Showing results 25 - 36 of 52 for the tag: Germany.

October 27, 2011

Nefertiti bust remains safe in Germany

Posted at 12:59 pm in Similar cases

Against the backdrop of looting carrying on in Egypt, many museums around the world holding artefacts on which restitution claims have been made were quick to step forward highlighting how the artefacts were safer outside the country. It is hard to see though how this was ever the intention when the artefacts were removed – a fortunate co-incidence does not justify the rebuttal of repeated return requests that are made to museums of the west. Security is not guaranteed in any country – one wonders whether these museum would be desperate to return the artefacts if their own country was besieged by looting & riots – or whether they would quickly find a different argument in favour of maintaining the status quo.

From:
Deutsche Welle

Art | 28.02.2011
Egypt’s cultural artifacts are casualties of political unrest

In the wake of political turmoil in Egypt, questions linger about the damage inflicted upon its archaeological treasures. But how much the international community can or should do remains unclear.

While Nefertiti sits with her head held high on Berlin’s Museum Island, archaeologists are besieged with worry over the cultural riches in her home country. Graves have been plundered; artifacts were found smashed in the corners of a famous museum; and protestors have demanded the resignation of Egypt’s antiquities minister, Zahi Hawass, known for his aggressive pursuit of Egyptian artifacts being kept abroad.
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March 13, 2011

Are artefacts really safer in the museums of the West?

Posted at 4:24 pm in Similar cases

Museums (generally those in the Western World, that have artefacts that others want returned) have long argued that they safely look after their collections, preserving them with a level of care that would not be possible elsewhere. Stories such as the one below however, remind us that there is no guaranteed safety anywhere in the world. And surely it is all the more upsetting for the original owners if they were denied access to their own artefacts, only to see them destroyed or damaged, while in the care of another institution?

An earlier article about the reconstruction of the sculptures follows at the end of the first one.

From:
Press TV

Berlin exhibits shattered WWII statues
Thu Jan 27, 2011 6:55PM
The German city of Berlin has mounted an exhibition of ancient statues and stone reliefs nearly destructed during bombings of the World War II.

The Tell Halaf Adventure displays 3,000-year-old basalt statues unearthed in present-day Syria a century ago.

The sculptures were broken into thousands of pieces during 1943 bombings and kept in the vaults of the capital’s Pergamon Museum and then in East Berlin.
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February 25, 2011

Egypt’s request for the Nefertiti Bust return rebuffed

Posted at 1:57 pm in Similar cases

More coverage of Germany’s refusal to return the Bust of Nefertiti to Egypt.

From:
Press TV

Germany not to return Nefertiti bust
Wed Jan 26, 2011 5:37PM

Germany has once again refused to return the bust of Queen Nefertiti, an ancient Egyptian sculpture housed at the Neues Museum in the city of Berlin.

Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) had sent a request to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, asking for the 3,400-year-old piece which attracts more than one million visitors every year.
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February 22, 2011

Germany refuses Nefertiti Bust return request

Posted at 1:59 pm in Similar cases

In a move that will surprise few people, Germany has once again rebuffed requests for the return of the Bust of Nefertiti from Berlin’s Neues Museum.

From:
Yahoo News

Germany Denies Egypt’s Request for the Return of 3,300-Year Old Bust of Queen Nefertiti
Vanessa Evans Vanessa Evans – Tue Jan 25, 5:26 pm ET

The latest round in the debate between Egypt and Germany over the rightful ownership of one of Egypt’s most prized antiquities hit another snag on Monday when Germany again refused to turn a bust of Nefertiti over into Egyptian hands. Currently housed in Berlin’s Neues Museum, where it has been for decades, the 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti is at the top of a list of artifacts that Egypt would like returned to their home soil.

Germany, for its part, is maintaining it acquired the bust through legal channels and it belongs to them. It further maintains the artifact is too fragile to travel, so even a temporary loan back to Egypt would not be possible.
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February 18, 2011

Egypt repeats request for return of Nefertiti bust from Germany

Posted at 1:52 pm in Similar cases

Once again, Egypt has reiterated its request for the return of the Nefertiti bust, currently housed in Berlin’s Neues Museum.

From:
Bloomberg

Egypt Demands Return of Nefertiti Bust From Germany
By Mahmoud Kassem – Jan 24, 2011 11:40 AM GMT

Egypt has officially asked that Germany hand over a 3,400-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti from Berlin’s Neues Museum as part of the North African country’s efforts to return disputed artifacts.

Zahi Hawass, the secretary general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, sent a letter requesting the return of the statue to Herman Parzinger, president of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin, the Egyptian Culture Ministry said in an e-mailed statement.
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February 9, 2011

German media praise for Greece’s Acropolis restoration project

Posted at 1:53 pm in Acropolis, Greece Archaeology

Despite coming in for a lot of bad press recently in Germany for economic reasons, the country’s media are being much more supportive to Greece in their appreciation of the efforts being put into restoring the Acropolis.

From:
Greek Reporter

German Media Praises Acropolis Restoration Efforts
Posted on 09 January 2011 by Venetia Aftzigianni

The German media is impressed by the quality of renovations on the Acropolis. Begining in the mid-1970′s, the project has involved painstaking repairs on major monuments, including the Parthenon, the Erechtheion and Athena Nike Temple, and the Acropolis walls. The architectural masterpieces suffered from pollution and a flawed reparation attempt in the 1930′s. Workers used iron clamps in their repairs that eventually rusted and cracked the marble.

German journalists have uncharacteristically praised Greek efforts.
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January 11, 2011

Italy to pursue stolen ancient helmet in German courts

Posted at 2:09 pm in Similar cases

Italy is demanding the return of an ancient Greek helmet that it believes was looted from an archaeological site in 1993. They are following their approach taken in many successful recent cases, by following up their requests with legal action.

From:
Earthtimes

Italy pursues ‘stolen’ early Greek helmet in German court
Posted : Wed, 08 Dec 2010 10:47:53 GMT

Berlin – The Italian government is going to court in Berlin this week to claim an early Greek metal helmet, which it claims was stolen from an archaeological site in Italy in 1993, a court spokesman said Wednesday.

Greek-speaking trading cities existed on southern Italy’s coasts in the 7th to 6th century BC when the helmet, distinctive for its geometric style of decoration with zigzags and concentric circles, was made.
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November 15, 2010

German court orders return of artefacts looted from churches in Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus

Posted at 2:20 pm in Similar cases

A court in Munich has ruled that various artefacts looted from churches & monasteries in Northern Cyprus should be returned, after they were found hidden in the false wall of an two apartments in 1997.

From:
Cyprus Mail

German court order return of stolen Cypriot treasures
By Natali Hami and George Psyllides Published on September 28, 2010

SCORES of valuable religious artefacts looted from churches in the Turkish-occupied north are a step closer to repatriation following the decision of a German court.

Last week, a court in Munich ordered the return of the artefacts stolen by Turkish national Aydin Dikmen, after the invasion of the island in 1974.
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October 20, 2010

The Acropolis’s temple of Athena masquerading as the Norse Hall of the Slain

Posted at 9:52 am in Acropolis

As a building that has achieved an iconic level of fame, Greece’s Parthenon has been copied (both well & badly) in many different countries around the world. Most famous is the copy in Nashville, but there are others, such as the unfinished replica in Edinburgh & one in Germany known as the Valhalla, built by King Ludwig I.

From:
Irish Times

Friday, August 20, 2010
Heaven can wait but Valhalla here to stay

FINDING GERMANY: King Ludwig I’s temple thrusts one into the cold heart of Germany’s 19th-century hero cult, writes DEREK SCALLY

THE TEMPLE perched on the hill over the river Danube is a dead ringer for the Parthenon in Greece – only gleaming white and fully intact.
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May 25, 2010

Egypt calls for unity over looted antiquities

Posted at 9:50 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

Egypt’s conference on looted antiquities opened with the inimitable Zahi Hawass calling for unity & cooperation between the countries that are trying to retrieve artefacts.

From:
Zawya (UAE)

Egypt forum on looted antiquities opens with call for unity
By Christophe de Roquefeuil

CAIRO, Apr 07, 2010 (AFP) – Egyptian antiquities supremo Zahi Hawass on Wednesday opened an international conference on recovering ancient artefacts from abroad, saying countries must unite to recover their stolen heritage.

“We need to cooperate, we need a unification between our countries,” Hawass told antiquities officials, deputy culture ministers and museum directors from 21 countries at the two-day Cairo meeting.
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March 24, 2010

Greece & Germany argue over the Aphrodite of Milos

Posted at 2:06 pm in Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

Much like the Elgin Marbles, the Aphrodite of Milos was removed from Greece whilst the country was under Ottoman occupation during the nineteenth century.

From:
Hurriyet

Greece and Germany fight over Aphrodite of Melos
Monday, March 1, 2010
Ariana Ferentinou

I am sure that no one these days has heard of the name Georgos Kentrotas or Botonis, least of all the German editors of the Magazine Focus who chose to act somewhat like modern archaeologists or restorers and added one of the two missing arms of Aphrodite of Melos to their cover page.

But if it was not for this poor Greek farmer, this whole uproar over the “fingers up” symbolism against the European Union would never have been created.
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February 20, 2010

Ten famous cases of disputed artefacts in museums

Posted at 10:17 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

Among the vast numbers of disputed artefacts in museums & galleries, some have a high profile, whilst others are barely known. Time Magazine has attempted to draw up a list of what they feel are some of the most currently significant cases.

This article was published a few months ago, but I only recently came across it – explaining the fact that the information on the Louvre’s Egyptian Frescos is already out of date.

From:
Time

Top 10 Plundered Artifacts
History is big business. Plundered art and antiquities trade to the tune of at least $3 billion a year, much to the chagrin of nations struggling to reclaim their lost artifacts. In honor of a recent spat between the Egyptian government and the Louvre museum in Paris over the fate of fresco fragments, TIME examines 10 plundered antiquities and the conflicts they’ve created.

The Louvre’s Egyptian Frescos

A set of ancient fresco fragments is at the center of a nasty feud between Paris’s Louvre Museum and the Egyptian government. Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s antiquities department, claims the Louvre bought the fragments last year despite knowing they were taken from a tomb in Egypt’s storied Valley of the Kings in the 1980s, a prime spot for grave-robbers. Egypt, which has made reclaiming ancient art taken from its country a top priority, said they would sever cooperation with the Louvre unless the fragments were returned. A museum representative claimed on Oct. 7 that the Louvre was unaware the fragments were stolen, and said the museum would consider sending the fresco pieces back to Egypt.
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