums.

From:
Cultural Heritage News Agency (Iran)

New Challenges Facing Museums to be Discussed at UNESCO HQ

Tehran, 5 February 2007 (CHN Foreign Desk) — In an effort to find a solution for the challenges museums face in today’s world and the situation of archeological artifacts which have been transferred to museums of different countries in the course of history, UNESCO has organized a summit in its headquarter in Paris today entitled “Memory and Universality: New Challenges Facing Museums.”

The summit which will be held this evening with the attendance of directors of some of the most famous museums of the world such as the Louvre Museum, British Museum, and Hermitage Museum, as well as president of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), president of ICOM’s Ethics Committee, director of the Ecole du Patrimoine Africain , director of the National Museum of the American Indian in the United States, director of the National Museum of Korea, etc. will provide the chance for the participants to explore the historical, ethical, political and economic aspects of the issue.
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