The adage of “finders, keepers” has been put to the test as countries have called for the return of various ancient artefacts.
For centuries, legendary artefacts have been looted, traded, and taken far away from their original lands. Many of the items housed in cultural institutions like London’s British Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City were looted from colonized people.
In recent years, governments and repatriation activists have called for the return of internationally-renowned objects like the Rosetta Stone, the Benin Bronzes, and the Parthenon Marbles.
On Friday, the Met announced it will return 16 Khmer sculptures to Cambodia and Thailand. The sculptures were all tied to an art collector who was charged with illegally selling artefacts in 2019.
Here are 10 cultural artefacts that countries are still fighting over.
The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous artefacts in the British Museum. The inscriptions on the slab of granite were crucial in enabling experts to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
Most scholars agree that soldiers in Napoleon Bonaparte’s army in Egypt discovered the stone in July 1799 in the town of Rashid, known by the French as Rosetta. After Napoleon was defeated in 1815, the British took the Rosetta Stone, arriving in England with it in February 1802, according to the British Museum.
Recently, thousands of Egyptians have called for the return of the stone.”The British Museum’s holding of the stone is a symbol of Western cultural violence against Egypt,” Monica Hanna, dean at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport, told the Associated Press in 2022. But some experts believe the British Museum is unlikely to relinquish one of its most treasured acquisitions, as Business Insider previously reported.” We have received no formal request from the Egyptian Government to repatriate the Rosetta Stone.
The British Museum works with partners all over the world including with colleagues throughout Egypt on projects, exhibitions and research and we enjoy a long-standing and collaborative relationship with the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities,” a British Museum spokesperson said.
Greece called for the return of the Parthenon Marbles, but the British refused.
Parthenon Marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles, are another source of heated debate over repatriation for the British museum. The marble, which depicts festivalgoers celebrating the birthday of the goddess Athena and centaurs and Lapiths engaged in battle, was taken from the Parthenon in Greece between 1801 and 1805.
Greece had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire for nearly 400 years since 1453. Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Empire, had successfully petitioned to remove about half of the remaining sculptures from the Parthenon’s ruins. But Greece has since contested these rights.
“These objects were taken during the Ottoman Empire, and so the question is: Did the Ottoman Empire have the legal and moral authority to allow Lord Elgin to take these objects of great cultural significance back to England?” Okeke-Agulu said. The British Museum has refused to return the marbles, calling its removal from the Parthenon a “creative act.”
Native American tribes demanded the return of burial remains.
As the US pushed Native Americans from their homes throughout the 1800s, archaeologists and museum collectors looted their remains from ancient graves, homes, and worship sites. In 1990, the federal government passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, a law that called for the remains of Native Americans to be returned to tribal nations or descendants. But museums and other institutions still hold the remains of more than 110,000 Indigenous ancestors, ProPublica reported.
In 2022, 250 boxes of Native American remains and artefacts were discovered at the University of North Dakota, which has since announced it will return the remains to tribal nations. Harvard University still has thousands of Native American remains. Harvard University has not responded to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Ethiopia urges England to return the Maqdala crown.
In 1868, British forces captured the mountain fortress of Maqdala as part of a larger conquest of the Ethiopian empire. In addition to more than a thousand manuscripts, which were carried on the backs of 15 elephants and hundreds of mules, the soldiers also took an ornate gold crown.
The crown was likely given to an Ethiopian church as a gift from King Iyyasu II and his mother, the Empress Mentewwab, according to the Victoria & Albert Museum, where the artefact now resides.
The filagreed gold crown’s bottom two tiers depict the 12 Apostles, and the top tier is the four Evangelists who wrote the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In 2007, the Ethiopian government officially demanded the return of the crown and various other artefacts.
Although some artefacts were since returned, the V&A has still held onto the crown.”The V&A, like other national institutions, hold our collections in trust for the nation. Our policy is to be open and transparent about how objects entered our collection, to develop renewable cultural partnerships and engage in collaborative research with museums and cultural institutions around the world,” a spokesperson for the museum said. “Restitution claims are considered on a case-by-case basis, as the scenario under which an object enters the V&A collection is always unique.”
“In recent years, the V&A has enjoyed close, fruitful discussions with the Ethiopian government. As yet, no formal agreement has been finalized, but our position and commitment remain the same, that we would be delighted if we could find a way to place the golden crown and chalice on display in Addis,” the spokesperson said.
Egypt wants a 3,000-year-old bust of Nefertiti back from Germany.
The bust of Nefertiti, the wife of the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten, is one of the most iconic works of ancient Egypt. Nefertiti, which means “the beautiful one has come forth,” was known for her otherworldly beauty. The limestone bust, dating back to 1345 BCE, was discovered in the workshop of Thutmose, who was thought to have been the official court sculptor.
In 1913, a German archaeologist named Ludwig Borchardt found the bust, and, in violation of rules that prohibited smuggling, hid the bust under a layer of clay and stole it out of the country, Zahi Hawass, the former minister of the Egyptian government’s antiquities affairs, claimed. The bust is now on display at the Neues Museum in Berlin, Germany, as its “undisputed star,” per the museum.
Since the bust was officially unveiled in Germany in 1924, Egyptian authorities have called for its return. But Germany claims the bust was taken out of Egypt legally, and has insisted that the bust is too fragile to transport. A spokesperson for the Neues Museum confirmed “there is no change in the status quo.”
A lavish gold throne is among several treasures India wants back from the British.
In the early 19th century, Maharaja Ranjit Singh was at the peak of his power over the Sikh empire. The goldsmith Hafiz Muhammad Multani crafted the throne out of wood and resin, which he covered in thick sheets of gold. The two tiers of lotus petals forming its base symbolize purity.
In 1849, the British East India Company annexed the Punjab and took the contents of the Sikh treasury, including the throne. The jewellery, silver furniture, and weapons were auctioned in Lahore shortly after, but the throne was sent to London for exhibition. The throne is now on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
The Indian government has signalled it will call for the return of the throne, along with several other artefacts like the legendary Koh-i-Noor diamond, but the Victoria & Albert Museum still retains possession of the objects.”Ranjit Singh’s throne has also been exhibited globally as part of the V&A’s extensive international loans program. Currently, it is on display in London at V&A South Kensington. It is not subject to a restitution claim from South Asia,” the spokesperson for the museum said.
France is still holding onto the famous Bangwa Queen statue.
The Bangwa Queen is a wooden sculpture of spiritual significance to the Bangwa, a people indigenous to what is now Cameroon in Africa. These types of figures, called lefem, personified special ancestors and were symbols of authority, according to scholars.
Around 1899, German soldiers invaded the palace of Fontem Asonganyi and looted the Bangwa Queen, along with other sculptures. The sculpture wound up at the Ethnological Museum of Berlin before being sold to an art dealer. Art collector and businesswoman Helena Rubinstein acquired the Bangwa Queen in the 1930s. From there, it passed hands until France’s Dapper Foundation bought the statue for $3.4 million.
The Bangwa people have since sought its return. Although the Dapper Foundation closed its Paris Museum in 2017, it has stalled talks over the repatriation of the sculpture. The Dapper Foundation has not responded to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Myriam’s Treasure is a cache of gold and other artefacts, like silver knives, terracotta goblets, and two gold diadems called the Jewels of Helen. It also includes nearly 9,000 gold rings, buttons, and other small objects.
In the 1870s, the archaeologists Frank Calvert and Heinrich Schliemann went to the site of the historical Troy to search for artefacts. There, they discovered thousands of artefacts, which Schliemann dubbed Priam’s Treasure. Unbeknownst to the Ottoman government, Schliemann reportedly smuggled the treasures to Germany.
Authorities only discovered the looting because Schliemann had his wife, Sophia, wear the jewels in public, according to several historical accounts. The Ottoman government threatened to sue Schliemann and revoked his rights to dig, and Schliemann eventually returned some of the treasure for permission to continue his archaeological work. But the Soviet army secretly took the rest of Priam’s Treasure during WWII.
It wasn’t until 1994 that the Pushkin Museum admitted to having the treasures, claiming they were war reparations against Germany by Russian law. The Pushkin Museum has not responded to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Easter Island has tried to get the British Museum to return Moai statues.
Moai are huge stone statues often placed on ceremonial platforms and are a hallmark of Easter Island, or Rapa Nui. The British Museum currently houses two moai, which are believed to have been carved between 1000 to 1600 AD.
In 1868, the crew of a British ship, the HMS Topaze, visited Easter Island and took both of the moai back to England, where they have remained ever since.
In 2017, the Rapa Nui people gained self-administration over their island and sought to recover the moai in July 2018.
In November that year, a delegation from Rapa Nui visited the British Museum.”I believe that my children and their children also deserve the opportunity to touch, see, and learn from him,” Tarita Alarcon Rapu, governor of Easter Island, said after seeing one of the moai for the first time, as Business Insider previously reported. “We are just a body,” she added. “You, the British people, have our soul.”
Despite this, the British Museum has retained possession of the moai. Other museums like the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, and museums in Paris, New Zealand, and Belgium also have moai.
Nigeria seeks hundreds of bronze plaques from Britain
In 1897, the British Empire sent troops to the Kingdom of Benin, now modern-day Nigeria, to punish rebels who resisted imperial power. The British soldiers burned and looted its palace, and confiscated the royal treasures inside it.
Among the treasures were bronze and brass plaques, sculptures, and items of royal regalia. Many of them were commissioned for the altars of past Obas, or kings, and Queen Mothers, and were also used in rituals. The brass plaques, which once adorned the Benin palace, served as historical records of the kingdom.
The more than 900 bronzes are part of the British Museum’s collection of “contested objects,” along with the Parthenon Marbles, Easter Island moai, and the Maqdala collection. Since gaining independence in 1960, Nigeria has sought the return of the Benin Bronzes. “These are stolen artefacts, and they should be returned to Nigeria to the communities that they belong to,” Abba Isa Tijani, director of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, told Sky News in August.
While some institutions in England and Germany have returned their collections of bronzes, the British Museum still has not.
“We are collaborating on international projects with a range of Nigerian partners including the Nigerian Government, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, the Benin Royal Palace, and the Museum of West African Art Trust (MOWAA), as well as working closely with local communities in Benin City. We actively engage with these partners through the Benin Dialogue Group and the Digital Benin initiative, while research and cultural exchange are also key priorities that we deliver through our African Histories and Heritage Program,” the spokesperson said.
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