My sympathy for the Ancient Coin Collectors Guild in the US is somewhat limited – they want some sort of exemption from, or change of the law regarding ownership of cultural property & seem to be regularly pushing articles to highlight their case.

From:
San Francisco Examiner

Another hobby it’s legally hazardous to pursue
By: Walter Olson | 08/17/11 6:00 PM
Special to The Examiner

Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams and Ronald Reagan were among the many notable Americans who have enjoyed collecting ancient and historic coins.

Add to their number countless kids awestruck on their birthday when a grandparent presented them with a genuine coin from the Roman Empire to crown their treasure trove of more ordinary Liberty dimes and buffalo nickels.
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This article identifies the duplicity I noticed earlier in the year with the Staffordshire Hoard. Whenever artefacts are found in the UK, efforts are made to keep them in the area where they were discovered, to the extent of organising fundraising appeals & comments are made by prominent politicians. On the other hand, when a foreign country asks for their artefacts to be returned, so that they too can keep them close to the area where they belong, they are frequently accused of having an argument that is nothing more than jingoistic cultural nationalism.

From:
News and Star

Is it our history?
By Stephen Blease
Last updated at 12:47, Friday, 01 October 2010

There’s no doubt about it. The Roman helmet unearthed in Crosby Garrett deserves to return to Cumbria.

It was found here. It’s as much a part of our history as that other great Roman relic, Hadrian’s Wall. It is great news that the campaign has got political backing from MPs John Stevenson and Rory Stewart – and financial backing from an anonymous donor offering £50,000.
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On 8th – 9th July 2010, Manchester University’s Centre for Museology is organising a two day conference on Museums & Restitution.

For more details of the conference & to book a place on it, go to their website.

A provisional programme of the conference is also available to download.

From:
Centre for Museology

Museums and Restitution – International Conference
Museums and Restitution is a two-day international conference organised by the Centre for Museology and The Manchester Museum at the University of Manchester. The conference examines the issue of restitution in relation to the changing role and authority of the museum, focussing on new ways in which these institutions are addressing the subject.

Restitution is one of the most emotive and complex issues facing the museum world in the twenty first century. Its current high profile reflects changing global power relations and the increasingly vocal criticisms of the historical concentration of the world’s heritage in the museums of the West. The 2002 Declaration of the Importance and Value of Universal Museums, which was signed by the directors of eighteen of the world’s most prominent museums, pushed the subject to the forefront of debate as never before.
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A new exhibit at the Tate Modern is based on the artist’s experiences with a fragment broken off one of the Pyramids in Egypt that he later returned. What is more interesting though is the comments from the British Museum on the issues raised by this – despite the fact that many of the artefacts in their collection were originally acquired in similar circumstances by untrained excavators without proper permits.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Tate show reveals artist’s pyramid theft
British artist Andy Holden is to reveal how he stole a piece of the Egypt pyramids in a new exhibition at the Tate Britain in London.
Roya Nikkhah, Arts Correspondent
Published: 9:00AM GMT 10 Jan 2010

The artist’s guilty secret began with a seemingly innocent trip to Egypt.

Accompanying his father, who was there on business, Andy, then 12, was taken to the Great Pyramid of Giza: the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World still surviving – relatively intact – and the oldest and largest of the pyramids at the Giza Necropolis.

“When we arrived at the pyramids, unthinkingly I broke off a lump of stone from the side of the Great Pyramid in Giza,” said Mr Holden. “I got home and put it on a shelf in my room alongside a collection of other souvenirs I had as a kid, but when my parents found out, they were furious and it ended up becoming this terrible guilt object.
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