Despite the fact that its opening was a few months ago, press coverage of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens continues, with regular reviews – the vast majority of which are positive.

From:
AllGov

Greece Unveils Museum Meant for Stolen Sculptures
Saturday, November 21, 2009

Greece has built a new museum to reclaim the Parthenon Marbles, or Elgin Marbles, from the British Museum. The Parthenon Marbles are symbols of ancient Greek glory that were chiseled off the Parthenon temple two centuries ago by Lord Elgin. Greece has been demanding their return for decades, and in the past the main argument against their return was Greece’s lack of a suitable location for their display. The new Acropolis Museum is a proud rebuttal and call for their return.
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Egypt wants the British Museum to return the Rosetta Stone – This is one piece that they have asked for many times before, but to no success so far. The retentionist arguments are typically following the usual patterns though of claiming that the country demanding the return of the artefact did not exist at the time the artefact was created (With artefacts of this age, it is hard to believe that any case would not fall foul of this argument, which neglects the ties between the artefacts & the locality in which it originated – whatever that area might be called now). Another often repeated argument suggests that the artefacts would have been neglected if it had not been taken (which is entirely speculative & relies on assumptions – there is also the issue of whether protecting / popularising a piece really reinforces ownership of it, or allows for its continued retention).

The same arguments keep coming out every time – as a means of perpetuating the status quo rather than trying to actually deal with the issues or see the oter side’s point of view in any way.

From:
New York Times

A Case in Antiquities for ‘Finders Keepers’
By JOHN TIERNEY
Published: November 16, 2009

Zahi Hawass regards the Rosetta Stone, like so much else, as stolen property languishing in exile. “We own that stone,” he told Al Jazeera, speaking as the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities.

The British Museum does not agree — at least not yet. But never underestimate Dr. Hawass when it comes to this sort of custody dispute. He has prevailed so often in getting pieces returned to what he calls their “motherland” that museum curators are scrambling to appease him.
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Following the high profile successes of Australian Aboriginal groups in securing the repatriation of human remains from Britain’s museums, New Zealand’s Maori’s are also achieving similar results.

From:
Agence France Presse

Museum returns Maori bones to N.Zealand
(AFP) – Nov 16, 2009

LONDON — A British museum handed back a set of Maori skeletal remains to indigenous leaders from New Zealand on Monday, 80 years after they were discovered in storage there, officials said.

The remains are thought to have been traded but then forgotten, and to be from Ahuahu or Great Mercury Island, off the coast of New Zealand’s North Island.
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Kwame Opoku looks at how the bust of Nefertiti, on display in Berlin’s Neues Museum, is in many ways isolated from its original context – showing that context is not just important for understanding large in-situ pieces such as the Parthenon Sculptures.

From:
Modern Ghana

NEFERTITI, IDIA, TIYE AND OTHERS REVISITED: NEFERTITI IN SPLENDID ISOLATION?
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Mon, 16 Nov 2009

“The history of the bust of Nefertiti shows very clearly how hollow it can sound when Germans and other Europeans refer to legal principles in relation to the “Third World.”
Gert von Paczensky and Herbert Ganslymayr (1)

The intensive and extensive publicity surrounding the re-opening of the Neues Museum in Berlin and the renewed demands by Zahi Hawass made it inevitable that all those interested in restitution of looted/stolen cultural objects would pay attention to the recent celebration of the renovated museum on the Museums Island in Berlin.(2)
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Further coverage of the new law passed to allow the return of artefacts looted during the Nazi era held in UK museums. If this law had been in place previously, it would have avoided such (unsuccessful) court cases as Attorney General v Trustees of the British Museum AKA the Feldmann Case.

It will be interesting to see how many cases now come to light following the passing of this new law (to take a cynical point of view, it could be argued that the law was only passed because certain interested parties knew that there were only a very small number of items in their collections that were likely to be affected by it).

From:
BBC News

Page last updated at 14:06 GMT, Friday, 13 November 2009
UK museums can return looted art

Artefacts in national museums found to have been looted by the Nazis can now be returned to their rightful owners, thanks to newly-passed legislation.

The Holocaust (Stolen Art) Restitution Act gives national institutions in England and Scotland the power to return art stolen during the Nazi era.
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Once again, Egypt is repeating requests that they have made previously for the return of looted artefacts held in museums abroad.

From:
Afrik.com

Egypt demands return of stolen artifacts from Europe and U.S.
The artifacts are of great historicity and culture
Thursday 12 November 2009 / by Konye Obaji Ori

Egypt is asking European countries in possession of Egyptian artifacts, historical and cultural monuments to return the items to the country for the opening of Egypt’s Grand Museum at Giza, due by 2013. So far, their request has been overlooked.

“I’m not asking for all the artifacts of the British Museum to come to Egypt. I’m only asking for the unique cultural objects,” he added, referring to items of great archaeological value, such as the Rosetta Stone,” says Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities.
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East 15 Acting School are performing a play about the Elgin Marbles in London next week.

The play is on Tuesday 8 December & Wednesday 9 December 2009 at 20:00 in the Drill Hall, 16 Chenies Street, London WC1E 7EX. This is conveniently located in central London, only a few minutes walk from the British Museum. Tickets can be booked at the website address below.

From:
the Drill Hall

Losing Marbles
East 15 Acting School Showcase

Losing Marbles is an epic cinemascope blockbuster Christmas show made with the help of sticky back plastic, cardboard tubes and spaghetti.

A high speed chase across the new Europe to discover who owns the past.
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Since its discovery, many officials have publicly expressed the imperative for the Staffordshire Hoard to be displayed in the area where it was discovered – with the suggestion that displaying artefacts near to where they belong is the sensible approach to take. Now it appears that in this particular case, both the Prime Minister & the Director of the British Museum support the display of the hoard in the area where it was discovered. Whilst these aims are admirable, they are entirely consistent with the British Museum’s stance on many disputed foreign artefacts in its collection, which arguably present a far stronger case, insomuch as that they were once integral parts of a building – they have a true bont to this context, rather than being loose items that could be easily relocated to any part of the country / world.

From:
Birmingham Post

Gordon Brown backs case to keep Anglo Saxon hoard in West Midlands
Nov 11 2009 by Jonathan Walker

There is “a very strong case” for displaying the historic haul of Staffordshire gold in Tamworth, ancient capital of the kingdom of Mercia, Gordon Brown has told MPs.

But whatever happened to the 1,500 items of treasure, the aim was that they should be housed in the West Midlands, he said.
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After delays & discussions, the promised loan by the British Museum of the Cyrus Cylinder looks like it is finally going to go ahead.

From:
Press TV (Iran)

Iran finalizes Cyrus Cylinder exhibit
Wed, 11 Nov 2009 10:47:13 GMT

After several months of negotiations with the British Museum in London, the Cyrus the Great Cylinder exhibit in Iran has been finalized for January 16, 2010.

The clay Cyrus Cylinder, which is currently housed at the British Museum in London, will be brought to Tehran in January, the head of Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) announced on Wednesday.
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