Archaeologist and curator Chip Colwell collects artifacts for his museum, but he also returns them to where they came from. In a thought-provoking talk, he shares how some museums are confronting their legacies of stealing spiritual objects and pillaging ancient graves -- and how they're bridging divides with communities who are demanding the return of their cultural treasures.
A quartzite head of Egyptian King Tutankhamun was auctioned off in the UK against Egypt's will. It is another example in a long line of disputes over artefacts which have been taken from their countries of origin and can now be found in major Western museum.
Are museum collections ethical? How did these institutions end up with their vast array of artifacts and remains from every corner of the globe? Well, chances are there was some definite shadiness involved. Today, Danielle examines this complicated debate and looks closely at the cases of Saartjie Baartman and Chang and Eng Bunker. What do you think? Should objects be repatriated, left on display, or something in between?
What's all this nonsense about sending the Parthenon Marbles back to Greece? If Lord Elgin hadn't rescued them from the Parthenon in Athens and presented them to the British Museum almost 200 years ago, these exquisite sculptures -- the finest embodiment of the classical ideal of beauty and harmony -- would have been lost to the ravages of pollution and time. So we have every right to keep them: indeed, returning them would set a dangerous precedent, setting off a clamour for every Egyptian mummy and Grecian urn to be wrenched from the world's museums and sent back to its country of origin. It is great institutions like the British Museum that have established such artefacts as items of world significance: more people see the Marbles in the BM than visit Athens every year. Why send them back to relative obscurity? But aren't such arguments a little too imperialistic? All this talk of visitor numbers and dangerous precedents -- doesn't it just sound like an excuse for Britain to hold on to dubiously acquired treasures that were removed without the consent of the Greek people to whom they culturally and historically belong? That's what Lord Byron thought, and now Stephen Fry is taking up the cause. We should return the Marbles as a gesture of solidarity with Greece in its financial distress, says Fry, and as a mark of respect for the cradle of democracy and the birthplace of rational thought.
Indiana Jones- Hero or Villian? Culture & Controversy: Should Museums Return Ancient Artifacts?
Some of the world’s greatest cultural and historical treasures are housed in London’s British Museum, and a significant number of them were taken during Britain’s centuries-long imperial rule. In recent years, many of the countries missing their cultural heritage have been asking for some of these items back. Benin City in Nigeria is one of those places. They've been calling for the return of the Benin Bronzes, hundreds of artifacts looted in 1897 when British soldiers embarked a punitive expedition to Benin. Many are now housed in the British Museum. And it's just the beginning. As the world reckons with the damage inflicted during Europe’s colonial global takeover, the calls for these items to be returned are getting louder and louder.
"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," writes James Cuno in his November/ December 2014 article in Foreign Affairs. "Cultural property should be recognized for what it is: the legacy of humankind and not of the modern nation-state, subject to the political agenda of its current ruling elite."
One of the major ethical issues in archaeology today relates to the study and display of human remains. In the 19th century and most of the 20th century, it was accepted in scientific circles to study and display human remains. In the last 50 years attitudes to the display of human remains have changed in many western countries. However, attitudes change from country to country. In Italy, there is a long tradition of display of human remains. In the last decades of the 20th century, codes of ethics regarding the ownership and display of human remains were developed by museums and relevant associations of archaeologists. In 1982 the council of Australian Museum directors passed a resolution that human remains would not be displayed in public. The International Council of Museums (ICOM) in its code of ethics in 2004 did not ban it. But it encourages sensitivity to the community. In Pompeii, the plaster casts which show the victims of Vesuvius have been a popular attraction for more than a century. The skeletons from Pompeii and Herculaneum have been studied to reveal valuable information about the health of the people. There are many questions about human remains. What should happen to the skeletons now? Should they be displayed? If they are displayed should it be where they were found or in a museum? Should they be buried? Other human remains. Pompeii is not the only place that has human remains. Egypt has its mummies of Pharaoh and other remains. There are the Chinchorro mummies of South America. There are also other human remains around the world.