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Until recently the UK was notorious for its illicit market in unlawfully removed art and antiquities from around the globe. Today the UK marketplace is operating in a very different climate. The UK has recently become a state party to the 1970 UNESCO Convention and is now introducing a package of measures designed to strengthen its treaty obligations, central to which is the creation of a new criminal offence of dishonestly dealing in cultural objects unlawfully removed anywhere in the world. These also include the development of effective tools to aid enforcement and due-diligence. Recent events in Iraq have also forced the UK Government to announce its intention to ratify the 1954 Hague Convention.
For years, archaeologists have lobbied for national and international laws, treaties, and conventions to prohibit the international move-ment in antiquities. For many of these years, U.S. art museums that collect antiquities have opposed these attempts.
Over the three decades since UNESCO 1970, the organization has adopted four additional conventions that bear on cultural property, including antiquities. In 1972, UNESCO passed the Convention Con- cerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage. This developed from the merging of two separate movements: the preservation of cultural sites and the conservation of nature.
When thieves stole some centuries-old golden artifacts from a South African park in December, they did more than just spirit away archaeological treasures.
Only a few individuals would disagree with the fact that “cultural property” is not just about property. It carries with it values and sensitivities on the objects themselves, their place in time and history, their link to territories and countries, their symbolism, functions, and role in relation to the context in which they originally belonged.
This special section of Museum Worlds explores the entire process of repatriation as a set of rituals enacted by claimants and museum staff: a set of highlighted performances enacting multiple sets of cosmological beliefs, symbolic systems, and political structures.
This paper is intended as a brief outline of significant ethical issues at play in museum exhibitions. Some of these issues are obvious and heatedly (and repeatedly) debated, but others are neither obvious nor discussed. The text is therefore organised around two axes which may be viewed as corresponding to the 'evident' and the 'concealed' aspects of exhibition making: a) exhibition content with special reference to 'sensitive' material; and b) exhibition interpretation and presentation with an emphasis on museum language.
This article constitutes the first systematic attempt to synthesize the role of politics as an affecting dynamic during the negotiation of cultural property disputes. The article limits its scope to disputes concerning the ownership of cultural artifacts between states and museums settled through negotiation and to the subsequent claims for the return of the contested objects.
It is well recognized in international law that since art is part of the cultural history of all states, conventional property concepts do not automatically apply.' Perhaps because art is finite and because once destroyed, it can never be recovered, special distinction is placed on cultural property.
The British Museum has been the target of criticism around the world for its failure to repatriate controversial cultural property to their respective countries of origin. In 1753, a private collector left his collection to Great Britain if it agreed to build a public museum and designate a Board of Trustees whose duty was to protect the collection for the public.
In colonial times, Western empires used orientalism to justify and perpetuate colonialism and imperialism over countries that they believed inferior to their own. These imperial powers plundered cultural heritage artifacts from the nations they oppressed and took these objects back to their national museums to be displayed as trophies of subjugation. The ownership of cultural heritage remains a point of contention throughout the field of museum
studies.
The world's archaeological heritage is under serious threat from illegal and destructive excavations that aim to recover antiquities for sale is under serious threat on the international market. These antiquities are sold without provenance so that their true nature is hard to discern.
In the battle over cultural heritage, repatriation claims based strictly on national origin are more than just denials of cultural exchange: they are also arguments against the promise of encyclopedic museums -- a category that includes the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York; the British Museum, in London; and the Louvre, in Paris.
This article constitutes the first systematic attempt to synthesize the role of politics as an affecting dynamic during the negotiation of cultural property disputes. The article limits its scope to disputes concerning the ownership of cultural artifacts between states and museums settled through negotiation and to the subsequent claims for the return of the contested objects.
An overview of both the theoretical approach and the set of actions taken during the last decade by Greece – a country with a profound historical background and rich cultural heritage – to face the problem of the illicit trade of cultural goods.
Australia’s public collecting institutions enrich public life by displaying, interpreting, making accessible and preserving the world’s shared cultural, scientific and historic heritage. Acquisitions to collections and loans to institutions play a vital role in increasing our society’s understanding of culture. They also increase education and outreach activities and are an important impetus for research.