Kwame Opoku comments on Michael Kaput’s article about where artefacts belong.

From:
Modern Ghana

DOES HISTORY SUFFER WHEN CULTURAL ARTEFACTS ARE RETURNED?
Columnist: Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Sun, 15 Aug 2010

This is a question that may surprise many and indeed many may consider it wiser to leave unanswered rather than hazard untenable answers. Michael Kaput has some views on this issue which he expresses in an article entitled, “Whose Heritage? Repatriating ancient treasures seems like a noble cause, but history might end up the loser.” The article has been reproduced in Elginism, a leading website devoted to the question of restitution, especially, the restitution of the Parthenon/Elgin Marbles. (1)

Kaput does not give us any definition of history. If we take history as record of events and developments within a time framework, it becomes difficult to see why the return of the bust of Nefertiti from Berlin to Cairo should be a loss to history. Did history suffer when the Egyptian queen was moved from Egypt to Germany? Or does history only suffer when artefacts are returned from their present locations in the West to their countries of origin?
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