The New Acropolis Museum has made it to third place in a list of the top fifty museums in the world. One wonders whether it would make it to the top spot if it it housed all the surviving Parthenon Sculptures.

From:
Huffington Post

The Parthenon Marbles: A Piece of History Still Orphaned
Posted: 05/28/2013 1:03 pm

Last May 18th, on the occasion of International Museum Day, a list of the top fifty museums of the world, as published by the Sunday Times, came to my attention. It was both with great joy and sadness that I saw the Acropolis Museum of Athens in third spot, right behind the Smithsonian in Washington and the British Museum in London.

For, the Acropolis Museum, founded on the passion and spirit of Melina Mercouri, the renowned Greek actress and Minister of Culture, patiently awaits the return of the Parthenon Marbles to their rightful resting place. It was brilliantly designed in minimalist architectural style in order to reflect the facade of the Parthenon that is visible through its glass structure and bears silent witness to Greece’s Golden Age.
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More coverage of the looted Afghan artefacts, which were returned by the UK earlier this year.

From:
Museums Association Journal

Hundreds of stolen items returned to Kabul | Museums Association
Patrick Steele
01 September 2012

Some of the 825 stolen objects returned to the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul in July, with the assistance of the British Museum and Ministry of Defence, were saved by a London-based philanthropist.

The British Museum’s Middle East curator, John Simpson, said the philanthropist offered to acquire the objects for the Afghan museum if the British Museum could “advise on legality and process” and act as an intermediary.
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Boston’s Musuem of Fine Arts has recently acquired an assortment of artefacts that were looted during the Benin massacre in 1897. Now, Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments is demanding their return.

From:
Huffington Post

Boston’s Museum Of Fine Arts Urged To Return Looted Artifacts To Nigeria
Posted: 07/20/2012 1:56 pm Updated: 07/20/2012 1:56 pm

The National Commission for Museums and Monuments, the governmental body in Nigeria that regulates the nation’s museum systems, is demanding the return of 32 artifacts recently acquired by the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. Consisting of various bronze and ivory sculptures looted during the Benin Massacre of 1897, the Director-General of the commission, Yusuf Abdallah Usman, states that the pieces were illegally taken by the British Expedition as spoils of war.

The MFA in Boston acquired the pieces last month as a gift from New York banker and collector Robert Owen Lehman, who purchased the Benin pieces in the 1950s and 1970s. But the pieces were originally looted by British soldiers in the late 1890s, following the Benin massacre of 1897. In a statement made by Usman, the commission stated: “Without mincing words, these artworks are heirlooms of the great people of the Benin Kingdom and Nigeria generally. They form part of the history of the people. The gap created by this senseless exploitation is causing our people, untold anguish, discomfort and disillusionment.”
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American coin collectors in the USA argue that it is unfair to apply any sort of import restrictions to them, if other countries aren’t applying similar restriction. This approach seems fairly short sighted – if we worked on this basis, then no country would never need to apply any laws if other countries around them didn’t also have similar rules. Surely, it makes more sense to lead by example & then encourage others to follow suit.

From:
Huffington Post

Wayne Sayles
Executive Director, Ancient Coin Collectors Guild
End the Unilateral Trade Sanctions on Collectors
Posted: 04/ 3/2012 2:46 pm

President Obama recently announced that he is going to get tough on unfair trade restrictions. In his White House announcement earlier this month, the President said China should not be allowed to “skirt the rules” by placing restrictions on exports. “If China would simply let the market work on its own, we’d have no objection,” said Obama. The President went on to say, “When it is necessary, I will take action if our workers and our businesses are being subjected to unfair practices.”

But China is increasingly gaining free rein over certain industries because of the U.S.’ aggressive regulatory stances. While government agencies in Washington increase surcharges and restrictions for U.S. consumers, their Chinese counterparts take advantage of the unilateral sanctions. President Obama should take action by telling his own U.S. State Department to stop its unilateral trade restrictions on American coin collectors. An entire industry of small business collectors is under assault and in danger of collapsing because these sanctions unfairly target Americans alone.
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A humorous look (which raises a lot of important issues) about whether the Parthenon Sculptures should be returned to Greece & some of the implications that such a move might have if it did take place.

From:
Huffington Post

Losing Our Marbles: Should Britain Return the Elgin Marbles to Greece?
Posted: 4/04/2012 00:00

The unwritten rules of decorum state it is impolite to discuss sex, politics or religion at dinner parties. I would like to add one more topic to that list – cultural repatriation. As discursive stink-bombs go it’s not often a headline act, but there are few controversies more likely to invoke a full-on food fight during the middle of the cheese course than the concept of returning archaeological heritage to various peoples around the globe. Now, just months from the Olympics, the campaign is being stepped up once more for the return of the Elgin Marbles to the Greek nation, and another messy argument seems inevitable.

First thing’s first, why are they the Elgin Marbles? Well, here lies our first trip hazard – we do not refer to them as the Parthenon Marbles (the building they were intended for) or the Phidian Marbles (the sculptor who crafted them), but instead they have taken the name of the aristocrat who nabbed them from Greece. As far as I am aware, lumps of rock are unaffected by Stockholm Syndrome, so it’s not the Marbles themselves who are identifying with their kidnapper. No, it’s the British people who have dubbed them Elgin’s Marbles, in gratitude for the Lord’s generosity in selling them, at a reduced price, to the nation in 1816. So, already Britain has committed an act of appropriation through nominative rebranding. The name implies they were Elgin’s to sell in the first place.
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Many museums holding disputed artefacts, claim that these were acquired in a different era, when ethical standards were different to how they are now. What they can’t absolve themselves from quite so easily is the cases that relate to far more recent acquisitions, where it appears that the right questions were never properly asked before the purchase was made.

From:
Huffington Post

Is It Possible to “Collect” Antiquities These Days?
Posted: 04/ 5/11 05:40 PM ET

Antiquities is “the only area of the art world that deals entirely with stolen goods.” Perhaps that is an exaggeration — certainly, many ancient objects were never looted from historic sites or even dug out of the ground — but it is a bit of hyperbole that has a growing level of acceptance, to some degree with the public and overwhelmingly with archaeologists. Clemency Coggins, professor of archaeology and art history at Boston University, who made this comment, describes herself as a moderate on this issue because she believes that some antiquities can be legally owned. However, in her ideal world, antiquities dealers would “get out of the business.”

One might assume that the trade in antiquities would be diminishing on its own. Almost every nation on the planet (the United States is a notable exception) has enacted laws to limit or prohibit the export of cultural property older than some specified number of years. With Mexico, it’s pre-Columbian objects; with Pakistan, it’s art and antiques dating before 1857. Presumably, no more comes out of these and other countries, leaving a dwindling supply of stuff that hasn’t already been donated to museums.
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