Matthew Parris in The Times has (although I am still hoping the remarks were made tongue in cheek) sadly descended to the level of many other commentators in the past, who claim that London is a far safer location for the display of the Parthenon Marbles. Notwithstanding any other issues associated with this argument, the fact remains that even the supposedly safe places can become unsafe – meaning that there is no form of guarantee that London is any safer than Athens for the display of artefacts. This fact is evidence by such things as the huge number of artworks destroyed in the collapse of New York’s World Trade Center in 2001.

If the argument is taken to its logical conclusion, then surely all artefacts should be located in secure underground vaults – perhaps only viewable by video cameras. If this was the case though, it should be determined by some sort of international body, by the voluntary consent of the parties concerned, not post-rationalised bay a single party without any sort of real consent from the original owners.

From:
The Times

May 20, 2010
Never mind the oil slick, just watch our carpet
BP should take a wider view when it comes to health and safety
Matthew Parris

[…]

Losing their Marbles

Speaking of mayhem, I see a silver lining to the cloud of rioting and destruction in Athens. I’ve always felt that there was merit in the argument that, as the Elgin Marbles were part of the Parthenon, they should be reunited with it, but I’m equally impressed with the argument that they were brought to Britain for safekeeping, and are ours now. It is at last clear how these two may be reconciled. Bring the Parthenon to London, too, for safekeeping.

[…]

Michael Kimmelman’s recent comments about the Elgin Marbles in the New York Times have provoked numerous responses – both in other publications & in the letters page of the newspaper.

From:
New York Times

Letters
Elgin Marbles: A Different Patrimony
Published: May 11, 2010

Re “Who Draws the Borders of Culture” by Michael Kimmelman [May 9]:

Mr. Kimmelman makes a thoughtful and persuasive case that ancient art contains multiple and shifting meanings and belongs to the world, not the current occupants of the country it came from. I found it odd, however, that he denies that the United States has cultural patrimony and argues that Americans would have difficulty understanding the concept.
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Following their attendance at the recent conference in Egypt, Indian officials want to make a major push to apply pressure to other countries that hold disputed artefacts from India.

From:
Telegraph (India)

Tuesday , May 18 , 2010
India in global bid to get back treasures
SEBANTI SARKAR

Calcutta, May 17: India has joined a global initiative to restore antiquities back to their countries of origin for the first time after decades of unsuccessfully trying to reclaim stolen treasures like the Koh-i-Noor diamond and the Birmingham Buddha.

“The legal process for restitution of antiquities is not only time-consuming but also expensive. An international campaign with Unesco’s backing is certainly the better option for us,” the director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), Gautam Sengupta, said today, on the eve of International Museum Day.
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Kwame Opoku looks at the somewhat peculiar assertions made by Michael Kimmelman, about the Parthenon Sculptures being split between different countries that: The effect of this vandalism on the education and enlightenment of people in all the various places where the dismembered works have landed has been in many ways democratizing.

From:
Modern Ghana

DEMOCRATIZATION THROUGH VANDALISM: NEW ANSWER TO DEMANDS FOR RESTITUTION OF CULTURAL ARTEFACTS?
Columnist: Kwame Opoku, Dr.

“You must understand what the Parthenon Marbles mean to us. They are our pride. They are our sacrifices. They are the supreme symbol of nobility. They are a tribute to democratic philosophy. They are our aspiration and our name. They are the essence of Greekness”.
Melina Mercouri (1)

After a long period of studying the question of restitution of cultural artefacts, I thought I had heard all the arguments that could be advanced for or against restitution. However, I received a jolt of surprise when I saw an article by Michael Kimmelman entitled “Who Draws the Borders of Culture?” in which, among other contestable statements, he wrote concerning the dismemberment of the Parthenon and its scattering outside Greece, the following:
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If Taiwan wants to make more of their own aboriginal culture, they need to secure the return of many important artefacts from this era that are in other museums around the world.

From:
Taipei Times

Taiwan needs a national Aboriginal museum
By Lu Meifen 盧梅芬
Monday, May 17, 2010, Page 8

If Taiwan is a culturally diverse country, then how is that reflected in our museums? The National Palace Museum in Taipei remains the main portal for those who want to learn about Chinese culture in Taiwan. The only Taiwanese museum dedicated specifically to Aboriginal culture is the Cultural Park Bureau of the Cabinet’s Council of Indigenous Peoples. Its status is uncertain, it lacks research experts and its permanent exhibitions are not being updated. In other words, it falls far short of the standard we have a right to expect from a national museum of Aborigines.

Aside from the National Palace Museum, the highest-ranking national museums in Taiwan are the National Museum of History in Taipei, the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung, the National Science and Technology Museum in Kaohsiung, the National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium in Pingtung and the National Museum of Prehistory in Taitung. The Museum of Prehistory is the highest-ranking museum in Taiwan dedicated to prehistoric research, Aborigines and the ­connection between prehistory, Aborigines and Austronesia. Although it is charged with promoting balanced cultural development in eastern Taiwan and in the nation’s remote regions, the Museum of Prehistory has the smallest staff, even though Aborigines make up a majority of residents in those areas.
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Perhaps as one of the areas of the world that has lost the largest quantities of artefacts, Africa is rapidly becoming one of the loudest voices in the campaigns for the return of artefacts from the museums & institutions of the west.

From:
Afrik.com

African cultural heritage fight with the West fuelled by national identity
Wednesday 12 May 2010 / by Alicia Koch

The question of African cultural heritage in the West is still hanging in the balance. Should their valuable artifacts remain in European and North American institutions that possess the necessary preservation techniques and means or should they be returned to their country of origin where they could forge a much needed sense of national identity? Shock waves created by the international conference on the protection and restitution of “looted” Cultural Heritage which took place in Cairo, April 8, and led by Zahi Hawass, secretary general of the powerful Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities, has revived a debate that has long been relegated to furtive whispers.

At a time when the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva, known for its remarkable collection of primitive art, has decided to give back a Makonde mask that has been in its possession since 1985 to Tanzania, the issue of the restitution of sacred African artifacts could not be more sensitive. Stolen from a museum in Dar Es Salaam, in 1984, the mask found its way into the prestigious Swiss museum where it was kept for 25 years! Given back to the Eastern African country officially as a “gift” at a formal ceremony held under the auspices of the International Council of Museums (ICOM) in Paris on Monday, the mask is well on its way back to its ancestral abode. This marks a further step in the process of the restitution of looted artifacts to Africa.
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The Parthenon Sculptures are an issue that is seen as important by many people who take all possible opportunities to try & raise awareness of it. This is in direct contract to the approach taken by the British Museum that the issue will go away if they just ignore it.

From:
Greek Reporter

Formula 1 drivers in the “race” for Parthenon Marbles return
Posted on 11 May 2010 by Apostolos Papapostolou

The drivers of this year’s Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix race, also known as the Natiole Piloti and headed by the Michail Schumacher will participate in a friendly soccer match that will send out two messages: the first being safe driving and the second and most important for Greece-the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece, their homeland. With this special event to take place before the lavish opening of the Monaco Grand Prix, the drivers aim to sensitize many of the dignitaries and officials as well as the people attending this spectacular sporting event. Among the expected celebrities to be attending the event will be Greek-French television personality, Nikos Aliagas, who spearheads the drive for the Parthenon Marbles to Greece.

It is a few years now since the Declaration of Universal Museums. Whilst many have declared that the concept (as portrayed at the time) is dead in the water, this powerful group of institutions still have the potential to manipulate popular opinion & to over-rule the more democratic backbones of the museum community such as ICOM.

From:
Guardian News (Nigeria)

Fatwa of Cairo gathering on looted artefacts
By Tajudeen Sowole

COLLECTIVE attempt made last month – perhaps for the first time – by countries demanding for restitution of disputed cultural objects is though laudable. However, it is an uphill task and capable of rattling existing conventions on the issue.

The two-day conference tagged International Cooperation for the Protection and Repatriation of Cultural Heritage and held in Cairo, Egypt came eight years after keepers of these artefacts gathered under the name, Bizot Group and declared a concept of universal museum. The ownership of such works, Bizot argued in France, should not be confined to geographical boundaries.
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Many who are against the restitution of various artefacts to their countries of origin, argue that the countries today are completely different ones (in many cases with different names) to those from which the artefacts originated. To argue this though it to lose track of the geographical connection itself – artefacts are a product of a time & place. Even if the times have changed, the place is still where it always was.

From:
Egypt Today

May 2010
Whose Heritage?
Repatriating ancient treasures seems like a noble cause, but history might end up the loser
By Michael Kaput

Forget bailouts. Part of the possible solution to Greece’s economic woes is 2,500 years old and sits in the British Museum.

It makes sense to Daniel Korski, who wrote a March 4 article, “Why we should give the Elgin Marbles back to Greece,” in the British magazine The Spectator. Korski was referring to the sculptures and friezes originally mounted on the Parthenon, which were removed from Ottoman-administered Greece by Lord Thomas Elgin from 1801 to 1812. Currently in the British Museum, the marbles have been a long-standing slight to Greek national pride. Finally returning them, suggests Korski, could give Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou the political capital he needs to sustain unpopular economic reforms in his bankrupt country.

The suggestion is not as crazy as you might think. Antiquities are an effective weapon in any country’s political arsenal. But the furor generated over who owns which antiquities is swiftly superseding the appreciation of their cultural and historical value.
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A new exhibition in Scotland brings together some of the surviving Lewis Chessmen from the collections of both the British Museum & National Museums Scotland. Almost everyone who sees the collection would argue that it is better to understand them in one place together – but the apart from occasional short term loans, the status-quo of a fragmented collection continues to be maintained.

From:
About My Area

The Lewis Chessmen: Unmasked
National Museum of Scotland
Free
21 May – 19 September 2010

The Lewis Chessmen are going on tour!

The Chessmen represent one of the most significant archeological discoveries ever made in Scotland. This new exhibition casts fresh light on their significance and explores their possible origins.
Discover where the chess pieces were found and weigh up the myths and theories surrounding them. What do the intricately-carved characters tell us about society at the time they were made?
The exhibition brings together chess pieces from the British Museum and National Museums Scotland. New research explores the enduring mystery and intrigue of these iconic artefacts.
The Lewis Chessmen: Unmasked continues to Aberdeen Art Gallery, Shetland Museum and Archives and Museum nan Eilean, Stornoway. Visit www.nms.ac.uk/chessmen for more information.
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I’m fairly unconvinced by the viewpoint represented in this article. The argument is never about where the impact of the Parthenon Marbles is greater, but about where they actually belong & who they belong to.

From:
New York Times

Abroad
Who Draws the Borders of Culture?

Swarms of visitors see the Elgin marbles daily in the British Museum. The Greeks want them moved to a new museum near the Parthenon, but would their impact be greater there?
By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN
Published: May 4, 2010

IT was gridlock in the British Museum the other morning as South African teenagers, Japanese businessmen toting Harrods bags, and a busload of German tourists — the usual crane-necked, camera-flashing babel of visitors — formed scrums before the Rosetta Stone, which Egyptian authorities just lately have again demanded that Britain return to Egypt. From the Egyptian rooms the crowds shuffled past the Assyrian gates from Balawat (Iraq is another country pleading for lost antiquities) and past the Roman statue of the crouching Aphrodite (ditto Italy), then headed toward the galleries containing what are known in Britain as the Elgin marbles (but in Greece as the Parthenon marbles, or simply booty), where passers-by plucked pamphlets from a rack.
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