Showing 4 results for the tag: Dawn.com.

December 10, 2014

Russia is the wrong place to lend a Parthenon sculpture to

Posted at 6:29 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles

In coverage of the recent loan of a Parthenon sculpture to Russia by the British Museum, a number of themes have emerged.

One of these themes is that we should not be making (masssice, groundbreaking) loans to Putin’s Russia. This current story comes at a time of continuing tension in the Ukraine and with the EU applying sanctions against Russia. Surely, one must conclude that they not a country for Britain to be rewarding and ingratiating themselves to at this current point in time.

Visitors passing a sculpture from the Parthenon marbles at the Hermitage in St Petersburg, Russia

Visitors passing a sculpture from the Parthenon marbles at the Hermitage in St Petersburg, Russia

From:
Guardian

The British Museum is wrong to loan the Parthenon marbles to Russia
The UK has chosen sanctions as a weapon against Russia, so why are we now inviting cultural exchanges?
Hugh Muir
Friday 5 December 2014 10.57 GMT

Time passes and memories fade, but does anyone remember Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, the one shot down by Russian-backed separatists over Ukraine in July? All 298 passengers were killed when a missile downed the airliner. I knew one of the victims a few years back: Glenn Thomas, a very affable British journalist who worked for the World Health Organisation and was on his way to a health conference in Australia.

We were pretty angry about that, and about what Vladimir Putin has been up to in Ukraine, and so for some time we have been trying to impose some sort of pressure on the Russian president by applying sanctions to his regime. Today, in the midst of those efforts, we learn that the British Museum has decided to loan Russia part of its hotly contested property, the Parthenon marbles, also known as the Elgin marbles.
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April 16, 2012

Should the British Museum really be called the British Museum?

Posted at 12:45 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

Clearly, the British Museum is called that, because it’s a national museum, located within Britain. But beyond that, there’s not a lot of logic to the name.

It has been pointed out many times in the past, by many different people, that the British Museum is not really very British. That is to say, that not much of the stuff on display is actually from Britain. You have to really look to spot the exhibits from Britain, amongst all the artefacts taken from other places around the world. In this sense, it is more a museum of British imperialism, than it is one of modern Britain.

From my point of view, many of the artefacts there are legitimately acquired – however, the vague descriptions on the information panels next to them give you little idea of the real stories behind the acquisition of many of the items in their collection.

From:
Dawn

A pilgrim’s progress
From the Newspaper | M.J. Akbar | 2 days ago

THE British Museum should, in all propriety, be renamed the British Empire Museum. The largest repository of human genius is a magnificent tribute to three centuries of commercial and political power.

The Empire and its diaspora had three overlapping shores: lands that were directly ruled; regions under domination (hence Dominions) and an arc of grip sanctified by treaty (as in the Indian or Malaysian princely states) or justified by gunboat diplomacy (as in China).
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October 26, 2011

The easy availability of looted Afghan artefacts

Posted at 1:00 pm in Similar cases

Looting of historic artefacts is just as much of a problem in the present day as it was in the past. Many of the people / organisations along the supply chain are unwilling to perhaps apply the controls & regulation that are required.

From:
Dawn.com

Cultural plunder
21 Feb 2011
By Peter Thonemann

ARE you keen to help finance the activities of warlords and insurgents across Afghanistan?

As I write, eBay is inviting bids on no fewer than 128 ancient Bactrian and Indo-Greek silver and bronze coins, from sellers in Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand and the United States.
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July 22, 2009

Why all restitution cases should be treated on their own unique merits

Posted at 12:55 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

The initial history of the Elgin Marbles in this article is over-charitable to Lord Elgin (who had for instance never visited Athens at the time that he instructed the removal of the sculptures from the Parthenon to start). The key point to consider though is that no precedent would necessarily be set by the reunification of the surviving Parthenon Sculptures in Athens. It has long been understood that in cases such as this, each case is assessed on its own strengths & weaknesses. No two restitution cases are identical. Not only do you have to consider how artefacts were acquired, but also the significance of the artefacts, their uniqueness, what they represent etc before any decision can be made. In the case of the Parthenon Marbles, there is a strong case, not least because they are fragmented parts of a whole. If the pages of a book were spread randomly between different locations, few would be able to argue that this was the best way that the book could be displayed.

Further to the whole argument of precedent though (which has been gone over many times by many people), surely doing an arguably right act now should not be stopped because you fear that doing what is morally right once may mean that you are then encouraged to make similar commitments again in the future?

From:
Dawn.com (Pakistan)

The debate over the Elgin marbles
By Irfan Husain
Wednesday, 22 Jul, 2009 | 08:48 AM PST

Ever since the end of the colonial era, countries whose cultural heritage was looted by European powers have been demanding the return of their treasures. And yet decades later, these priceless objects continue to fill the display areas of hundreds of museums, private collections and auction houses in the West.

Perhaps the longest outstanding claim has been for the return of the Elgin marbles from the British Museum to their home in Greece. This stunning collection was removed from its resting place in the Parthenon in Athens. Built 2,500 years ago on the Acropolis as a temple to honour the goddess Athena, the Parthenon served as a church for another thousand years before being converted into a mosque by the conquering Ottoman Turks who turned Greece into a province of their far-flung empire. It then fell into disuse and was a dilapidated ruin when Lord Elgin arrived in Constantinople as the British ambassador in the late 18th century.
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