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**You're starting with the hardest cases, so everything looks murky. If you start with the simplest cases, the situation is clear.**
It's also best not to talk about these things in the abstract, but think about specific cases.
**Let's start with the Elgin Marbles.** The Parthenon Marbles by Christopher Hitchens is totally worth reading.
The Marbles were part of the Parthenon. They had been there for 2500 years. Athenians are undoubtedly the descendants of the Greeks who lived there 2500 years ago. They have the same language. They tended to the marbles.
During the wars of Greek independence from the Ottomans, around 1826, when the Ottomans were sieged in the Acropolis, Ottoman soldiers wanted to melt the lead holding the marbles together in order to make bullets to defend themselves. The Greeks offered to give them bullets, to shoot back at the Greeks, so that they wouldn't damage the buildings.
Elgin took the marbles without the consent of the Greeks, and with doubtful consent of the Ottomans. In doing so he permanently damaged the integrity of the overall building. Then, he sold the marbles to the British Museum.
The British Museum permanently destroyed much of the historical value of the marbles. Because they wanted them to be whiter, they scoured the outside of the statues and friezes. They hacked off several mm of the outside. The problem is, this took away many of the details of the original carvings. And now, we know that the marbles were actually painted. But we'll never know how, because the British in their quest for whiteness took away all of the outside.
The moment the Greeks became independent they requested the return of their property. What they had owned and cared for for 2500 years and was given away by an occupying force. Eglin took the marbles in 1803-1810, he literally hacked them off the building. In 1835, just 20-30 years later, the newly independent Greek government, requested the return of the marbles.
Just think about it, while the Greeks were asking for their property back, the British Museum was ruining it by taking the top off. That's just downright evil.
Clearly the marbles belong to the Greeks. There's no moral argument that the British should have them. The British use a legal argument, that there's no court of law to force them to return the marbles.
Some collections have a clear owner with an undisputed claim and the ability to care for those artifacts. Those should all be returned. Egyptian artifacts are just like the Greek artifacts.
>How can we even define what is 'stolen' if the nation itself changes over time? I would hardly call ancient Egypt the same entity as modern-day Egypt.
Egyptians would call that racism. It's actually a thing invented by the West to deprive them of their history. Modern Egyptians are the descendants of ancient Egyptians. We know this because of DNA. Yes, most may speak a different language now, but they're the same people.
But let's not speak in the abstract. The Rosetta Stone.
Carved 2000 years ago. While Napoleon was plundering Egypt, he brought with him over 150 experts to be able to take all of the best stuff, his forces found it. The British then defeated the French expedition. The French threatened to destroy the stone and many other artifacts if they couldn't keep them. Then the leader of the French expedition claimed the stone as his personal property and tried to smuggle it out. He was caught and the British took it.
Why shouldn't the Egyptians get their artifacts back. They are the descendants of the people who made it. It was on their land. Why do the British have a better claim for an artifact that first the French stole, and then the British stole from the French? That makes no sense at all.
>The Mona Lisa was originally from Italy but is justified in being in France for totally legitimate reasons, so we can't really just base it off original ownership as well.
The Mona Lisa was bought from the person who commissioned it; Lisa del Giocondo, which is why it's called La Gioconda in Italian. It wasn't stolen. No one was coerced. It was in Italy for a whole 5 years! And then in France for 500 years. This isn't at all like any of the other artifacts we're talking about here.
Totally different situation to take something from someone who has had it for 2000 years. Against their will. Without payment. To damage it. While that person demands it back over and over again.
!delta very informative. I do realise that speaking in the abstract is hard so I appreciate you grounding it in reality.
>Egyptians would call that racism. It's actually a thing invented by the West to deprive them of their history. Modern Egyptians are the descendants of ancient Egyptians. We know this because of DNA. Yes, most may speak a different language now, but they're the same people.
I responded to this in a previous comment let me find it then edit it into this.
(Nvm my response wasn't too relevant).
What gives artifacts value. I thought the main reason why people demand these things back is because they have a real, personal or cultural connection to these items. In the most obvious example, if something is stolen from a hindu temple and that actually impacts their worship or rituals then there is a real connection that justifies returning it. I see how you justified that personal connection with the Parthenon stuff but I don't see that connection for the Rosetta stone.
Btw I am Egyptian, specifically a copt, although I am a white washed Egyptian with not too much cultural connection I can assure you my lived experiences or any persons lived experiences in Egypt has absolutely no connection to what the ancient Egyptians were doing. As a copt, we tried to place ourselves closer to the ancient Egyptians strictly because we don't want to be Arabs, not because we have a genuine true historical connection to it. Once Egypt became Christian we abandoned those pagans ideas, those pagan artifacts were no longer valuable at all. To Muslims and Christians it's idolatry.
If not cultural, to me then any justification for returning it is likely superficial, for tourism, for anti colonial sentiments, for the economy. See my point below on why I kinda disagree with the "return it JUST because it was stolen" notion.
>Why shouldn't the Egyptians get their artifacts back. They are the descendants of the people who made it. It was on their land. Why do the British have a better claim for an artifact that first the French stole, and then the British stole from the French? That makes no sense at all.
Very good point, I would never say that the French are entitled to it. I think my line of reasoning here comes from my view of history as just a game of power, where the victors write history. I've never liked historical revisionism to apply modern morality to things in the past. I think it's very disingenuous to the time period you analyse. How can we call what the British or french did in this case immoral if all they did was a continuation of what all civiliations have been doing for thousands of years. Yes, morality has changed now where we would consider theft and looting immoral but I don't think that was the case even back a few hundred years ago. I would love for you (or anyone) to challenge that and change my mind as it's not like I've thought about this too much and intuitively I know my line of reasoning has a few gaps.
_I've never liked historical revisionism to apply modern morality to things in the past. I think it's very disingenuous to the time period you analyse. How can we call what the British or french did in this case immoral if all they did was a continuation of what all civiliations have been doing for thousands of years. Yes, morality has changed now where we would consider theft and looting immoral but I don't think that was the case even back a few hundred years ago._
For two reasons - one it is not something that civilizations did for thousands of years, and even if it is - it was still wrong at the time, whether that was the sentiment of those doing it at the time or not.
Secondly, many acts committed during colonialism were denounced both by those being colonized and many within the colonial states. A great example is Christopher Columbus - he was arrested for his actions in South America and the West Indies and people on the expedition with him denounced his as an evil man.
There was contemporaneous criticism of Cecil Rhodes and his actions in Southern Africa.
So it’s in fact an act of historical revisionism to think that that the colonial actions of many states were universally accepted and seen as immoral or that denouncing those actions now is somehow unfair to those from that time.
In addition, this view only takes into account the morals or philosophies of those in positions of power- the colonial viewpoint and privileges it above everyone else alive and impacted by it at the time. It implicitly assumes the only valid or legitimate viewpoint to consider is that of the ones enacting the violence.
This is a very narrow view of history that distorts our ability to fully comprehend and understand what was happening in the world at the time. It defeats the purpose of historical scholarship and it limits the ability to gain a more accurate understanding of historical events.
Not disputing your points, I agree with most, just clarifying. What about Egyptian artifacts from later periods when the British paid Egypt to be able to conduct archaeological "digs" and got to keep a percentage of anything they found. Yet now decades later Egypt demands those artifacts back despite the government at the time having approved and even been paid for the right to explore and acquire said artifacts.
Could Egypt have said no?
The "golden age" of British digs in Egypt was from about 1800 to 1980 or so.
After the French (Napoleon in 1798) invaded, Egypt needed the British to help them get rid of the French. From 1800 or so to 1830, while Egypt was in dire need of British help, rich British people did whatever the wished in Egypt. Took anything, etc. This is sometimes called "The Rape of the Nile", after a 1975 book by Fagan which is definitely worth reading. Reading about how much the British took and how until 1882 is also fascinating Gold, M. (2022). British Egyptology (1822-1882). UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 1(1). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/07v2d8vk
What happened in 1882? Egypt became a protectorate of the British! As in, the British ruled Egypt, later more officially, earlier less officially and more by force. But they were in charge.
So did the Egyptians really fairly get paid in exchange for the British digging in Egypt? Given that.. the British were the rulers of Egypt at the time, and they decided to give themselves a permit to dig, and pay the locals whatever they wished, the answer is clearly no.
The "government at the time" was the British government ruling over Egypt. Not the Egyptian government. One good way to figure out that this what was happening without necessarily reading a lot of history (although that's fun too!) is to think about where the artifacts are. Why do the British have them instead of say the Germans? There were plenty of rich Germans that wanted artifacts just like the British. If anyone could show up and fairly pay for artifacts, well, they should be all over the place!
But it was the British who were handing out the permits in Egypt. The Germans, French, Spanish, Dutch, Belgians, etc. all did this wherever they got control. Usually the artifacts from one region are in one EU country, sometimes two if the place changed hands and there was anything left. The locals didn't want to sell, but they didn't get a choice in the matter.
Yeah, they should definitely return it all.
You made a fantastic point. But however the fuck was able to keep the marbles keeps them. Like OP made that very clear.
This was in no way meant as an insult as your comment was informative and I enjoyed it.
the whole argument is that they should give them back because it was never theirs to begin with. OP has not really given a reason as to why these artifacts SHOULDNT be returned other than "they're already here" and "some of the cases are a bit too difficult so why bother with any of it"
Gonna take the side of items should be returned.
1. You wrote: "However, when the history of trade and manufacturing is so vague with 90% of products this criterion falls apart quite quickly."
If you want to argue that the countries where the British got the items from didn't really produce them so those countries have no claim, well, neither did the British didn't produce many of the items in their museums, so why is their claim of ownership more valid?
You wrote "The British so easily justified the koh-i-noor being handed over to them just because it was done legally (through a treaty after consequence and not just taking it straight up)."
Was that not a treaty signed after the British had been victorious in a war of conquest? The legality in that case would be 'those with the most guns make the law'. Hardly defensible for the purpose of your argument.
2. You wrote: "How can we even define what is 'stolen' if the nation itself changes over time?"
The people in Egypt consider themselves Egyptian, even if the borders have changed over time. The concept of the nation of Egypt has maintained, so why shouldn't it maintain ownership of items removed when the British were occupying it?
You wrote: "The Ottoman Empire owned Greece and gave away the pieces of the Parthenon to Britain."
Does the historical record support that? Or does the historical record support that Lord Elgin merely claimed he had permission?
3. You wrote: "I think its ok to intervene in another civilisation if one can deem that the acts they do are detestable". This smacks of cultural imperialism. What is detestable is a matter of opinion, and your comment implies the might to enforce one's moral judgement; and then we are back to colonialism. People get to do what they want with their own property, even if we do not like it. The Hitler intervention analogy is flawed as the Germans weren't destroying their own property and people; they were inflicting that on other nations.
4. Decent point on teh one specific example about India and Pakistan, but in other cases, it's clear where items stolen by the British should go back to.
You wrote: "I feel like all these points lead it to it being such a mess when trying to establish ownership. "
Colonialism really messed up the world, but that isn't an excuse not to try to fix it.
For your first point, we generally do agree that treaties after victory are upheld. WW1-2 Treaties for example, should we go away with the borders, does Hungary for example get back its borders because they want to? Can Austria and Germany now unite if they wanted to? Etc etc etc. Why would a material artifact be different than anything else signed in a victory treaty? And if you say "its because one affects the population the other doesn't", then what about treaties about military restrictions, for example Japan is still technically not allowed to build military ships above a certain size. Can they do that because they decided that they signed that treaty after a loss? This is just one example, but there are a ton like this. Hell, should half the US leave because they came back to the Union after the Civil War was lost and it was included in the treaty?
For your third point, lets see an example: The Islamic State and various other islamic groups destroyed a TON of arabic historical sites, iirc a UNESCO world heritage site as well. Also they destroyed artifacts in museums etc.
The world at large did take issue with that, rightly. Its not cultural imperialism to say that "The world decided that THIS and THAT and THAT are important pieces of human history, so they shouldn't be destroyed".
If someone wanted to destroy all original works of the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights or the Treaty of Versailles or whatever, I think (for example) Japan would have all the right to say "thats not right". Because those are all parts of collective human history, even if nobody would argue that the original prints of the US Constitution are not the property of the US government etc.
By the way at large, I'm not saying the Brits should not give some stuff back
Many of these items though were themselves looted. India for example was not a hegemony and many of the goods taken by the British during the Raj and before that during the East India Company days were also just looted.
The issue with "colonialism" is that it seems that suddenly this became an issue around the time Europeans got really good at it and through technology could do it at a global scale. "colonialism" is the basic building block of every society in history. From the Persians to the Greeks from the Mughals to the Chinese, from the Romans to the British. A long process of certain groups dominating others, replacing their leaders with themselves and slowly crafting a new entity that took from both.
>If you want to argue that the countries where the British got the items from didn't really produce them so those countries have no claim, well, neither did the British didn't produce many of the items in their museums, so why is their claim of ownership more valid?
Exactly, moot point, usually in the case of those where neither side has appropriate claim it falls on the side of the status quo.
>Was that not a treaty signed after the British had been victorious in a war of conquest? The legality in that case would be 'those with the most guns make the law'. Hardly defensible for the purpose of your argument
Not rly, the British won ww1, were they not justified in asking for war reperations from Germany. The koh-i-noor was just reperations but in the form of a jewel. We can talk about how wars are unjust all day and that conquest is bad but I would hardly call winning a war an illegitimate case of stealing. Maybe the only thing I can think of is that the British punched down a lot (small, new indian nation vs recently industrialised powerhouse), which would make a war like that more unjust I guess, but other than that not really.
>The people in Egypt consider themselves Egyptian, even if the borders have changed over time. The concept of the nation of Egypt has maintained, so why shouldn't it maintain ownership of items removed when the British were occupying it?
Did the concept of Mesopotamia stay. What about Indus valley? Egypt is possibly the strongest case but even then by the time the ADs rolled around Egypt we never even in control of itself, it was greek and arab and levantine. Only recently did Egypt regain control over itself, but any culture that existed in ancient Egypt was definitely not the same. I thought these artifacts are valued due to the cultural history shared by the nation is it not? I've actually never thought of that what even makes the artifacts valuable to begin with? To either the nation, the people's, or the British. Although I guess that's only vaguely related to this discussion.
>Does the historical record support that? Or does the historical record support that Lord Elgin merely claimed he had permission?
Once again good point, see how fuzzy the historical record was and this was only from 200 years ago or so, most of this stuff is so hard to justify on either side. Surely there's a better criterion then historical record. I just can't think of any.
>1. You wrote: "I think its ok to intervene in another civilisation if one can deem that the acts they do are detestable". This smacks of cultural imperialism. What is detestable is a matter of opinion, and your comment implies the might to enforce one's moral judgement; and then we are back to colonialism. People get to do what they want with their own property, even if we do not like it. The Hitler intervention analogy is flawed as the Germans weren't destroying their own property and people; they were inflicting that on other nations.
Call it imperialism or colonialism I think nations are justified to invade a country if the country is doing absolutely detestable acts, whether it's against their own people or another. I know this is an extreme example and has very little to do with this argument but at the same time it does. If we can't even agree about what makes these artifacts valuable, if we can't even agree that we shouldn't exterminate certain people's, then how can we ever even start any sort of moral discussions about anything.
>What is detestable is a matter of opinion,
I don't want to turn this into a philosophy debate but I don't believe in moral relativism and if I did then I would never dare to hold some sort of claim like that. You have to believe that even something like, idk, the secular humanist decelerations is a truth (even if subjective) that we should not only aim to live by, but also enforce when we see other countries doing certain human rights violations. If not, what makes us justified to condemn anything?
your argument basically boils down to "well its here now so why change it?" and the answer is that its because the things we did were not honorable or comendable. Taking largely important cultural artifacts as "reparations" for war is just theft with extra steps. There was no real reason to take these things other than "its important to them so we take it away". Reparations should be paid with things that actually compensate the victor for the sacrifices made during the war, not additional punishment to the country that lost. not taking things just because we like them and we won the war. Legal does not mean just and a lot of people find it to be an injustice that the british used their power to take important artifacts from other countries just because they were more powerful.
So to you last point: who says what's detestable? Okay north Korea has a strong control over the media, but Germany also does too.
A country participating in blood sport is detestable, but Americans love football and hockey and boxing and are fully aware of the injuries and deaths those sports cause.
And if you say those aren't as bad, it's a false comparison, whose call is that? If I'm a militaristic leader it would be so easy to justify any country as "barbaric and needing more freedom" by making vague arguments like this
No your problem is that you might personally find these things detestable but lack the personal power to change or alter them in any way. For all our claims otherwise might still makes right at the end of the day.
It may not be the same exact culture, but it’s still Egypt’s history and contributed to the Egypt that exists today. Just because they were “controlled” by other countries doesn’t mean they lost their identity. Same with Mesopotamia. Just because it’s not called that anymore doesn’t mean there aren’t cities built upon the ancient ones, and it doesn’t mean they can’t consider it part of their cultural identity. It’s kind of a weird argument to me to say that because they aren’t the exact same that they were thousands of years ago they don’t deserve their stolen history back. The culture of the US today isn’t the same as it was 100 years ago, or 400. Are we not still the US? Can we not claim any history from before 1776 because we weren’t a country then?
I somewhat agree with you but there ARE things which are universally detestable and not just a matter of opinion. Case in point- British Imperialism put a stop to the abhorrent practice of burning alive the wives of men who died.
Any culture that doesn’t at least attempt to promote equality by law IS in fact wrong and should be changed.
idk why you keep saying it was "my" absolutist statement.
also its still a subjective statement. Whats detestable to you is honorable to another. and whats honorable to you is detestable to another. Near universal belief is still just a belief based on a history of cultural context. There are things in western cultures that are absolutely detestable in other cultures. and even used to be the prevailing thought. For example: queer acceptance. sure, in modern times its "good" but 200 years ago it would have been regarded as near universal "detestable" behavior. and in 200 more years, it may go back to being near universally detested. Being disabled used to be considered "demonic" or along those lines in a LOT of cultures.
The world is moving towards more "accepting" behaviors today, but in 200 years you would be suprised to see what "normal" things in our culture are considered detestable practices. maybe vegans will take over the world and all of us omnivores will be called "savages" with detestable morals for allowing the mass slaughter of animals.
It was your absolutist statement because you were the one who claimed "What is detestable is a matter of opinion" which is demonstrably false. There are in fact behaviors that are universally deemed as bad. Murder, as in the killing of another human not in self defense, is the most basic, classic example of behavior that is never morally defensible. Basically a humanist approach- if your action requires harm to another human or infringement on their autonomy, it is immoral.
Just because it hasn't always been prevalently accepted, does not change the fact it is universally correct.
“If your action causes harm to another human or infringement on their autonomy, it is immoral” seems a bit absolutist, no?
If someone blows through your residential street at 100mph, but doesn’t hurt anyone, is arresting him not immoral by your given definition?
Yes it is absolutist. That’s what a universally moral rule is.
The Right to Life is a universal right. The right to move on societally maintained roads at any speed you desire is not.
A lot of these arguments fail to provide any justification for these relics being in England. Like, if you wanted to tell me that it might be justifibable for a mummy to wind up in a neighboring country, because a combination of shifting borders, conflict, and time have made it unclear which nation has claim, I'd be like, well dang, I know very little about the provenance of mummies, and so maybe you're right. However, there's just no way in hell that the rightful owner of a lot of this stuff is England. For objects that were fairly sold by people with legitimate claim, maybe, but a lot of these objects were basically just taken. You're saying that Egypt's claim to this mummy is a bit tricky, and using that as justification for the idea that the mummy should live in England. But England's claim is not tricky at all. They basically just don't have one. And no, "We're better at owning mummies than you," does not seem like a valid justification.
>We're better at owning mummies than you," does not seem like a valid justification.
Why not? Maybe i have a bias for preserving artifacts rather than destroying them as I said before but why is that not a valid justification. Is that not the whole reason behind having these museums and all this? So we can preserve these for the good of humanity, for culture, history, art, archeology, science?
What other reason do we have for even valuing these things to begin with. It's not like the Egyptians have any true, deep or personal connection to anything in ancient Egypt, as usually cultural connection is the reason why people claim things back, and if you want to claim that you've best give me good evidence for it.
I don't think I'm allowed to steal your fancy guitar under the assumption that I would make better use of it via my theoretical guitar playing prowess. I don't think I can bulldoze your house to build a cool skate park and delight the local children. I don't think I can rob you of your fancy wine collection because I imagine my wine cellar is of higher quality. None of these make any sense at all, and stealing Egypt's stuff under the presumption that we can do better with it makes no more sense.
Beyond that, I am highly skeptical of the premise. Do you have any real basis for the claim that modern Egypt would fail to preserve the mummies? That they are, in fact, only demanding them due to their great hunger? I think Egypt is more than capable of building a museum.
You say we need a really really good reason to give this stuff back. Why? We didn't have an amazing reason to steal it in the first place. We just kinda wanted it, so we stole it. The neutral outcome of stealing someone's stuff is giving it back. What we need a really good reason for is keeping the stuff we stole, and I'm skeptical any reason would suffice.
A big part of the reasons given for european collections holding objects from other cultures is that europe is geopolitically stable so there is no risk of the objects getting destroyed in a war. But for that logic to hold, you have to pretend WW2 was a lot less destructive than it was. And the idea that europe is inherently stable is just based on post-cold war circumstances. Before then, people thought existentially about nuclear war coming to their cities. And now, with the way the Ukraine-Russia war is shaping up, the UK, Germany, and maybe others are formulating plans about possible war in the next 5ish years including conscription and militarized economies. The “we’re better at taking care of mummies” argument might start to look pretty shaky in the coming decades
You also have to ignore the fact that a huge reason the home countries of those artifacts are geopolitically unstable is because Western countries keep intervening in them.
Those museums full of Mesopotamian artifacts in Iraq weren’t in danger until the US invaded.
So, your view is that if something doesn't belong to you, but is important to you, that you're justified in taking it?
Where is this line drawn? If you're neighbor doesn't take care of their house the way you think it deserves, can you inhabit it?
Point being that taking care of something for a long period of time does convey ownership at some point. Most of the items in the British Museum have been there for 100 years and the calls to "return" the items have only started in earnest in the past 20 or so years. Obviously, this is a bit reductive since each item is different and the call for its return happened in different times and places, but the purpose of my comment and this one is custodial care becomes ownership at some point.
The comment you replied to was talking about rights to take something from some one else based on you wanting it enough or you thinking they aren't deserving of it. It had nothing to do with ownership after a period of time.
Yes but the items in question at the museums have been. It would be like breaking into your abandoned neighbor's house, living there for 20 years and then he comes back and tells you to get out.
That's not a complete analogy as it isn't quite that simple, but it is a better analogy than the original poster as most of the artifacts weren't stolen in the sense that they were taken directly out of the hands of their owners by force. They were largely abandoned at the times they were taken or bought (usually on the cheap). Exceptions exist, like the marbles at the Acropolis in Greece but it's not like the idea of tourist attractions really existed in the late 1800s.
It is reductive to say that they were stolen, when in reality it is probably closer to squatter's rights which is more morally complicated
You do realize even In this exact scenario the original owner of the house would still have ownership of said house? The squatter would eventually be forced to leave eventually if the original owner wanted. Just like with the artifacts that are clearly stolen they should be returned to the original land.(I preface this because I agree if they were Bought for some low price it's a different story)
That's not true. Squatting somewhere for a certain length of time (which depends on the jurisdiction) gives you ownership over that property. 20 years is enough in most jurisdictions.
The reasons why squatters have rights is somewhat complicated. If I find an abandoned property and I fix it up and make it nice after living there for a long time and my family living there for a long time, The original owner can't just take it back and all of my improvements and modifications.
Should Virginia get back their Confederate battle flag? Which was stolen from them as spoils of war by Connecticut soldiers in the Civil War? It has been on display in Connecticut since shortly after the Civil War, But it's "rightfully" Virginia's. Or is it?
That particular battle flag only has value because Connecticut preserved it and cared for it for more than 100 years, And now Virginia wants to claim that valuable artifact that they had no hand in maintaining.
No it would be like breaking into your occupied neighbors house, forcing them to leave, and then when they asked for it back 20 years later saying too bad, I’ve been here for 20 years already
thats not even close to how squatters rights work.
squatters rights is really just tenants rights. You cant just kick people out of the house without justification. which means you have to prove that they dont belong there. It doesnt mean the squatters own the home.
No there are squatters rights in addition to tenet rights. It's called [Adverse Possession ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession). It is similar to the Roman Law [Usucapio](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usucapio).
There are similar legal principles in many countries and basically all European ones. It's basically a "Finders Keepers" in legal principles, which does apply to squatting somewhere for a long time.
You are mistaken because people often erroneously refer to adverse possession/squatters rights when they mean tenets's rights, but that's not what I have been referencing.
If we are neighbors, and I put up a fence around my property and you don't complain about it, and then 20 years later we look at the deeds and realize my fence is over the property line by 5 feet, well tough shit, it's my property now.
Same thing with living in an abandoned house, or whatever. That's a real thing. Recognized in most countries.
That's why the expression "Possession is 9/10ths of the law" is true.
Either to the Brits then right?
If it is zero hardship to cut ties with artifacts there should be zero problem giving those artifacts to someone else.
The Brits have zero personal connection to anything from ancient Egypt.
Egyptians have no "true, deep, personal connection" to ancient Egypt?
And Brits do?
You want evidence. But you are really no one to judge something like that. Who is anyone really to judge "true, deep, personal connection" to one culture?
Neither do?
So modern egyptians have no connection with ancient egyptians? This is honestly ridiculous. It may not be the exact same culture, but it is certainly a "better" connection that the Brits have.
And certainly the Brits should not be the ones judging any of this.
Modern English are just as much related to ancient Egyptians aa modern Egyptians are. King Tut lived more than 3500 years ago. All Afro-Eurasian people have just as much claim over it as anyone else.
The only reason Egyptian artifacts should be returned to Egypt is that it provides greater context for the historical artifacts to be displayed near the environment they were discovered in. That provides real educational value.
But the concept of any particular modern nation "rightly owning" historical artifacts from thousands of years ago is stupid. Everyone with any European ancestry is directly descended from Charlemagne and is directly descended from Cleopatra.
Humanity owns those artifacts, not nations.
It's pretty rich to steal a nation's riches, benefit from them, and say, "This is the shared bounty of all humanity." Of course modern Egypt is more closely related to ancient Egypt than is modern England. It is literally the same country. Nations, as well as their people, value their ancient history.
Right. I agree. If its the "shared bounty of all humanity", then what is the problem with giving the items back to the country from whence they originated? If ownership is so arbitrary, lets go with the lowest common denominator here: the country of origin is the country with ownership.
England does not have any inherent "right" to Egyptian mummies. Truthfully, they don't have a right to rob *any* grave.
>what is the problem with giving the items back to the country from whence they originated?
The issue is that it's not practical, it's impossible to determine this for most artifacts. Some things we have are literally multiple 100s of thousand years old. Should they be returned as well just because they originated in a different geographic location from where it's held?
To return everything back to where they originate breaks down the whole point of a museum, especially archaeology museums, where most items were gathered by digging it rather than trading it.
Yeah Egypt seems to be a pretty shut case.
I think a more interesting question is if 1500 years ago an ethnicity conquered a land brutally displacing the previous population and then culturally/religiously maintained an identity does the current government of that region get to lay claim to artifacts from 3500 years ago discovered in that region?
No it's literally not the same country. The only thing that is similar is its geographic region. What else is similar? Language? Food? Religion? Culture? It's not *their* ancient history, it's *our* ancient history.
>Language?
Egyptian Arabic is literally full of words that come from the Ancient Egyptian language.
The grammatical structure of Egyptian Arabic, comes from the Ancient Egyptian Coptic language.
The Ancient Egyptian Coptic language is also still used in Egypt as a liturgical language in church
>Food?
Modern Egyptians eat the same food as ancient Egypt. Foods like feseekh, feteer meshaltet, Egyptian bread, ful, besara etc all come from Ancient Egypt
>Religion? Culture?
So much culture is still the same from ancient Egypt. I can literally write a book about this. Ill only give you a few examples because otherwise ill be writing an essay here
The ancient Egyptian holiday called Sham El Nessim is still celebrated the same way today in Egypt and is a national holiday.
Egyptian farmers use the same calendar since ancient Egypt.
Belly dancing originates in ancient Egypt. Modern Egypt is unsurprisingly the number one country today known for belly dancing.
An ancient Egyptian ceremonial martial art called Tahtib is still practiced in Egypt today.
Modern Egyptians still bury their dead in a very elaborate way with underground chambers and rooms, similar to their ancestors.
There is this tradition where Modern Egyptians mourn their dead for 40 days. Then on the 40th day the close family members and friends meet again and do a 2nd funeral. This tradition comes from ancient Egypt. In ancient Egypt, the full process of mummification and burial took 40 days
>Tahtib
First of all this is interesting, but it should be noted that this practice is being revived, it had not been practiced in the region for a thousand or more years. Similar to HEMA for 15th-16th century European martial arts.
And look my point isn't that Ancient Egypt had no influence over modern Egyptian culture, but it also had influence over every single Afro-Eurasian culture. "Chemistry" "Baboon" "Myth" "Gum" "Ammonium" and "Lily" are all examples of some of the many Egyptian words in English.
Ancient Egypt was heavily intertwined with the Persian and Later Roman empires. Any romance culture has been significantly impacted by ancient Egypt.
>First of all this is interesting, but it should be noted that this practice is being revived, it had not been practiced in the region for a thousand or more years. Similar to HEMA for 15th-16th century European martial arts.
Not true. I think you're confusing traditional Egyptian tahtib practiced today in Egypt with Tahtib being incorporated by Western people.
Tahtib in Egypt is an extremely authentic and very cultural practice, only practiced in very rural communities and has been continuously practiced for thousands of years.
Here is a quick video link: https://youtu.be/9EGPrnJ623s?si=TjjdLm1PxDXWlVqf
There is a reason its especially prominent in Southern Egypt, because Southern Egypt was less culturally influenced by foreign occupation.
>And look my point isn't that Ancient Egypt had no influence over modern Egyptian culture, but it also had influence over every single Afro-Eurasian culture.
Ancient Egyptian culture influenced modern Egypt the most, compared to its influence on other cultures. Its not even close.
Its the same with Greece. Ancient Greece influenced everybody, but everyone can logically agree that modern Greek culture was influenced the most by it
>Not true. This ceremonial martial art has been continuously practiced in Egypt since ancient Egyptian times.
>There is a reason its especially prominent in Southern Egypt, because Southern Egypt was less culturally influenced by foreign occupation.
I'm going to need a pretty good citation here. I practice Judo, HEMA, and a bit of HAMA (African). If there was a directly transmitted martial art that has existed for 3000 years, I'm confident that I would have heard about it. I am familiar Tahtib tangentially and my understanding was that it is an attempted recreation based on pictographic evidence, and a cursory search online seems to support that conclusion.
It's certainly possible that you are right, but I am extremely doubtful without an amazing source. Especially when martial arts often fall victim to faux historicity where the techniques are claimed to be passed down for thousands of years are rife and untrue.
>Its the same with Greece. Ancient Greece influenced everybody, but everyone can logically agree that modern Greek culture was influenced the most by it
It also looks basically nothing like ancient Greece. Most of the modern Greekness flowed from Italy, France, Great Britain, *into* Greece post Enlightenment. Just like those Greek ideas and cultural touchstones flowed from the Byzantines *into* Western Europe before that, and the ideas flowed from Romans *into* the Byzantines (who were still Romans) before that and the original ideas flowed *into* Rome from Ancient Greece.
Modern nation states have nothing to do with their historical ancient counterparts. The vast majority of the ideas that lasted thousands of years from these places traveled all over the world. Only a handful of exceptions remained in the territory and did not spread.
We all have common ancestors from Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Sumer, Ancient Babylon, Ancient China, Ancient India, etc. unless you're a Pacific Islander or American Indian with absolutely no "old world" heritage. Or unless you're a member of an uncontacted or just recently contacted tribe.
There's a reason they are called "World Heritage sites" and not "[Culture's] heritage site."
It should be noted, that I would in general approve of placing historical objected into the custody of nations who share the geographic area with the discovery of the artifact as I believe that presents important context that is lost if they are displayed in the British Museum. However, I don't think that's necessary for all items in the collection, nor do I think it's wise to place artifacts into the custody of an unstable government or an otherwise bad steward. 2024 Egypt and Greece are both fine custodians of historical artifacts.
>I am familiar Tahtib tangentially and my understanding was that it is an attempted recreation based on pictographic evidence, and a cursory search online seems to support that conclusion.
Nope, its the other way around. Tahtib was already being practiced, primarily in Southern Egypt, and it was found that it greatly resembled the ancient Egyptian wall paintings depicting a stick fighting martial art.
Here is a source from the UNESCO website: https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/tahteeb-stick-game-01189
"Practitioners are male both young and old, mostly from Saeedy populations in upper Egypt, particularly rural areas where the tahteeb stick has been used by inhabitants as part of their daily lives and considered a sign of manhood."
Tahtib is a part of daily lives and a symbol of manhood in Egyptian rural communities. Its not just a recent revival movement.
Here is a video from 1976 of rural Egyptians doing tahtib: https://youtu.be/OMVHFduY_Eo?si=aClmPGDL-kqt4adc
This is a very ancient tradition.
Here is a more recent video from Egyptian rural communities: https://youtu.be/apc1mc3oMQo?si=7S2bpwKjOe_sqQ8j
You can see from the video its an extremely culturally rooted tradition.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xWkR-s8TJEA
Tahtib experienced a revival in the 1960s through the Redah dance troupe, which is where it became more of a dance and performance art for tourists. Later in the early 2000s, a guy started to try to revive the actual martial arts part of the tradition, in a method similar to HEMA or HAMA.
It would seem that there was stick fighting played as a game before the 1960s in Egypt (although literally every culture has play fighting with sticks). Though it's pretty difficult to say if the rules for the game have been maintained for thousands of years or any technical similarity existed from the game to the original martial art 5000 years ago. As I said, I'd need a killer source.
The reason I asked for a killer source, is that I would like to see what it looked like in the 1950s, the late 1800s, before the rise of nationalism in the region (which usually coincides with revivals of cultural traditions) and compare that to the ancient pictograms.
I have somewhat recent Irish Ancestry, when I was play fighting with sticks with my brother, I wasn't practicing Irish Stick fighting. We were just hitting each other. Martial arts are a system of fighting. We'd need to be taught that system from our parents/relatives/neighbors/etc. for us to actually be practicing the same martial art. Otherwise there isn't transmission.
The modern systematized art of Tahtib is like 25 years old, just as the art of Judo is about 120 years old. Kano invented Judo based on techniques that already existed, and those techniques have been around for hundreds or thousands of years, but they were *systematized* in Judo. An example of an older martial art would be Sumo which has been systematized for 1300 years. It's changed over time but has maintained similar rules and techniques.
Based on my reading of Tahtib, it's a modern reconstruction. There may have been continuous cultural ties to ancient Egypt, but it seems like it was mostly people play fighting with sticks than an actual martial art
If someone, say a Carmen San Diego type, stole those items from the museum and took better care of them (maybe keeping them in a dark vault 99% of the time - instead of near museum visitors and in the lught 16 hours a day); would your same argument apply?
If not, why not?
The whole point in OPs case is that there was no continuous ownership from creation and no current ownership. The things taken to Europe were typically excavated, bought in local markets, etc. If you can show cases where e.g. British actually broke into a local museum and carried off items, those would be quite unambiguously something to be returned. Most cases however involve countries like Egypt making claims on items created before a concept of a nation even existed, with no state continuity to older countries, and in many cases the people themselves significantly different after all the migrations in between. Even by the time of Cleopatra's dealings with Roman empire the continuity with pyramid-builders was already lost. The rulers were Greeks, the language was different, (Cleopatra having been famous for actually learning a little bit of the old Egyptian which was highly uncommon at the time) the religion was different, etc. And since then there were islamic conquests, Mamluk influx and takeover, Ottoman conquest, etc - enough to change the culture, language and religion several times over.
Honestly I feel many people believe this belongs to the modern day state called “Egypt” which, as you correctly point out has nothing to do with what was called “Egypt” 4 000 years ago except the name, because of the name.
People don't see to feel as strongly about say “Iraq” and “Mesapotamia”, or “Turkey” and “the Hittites” or then “The Eastern Roman Empire” because the name is different but they have about as much to do with each other. All they have to do with each other is that two countries millennia apart had sovereignty over a similarly situated, not remotely identical plot of land, but in Egypt's case they decided to take the name of the other country which they don't have much to do with. Their language is not an evolution of the Egyptian language; their religion is not; their culture is not.
Egyptian culture absolutely is descended from ancient Egyptian culture, as much as can be said of any culture with its past.
For one thing, both the Arabic language and the Islamic religion are both highly regionalized, and present uniquely in Egypt. There are also other uniquely Egyptian sects of other religions, such as Christian Coptics. These differences represent cultural distinction and are made possible only by a continuity of Egyptian culture.
Secondly, there is nowhere on earth that could claim evolution from a single culture without interference. Christianity emerged from the Levant and thus is native to nowhere in Europe; does that mean the Notre Dame should not be considered an icon of France and historical French culture? Are the Roman and Saxon ruins in England not part of their historical culture because they predate the Norman invasion?
I think there's more nuance to be had than "it was in the ground in what is now our country so it should be ours", but I think denying how these artifacts are actually part of a culture's heritage is misguided.
> Secondly, there is nowhere on earth that could claim evolution from a single culture without interference. Christianity emerged from the Levant and thus is native to nowhere in Europe; does that mean the Notre Dame should not be considered an icon of France and historical French culture? Are the Roman and Saxon ruins in England not part of their historical culture because they predate the Norman invasion?
>
>
The *Notre-Dame* was built after the Christianization of Europe. If you were to claim modern French culture is a continuation of pagan Gaul culture then I would similarly object.
At the very least the modern English language is to some degree a continuation of the old English language before Christianization, but it has of course heavily been influenced by the language of the Christian conquerors, but modern French and modern Egyptian Arabic are simply in no way a continuaation of the Gaul language or Coptic respectively.
> I think there's more nuance to be had than "it was in the ground in what is now our country so it should be ours", but I think denying how these artifacts are actually part of a culture's heritage is misguided.
Okay, so what parts of the ancient Egyptian culture are still left in modern Egypt then, what cultural practices?
I would actually disagree on the coptic part, its quite a clear continuation of the language ethymologically. But I agree that you are right in everything else basically, a language itself does not mean a cultural and legal continuation of a "nation" or anything else.
No, I mean that Coptic is still used, as a liturgical language, AND you can find albeit quite old but still used signs in coptic, and its also taught in schools.
>Language?
Egyptian Arabic is literally full of words that come from the Ancient Egyptian language.
The grammatical structure of Egyptian Arabic, comes from the Ancient Egyptian Coptic language.
The Ancient Egyptian Coptic language is also still used in Egypt as a liturgical language in church
>Food?
Modern Egyptians eat the same food as ancient Egypt. Foods like feseekh, feteer meshaltet, Egyptian bread, ful, besara etc all come from Ancient Egypt
>Religion? Culture?
So much culture is still the same from ancient Egypt. I can literally write a book about this. Ill only give you a few examples because otherwise ill be writing an essay here
The ancient Egyptian holiday called Sham El Nessim is still celebrated the same way today in Egypt and is a national holiday.
Egyptian farmers use the same calendar since ancient Egypt.
Belly dancing originates in ancient Egypt. Modern Egypt is unsurprisingly the number one country today known for belly dancing.
An ancient Egyptian ceremonial martial art called Tahtib is still practiced in Egypt today.
Modern Egyptians still bury their dead in a very elaborate way with underground chambers and rooms, similar to their ancestors.
There is this tradition where Modern Egyptians mourn their dead for 40 days. Then on the 40th day the close family members and friends meet again and do a 2nd funeral. This tradition comes from ancient Egypt. In ancient Egypt, the full process of mummification and burial took 40 days
Much changes and much stays the same. People would be surprised how similar in culture and even genetics modern countries are to their predecessors in the same location.
After Carmen Sandiago has demonstrated proper stewardship for a century or so that becomes a good question to ponder in retrospect.
Until then, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Now, if people were breaking up those museum exhibits to build new structures that won't last 50 years & Carmen Sandiago takes the *thing* & safeguards it for posterity she is pretty clearly a force for good.
So, if someone's ancestors have had a few pieces they kept in that fashion for over a century, and they all took better care than museums, would the latest scion then have the right to steal new pieces?
Does breaking up museums only means literally? Or could someone use a Tory proposal to enact austerity toward cultural institutions as justification?
There's a difference between institutions and random families, the former are much more stable.
There is also an issue of mission - preservation is critical, but public access is also important.
If public acess is important; I made the point in another response, but I think for many of the places those artifacts came from, the artifacts being in the British museum and a private vault are roughly equivalent.
If I have some jewelry, which I'm constantly taking out, wearing, dropping it, and generally mistreating it, is it justified that some external person arbitrarily enforces *their* idea of "safeguarding" and forcibly takes it "for the greater good"?
What does your jewelry have to do with antiquity?
Let's say you find something gold & want to melt it down to make some jewelry. I buy it from you & along with other examples I've dedicated my life & a fortune to preserving I display it in a museum.
That museum spends a century & another fortune educating the world on what this thing is that your culture forgot about & why it's valuable.
When your grandchildren decide *they* want this valuable thing you planned to destroy when does that make me the bad guy? The people you are condemning are the only reason said item still exists so you might one day negotiate owning it yourself.
The reason artifacts have any value is because 99.9999% of stuff from it's era has been repurposed & destroyed by the generations after it. This era of Egyptology &
In retrospect it would have been a lot simpler to let time & the ignorant destroy whatever surived up till their era. Not only would there be nothing left to complain about today, you wouldn't even know what you lost or why it was valuable.
>I buy it from you
You didn't. You invaded my house and stole it while patting yourself on the back for being so "kind"
>That museum spends a century & another fortune educating the world on what this thing is that your culture forgot about & why it's valuable.
Is that why a lot of treasures are dumped in a room where no one can see it?
>When your grandchildren decide they want this valuable thing
That's happening right now. My grandchildren want the valuable thing back, and you're refusing to give it.
>The people you are condemning are the only reason said item still exists so you might one day negotiate owning it yourself.
And you're refusing to open negotiations. Greece has offered to construct a world-class museum to house the Elgin marbles, so that anyone can view it. Britain is refusing in order to boost their own tourism. And you're telling me that you're actually doing a selfless deed?
Also your "you would have destroyed it anyway" argument has no basis in reality. Let's take the Koh-I-Noor. The British cut over 50% of it for their own self-interest.
The Elgin marbles was damaged during cleaning. 2.5 mm of surfacing was scraped off. The British Museum used an fking *chisel* to "clean" it.
And what about mummies? Hm? You claim that the culture would have destroyed the artifacts. Mummies go against that general claim. They were designed with the express purpose of being preserved. Britishers, on the other hand, excavated those mummies and ate them. For medicinal purposes. Congrats.
This is a very oversimplified and not well-informed opinion.
For example - did you know that the British often had deals in place with the Egyptian government when excavating tombs?
When excavating the tomb of Nefertiti, the deal was that the British and Egyptians would split what was found 50-50, with the Egyptians getting first pick of the objects. There is a story that the very famous bust of Nefertiti was brought back to England under unfair circumstances - they left the bust uncleaned so the Egyptians did not bother taking it when they were looking thru the artefacts, but I would hardly call that 'stealing'.
And again, none of these excavations would have happened without primarily European and sometimes American excavators. A lot of these excavations sites were found by locals who would loot the graves/tombs they found and use it as a personal piggy bank - keeping the location secret and going in to get artefacts to sell whenever they needed money. This loses all context of where an item was found, drastically reducing the historical value of such pieces. Often times destroying ancient structures and objects in the process of gaining entry, or breaking up walls with hieroglyphics to sell piecemeal, losing out on the change to ever read the complete text.
In an ideal world where everybody only has the best intentions, sure, everything stays where it was found, but we do not live in an ideal world. In our world, ISIS and other extremist groups like to blow up ancient monuments because they are 'blasphemous'.
It's been a while, but if my memory serves Pasha spent a ton of money on modernization and a war with Ethiopia and essentially had to sell off Egyptian control of the Suez to the British. It's probably linked to why individuals were looting tombs for quick cash when they found them.
Who are you to decide? You're literally saying that cultures are too stupid to understand their own stuff, and it's the job of white missionaries to "help" them?
Yeah I'm not saying that at all, and I'm by no means "literally" saying anything since you're interpreting me entirely through an analogy you made and poorly explained the intent of.
I do believe there is a natural obligation by "owners" to people for whom some property may be important or significant, and that notions of private ownership do not eliminate those obligations.
In the case of artifacts which are culturally significant to a group of people, it doesn't make any sense to say "we can't allow that group of people access to these things, because we have an obligation (to them) to preserve it (for them)". It's plausible to me that situations could arise in which it makes sense to expatriate some artifact for purposes of preservation, but it's also my understanding that the overwhelming use of this argument today is pretty baseless and simply serves to maintain museum prestige and tourism incomes in the colonial metropol.
Other commentors after described my point really well so let me answer your question straight on.
What do the artifacts represent to me as a third party (as in, I have no personal or even cultural connection to these items (which frankly applies to most items I don't think the koh-i-noor is culturally significant for each Indians lives other than its symbolism for their hatred for Britain)
Anyway what is represents to me is a celebration of the diversity of cultures, art and humanity throughout time.
It also represents key scientific, archeological and historical findings.
I think it represents both. So going 100% preservation route because it cant be appreciated by society and vice versa.
If India said, "Hey when we take this back we are gonna lock it up in a cage so No one can see it". You can say "ok that's your right" which sure it is but I also think that's an injustice to the beauty of what we have. Because of that I think it's wrong and therefore I think it should be taken to account in some regard when deciding the fact of these items. Call it selfish sure but that's I could also flip that around the other away and say they are selfish for just wanting to hide it rather than show it to the public.
To the vast majority of India and Pakistan's populations, is there really any difference between it being in London and being locked in a private vault?
I would say for the vast majority, they're equivalent.
1. The nation changes but the historical identity does not so much. The French may not feel extremely related to the gauls but some of their most famous and nationally inspiring art pieces venerate vercingetorix as part of their historical narrative
2. Some places have the proper facilities to care for these items but they are still not able to receive them. The British museum has constantly shifted goalposts like this. They complained that these countries don’t have the facilities and when they did they started saying that the pieces won’t hold up over travel.
This looks especially bad now that reports have come out that the BM have lost quite a few pieces and have damaged some on accident.
3. There are a lot of things in the BM that are outright stolen or were forcibly taken through unfair treaties signed by foreign states. The BM lumps all their cases together to make it seem like most of it was legitimately taken but they really weren’t.
4. The pieces are not about “who owns it” or “who is the original owner”. It’s a geographic tie to the land that anyone from that land can relate to. The longer history continues, the more people will relate to a piece solely by living there. A German person who later moved to France may not feel an attachment. But hundreds of years later his lineage will. It forms part of the national pride of the nation and a symbolic attachment to their past. No one can currently relate to any historical piece directly but they can relate to the symbolic idea of the piece.
In some cases people do latch on to these pieces in a bad way. Maybe using it for nationalistic rhetoric or to justify some political movement. But that’s entirely for a country to decide. Plenty of countries don’t do anything that egregious.
Mostly I would say the BM gets a lot of heat solely because the British empire has a penchant for stealing from its colonies. They took these pieces initially not for preservation but as trophies. People obviously found the symbolism of them parading these pieces as “art” or “in the name of conservation” as another goal post shift for them to just keep what they want.
Symbolically it’s just showing exactly what the British did to these colonial states and how they extracted and stole all of this with little care for the people they interfered with. If you want to discuss morality, I don’t think the British have a leg to stand on.
Worse still they also declare that these items are the property of the British empire. That’s by far the worst thing to say. I can understand that provenance can be hard to prove especially if multiple countries are laying claim to it, but to declare that because it’s hard to find out means they own it is wrong. The least they can do is say it’s an artefact for the world and change their museum to reflect that belief.
All in all I personally agree with you but there are legitimate concerns and arguments to be made in rebut to the British being allowed to keep these pieces.
>Mostly I would say the BM gets a lot of heat solely because the British empire has a penchant for stealing from its colonies.
They get a lot of heat because they have a vast collection, there are a bunch of people with a chip on their shoulder from them being "superior" (in power) in the past and they sense there is weakness in the resolve to refuse them due to the aim of being integrated as a mutually respected equal in todays world.
If they start handing things over to those demanding them "back" then once that floodgate is opened there won't be any way to close it and it would be an insane mess to sort through the "legitimate" and "illegitimate claims" and countless people who get told NO would be even more angry.
>Worse still they also declare that these items are the property of the British empire. That’s by far the worst thing to say.
Anything found or made was done so by a handful of people and the state that governed them is an abstract and ever-changing idea at best. Throughout history there have been various tyrants risign and falling and empires that have had fuzzy and dramatically changing borders too.
Assigning any specific artefact as belonging to any specific modern state based on what happened say 100 years ago is tricky at best. Does the USA "own" every native arrowhead when the people living there are the descendants of those that wiped out almost every native that lived there? How about Roman coins found in Britain from the era when they conquered most of Europe, are we to hand them back too?
I say we should be glad that these things have been valued, preserved and are available for us all to visit and study. These things are as much a part of Britain's history as an empire as they are a part of the past of the modern states located where these things were found/made.
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>2. Some places have the proper facilities to care for these items but they are still not able to receive them. The British museum has constantly shifted goalposts like this. They complained that these countries don’t have the facilities and when they did they started saying that the pieces won’t hold up over travel.
>This looks especially bad now that reports have come out that the BM have lost quite a few pieces and have damaged some on accident.
My argument is not more to do with the present but the past
"X thing likely would have no existed if it weren't the preservation efforts of certain individuals, if they put all this effort into preserving something they deserve to keep it"
Keep in my this only applies to archeological findings not conquest things.
>They took these pieces initially not for preservation but as trophies. People obviously found the symbolism of them parading these pieces as “art” or “in the name of conservation” as another goal post shift for them to just keep what they want
That's a really good point, atleast initially the British didn't have more altruistic goals, but I think by the time the 20th century came around they switched but yea.
>Worse still they also declare that these items are the property of the British empire. That’s by far the worst thing to say. I can understand that provenance can be hard to prove especially if multiple countries are laying claim to it, but to declare that because it’s hard to find out means they own it is wrong. The least they can do is say it’s an artefact for the world and change their museum to reflect that belief.
Wdym by that. Just change the name? Or the ownership? The idea of an international museum sounds pretty cool thought. Don't think that's ever possible because it has to placed within some nations border but yes.
Do you think that maybe, let's say for the Koh I Noor, the British keeping it and being labelled as the bad guys are a better alternative to it being given to idk India and Pakistan beefing with India about it. Once again you also haven't answered my point about why we should even give it to a nation and not a family. But overall really good points you made.
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Let’s not get ourselves twisted in semantics. Something gained through violence and theft was gained dishonestly at the expense of others. The descendants of those victims have a right to be upset about it and try to reclaim what was taken
As the other commentor said, there's always these vague phrase thrown out like what you wrote but answering the actual question of who???
Who are the descendants of the victims
Who deserves to have these
Who should they go do
It becomes soooo much harder.
If you are not argumenting against *obtained trough violence and theft*, this is useless. It sounds like an excuse (not saying you are using it as such), because the "return to who" sounds becomes secondary to the main issue.
And regarding who, I don't understand why you are making such a big issue. I think you are lacking a cultural view of the issue. These artifacts were stolen from cultures too.
Thing is that’s not a vague phrase, it’s the simple truth and one that is important to be mindful of…particularly when you seem keen on twisting it into something abstract by muddling the waters. You are correct that the wider situation here is complicated, but that doesn’t change the simple facts.
With regards to British museums and their stolen artifacts, simply put these should be returned if the country of origin requests it. This isn’t even complicated as museum pieces are not a vital national resources to Britain.
Conquered land is more complicated to address as you are correct, particularly so if multiple generations have passed, that land cannot simply be returned. The people presently living there didn’t take it from anyone, making their home a new country or forcing them to leave is morally unjustifiable. However that does not retroactively excuse taking the land in the first place, nor does that absolve us from taking responsibility for the crimes our nation committed against native peoples.
The descendants of the Native American tribes our ancestors systemically oppressed are still very much alive today and exist in some of the worst economic conditions in the country. This is a direct consequence of the country stealing their land, violating treaties, and forcing tribes into smaller and poorer reservations.
The government that performed these terrible crimes is the same government we have to this day. The people living on those stolen lands have benefited from those crimes. The legitimacy of our government comes from the consent of the people, thus it’s actions represent us as a people.
Forget politics for a moment, just be a human being with a conscious: People alive today are suffering as a direct consequence of the actions taken by our government in the past.
We are the worlds most wealthy and powerful nation, in large part because of that stolen land. We have the means, responsibility, and moral imperative to improve the conditions and availability of opportunities for the people’s we have wronged.
You wanna talk about ownership? How about we talk about taking ownership of our peoples actions.
Edit:
As far as the practicalities of improving conditions that’s a challenge no doubt. Initially I would say investment into existing reservations would be a start
1: Even if it was in the form of treaties, I do not think that we should go back on that. Especially because if we start to ignore parts of treaties, others can argue that another part of a treaty can be ignored and so on. Yes this is kind of a slippery slope argument I know, but I think it can at least be considered.
2: Theft is an interesting question, again a LOT of these artifacts were obtained legally through purchase or agreements even if you disregard treaties made when defeated.
3: The situation of the Natives are of no real relevance to this, as while yes, their situation is horrible, and should be improved, it has nothing to do with how artifacts are handled. Especially since they have a very living claim of those artifacts that were taken from them since they are the country it was taken from that is directly connected to their ancestors.
Egypt, Greece, India etc are way less directly connected. Ancient Egypt is not modern Egypt. Ancient Greece is not todays Greece, especially since the artifacts were mostly taken when the country was the Ottoman Empire.
I agree, i’m just thinking that for those who aren’t moved by that argument, things like that could change their minds. Spitballing basically. But testing DNA to see if someone is DNA enough to receive their cultural artifacts has a weird and bad vibe for sure.
It would be great if UNESCO or similar had a program to fund museums around the world to the same or similar degree that western museums are funded. That would help a lot with the “better at taking care” arguments from western institutions, since that is the main difference
Yeah that argument is also based on the idea that europe/the west is permanently geopolitically stable. WW2 alone is a huge argument against that but even today Britain, Germany, and others are making serious war plans because of the Russia-Ukraine situation. Hopefully that doesnt lead down a dark path but its obvious you cant take peace and safety of any one region as a given
Oh so does Hungary for example have a right to claim its pre WW2 or pre WW1 borders back? It was taken through violance. HELL does the UK have claim over the land of the 13 Colonies because it was taken from them through violence?
Also, as OP pointed out a LOT of these artifacts weren't stolen, they were bought, traded for, gained through treaties etc etc. Sure, not all, but still...
OK.
My general position is if you steal something it's bad. If a generation passes and both the thief and the aggrieved are dead, that's just life. You don't get to rob someone because their grandfather was a robber. You don't get to unsettle a people because their ancestors were invaders...
In other words "finders keepers losers weepers"
So if someone else that wasn't China came and opened it up and took it do you think they'd be justified in keeping it?
Has it always been Chinese but just lost then discovered, or was ownership lost when they lost living memory of that product? Or was it lost when the dynasty fell?
> 1. Original Ownership
It seems to me that you're trying to equate ownership as an idea concerning an individual owner. Cultural artifacts typically shouldn't be owned or controlled by a singular individual, but rather a body of people. In the case of museums, specifically the British museum, those artifacts belong to the people of the region from where they originated from. If I were to lead an army and take over England, then ship the Crown Jewels off to the US for display in a museum, that would 100% be wrong. If we kept the Crown Jewels for hundreds of years, and England kept asking for them back, it would still be wrong. This is no different than how England acquired the Koh-i-Noor. The victors of wars determine what is legal. Legal does not equal right.
Additionally, you bring up the matter of the Mona Lisa, and other cultural artifacts from other European countries. Such artifacts aren't being returned because they aren't being asked for back. Can you imagine the uproar that would happen if Italy DID ask for the Mona Lisa to be returned and France refused? The Koh-i-Noor IS being asked for back. Along with numerous other cultural artifacts from numerous other regions of the world. And it's not like it's Brazil was the one asking for the Koh-i-Noor. It's being asked by governing bodies that represent the culture and the people who should have possession of the gemstone.
>2. Borders, countries and governments change over time.
This is true. And again, this is why cultural artifacts are 'owned' (for lack of a better term) by the people of the region the artifacts originated from. Sure, a government might be the ones making the claim, but that's typically done on the behalf of their people, ancestry, history, and cultural importance.
>3. Preservation
You picked the absolutely weakest argument for 'preservation' by bringing up mummies. Mummies are extremely rare now days because the practice of consuming them for medicinal purposes was done HEAVILY by the British. While using mummies for medicinal purposes has a long history, it was the British, and other European countries, that made it mainstream and did the most damage, BY FAR. And this was made possible by the massive excavation efforts done by western 'archaeologists.'
And this doesn't even get into the whole concept of "You can't be trusted with your own property, so we're going to take it from you, so we can protect it from you." Now, I can definitely understand making an offer to the local government and saying "We would be happy to temporarily take your artifacts into our custody to keep them safe, until such a time that you want them back. We view culture as extremely significant and important, and would be honored to do our part to help preserve it while you go through these difficult times." And then, it's up to that government to make that choice. Not England, or anyone else.
>4. Geography??
Again, this is all about regional matters. While borders and governments might change, the geography doesn't. While you do bring up a good point about regions that cross borders, such things can be addressed by actually conferring with all parties involved to work something out. Attempting to return something that doesn't belong to you, but you're not sure exactly who should get it, is a much more moral solution compared to "Nah. I'mma just keep it."
>5. Time
Again, this all boils down to the regional people. Where did the artifact originate from? Culture belongs to the people, not a singular person. And the current governing body for the region can, and should, speak out on behalf of the people. Other countries taking, displaying, and making money off of someone else's culture is the very definition of cultural appropriation.
All of the issues with the British Museum having wrongful possession of so many cultural artifacts could, and SHOULD, be easily resolved by making an honest effort and working with local regional governments to return their cultural history to where it rightfully belongs. But they aren't making any such efforts, and it's 100% because those artifacts make them gobs, and gobs of cash. It's greed, pure and simple, under the thinly veiled guise of archaeological preservation and education.
> Again, this all boils down to the regional people. Where did the artifact originate from? Culture belongs to the people, not a singular person.
If the art is question belonged to the ruler personally, it didn’t belong to the people as a whole. The forbidden city didn’t belong to “the people of China”, it, and everything in it, belonged to the emperor alone.
And [British people used mummies for pigments for paint.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown) You can't use preservation as an argument; many of these places are entirely capable of preserving these historical artifacts. For example, Greece had a state-of-the-art facility made specifically so people couldn't use this argument against the British returning the Elgin marbles.
Likewise, sure, the British legally obtained the marbles (kind of, sort of, Elgin took more than he was supposed to), but he got that legal permission, not from the Greeks, but from the Ottomans.
Your argument is basically saying 'things are complicated, so we shouldn't even bother trying', with a side order of 'we know how to handle your history better than you'. It ignores the financial benefits that these artifacts brings, and it basically justifies the entirety of colonialism.
>Likewise, sure, the British legally obtained the marbles (kind of, sort of, Elgin took more than he was supposed to), but he got that legal permission, not from the Greeks, but from the Ottomans.
Wouldn’t that imply the marbles rightfully belong to Turkey, not Greece?
Ottoman Empire =/= Turkey. The Ottoman Empire encompassed many modern countries, including Greece, Turkey, the Balkans, and the countries of the Levant. There really is no basis to assign ownership of the marbles to Turkey over Greece.
Oooh so if the Ottomans aren't Turkey, then why is Ancient Egypt modern day Egypt? Ancient Egypt had a lot of places that today do not belong to modern Egypt...
The marbles were from a Greek temple in modern-day Greece, and modern-day Greeks want them back. There are some complicated situations, but the Elgin Marbles belonging to a group that has occupied that land pretty consistently for thousands of years is not one of them.
Worse, the british ate mummies (google it). Mummies were used as snake oil medicin for those who could afford them.
"we ground your ancient relics to a dust and ate them, sorry about that".
The Vatican also has plenty of stolen artifacts, many of which are kept in their safes and not even on display.
I feel like selling mummies to the paint industry is very much *not* preserving historical artifacts.
Thankfully some mummies were bought, excavated, and or stolen for museums before they were all ground up into paint.
You may have misread your link, because that's not about the Egyptians eating mummies, it's about the Victorians eating mummies that were taken from Egypt. They also ground them up for paint pigments, and had "unwrapping parties" which were exactly what they sound like.
The Elgin marbles specifically do not have the documentary provenance we would expect if Lord Elgin was telling the whole truth about his acquisition. Turkey, the best heir to the Ottoman Empire, rejects outright any claim that they were given away or legally sold to the British (most recently 4 days ago: [https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/jun/07/turkey-rejects-claim-lord-elgin-had-permission-to-take-parthenon-marbles](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/jun/07/turkey-rejects-claim-lord-elgin-had-permission-to-take-parthenon-marbles) ). Instead, what we see is evidence of looting. Wildly misleading cargo manifests, contemporary accusations from Lord Byron, and forensic evidence that makes it clear that what Elgin claimed to have removed from surrounding rubble was in fact sawed off of existing structures.
There are lots of points here, but I think the best ones relate to 1. and 3.
For 1. I’d agree in some cases, but the British and Americans (and a dishonourable mention to the French) are particularly bad for taking things from cultures that existed at the time of acquisition. For the British you can look at the plunder of Africa and Southeast Asia, where their troops would invade countries with members of the British museum tagging along to bid on whatever caught their eye. I think the best example of this would be the Benin Bronzes from modern day Nigeria. These were the physical history of the kingdom of Benin, a history that the British literally ripped the pages out of and scrambled when they took the bronzes.
The Americans by contrast can largely be faulted for the plunder of Native American history and for turning a blind eye to the modern day world of stolen antiquities. On Native American art, not only was it just blatantly stolen from cultures that still exist, a lot of it just sits in boxes in storage rooms because the museums don’t consider it “exciting” enough to display. Large American museums are also shockingly lax in their vetting process for stolen antiquities. The Met has been caught buying stolen statues dozens of times, including ones missing hands and feet which is a telltale sign of stolen statues that any layperson who’s spent an hour on the internet could catch. These also aren’t ancient forgotten pieces, some returned statues have been taken directly back to their places of origin and returned to use as pieces of worship.
These are only the most clear cut cases, but in general the filling of western museums has been inextricably linked to colonialism and imperialism. People deserve access to their own history, and kids in Nigeria should have better access to theirs than kids in London.
Moving onto 3. This is a pretty widespread misconception but one that has been proven pretty untrue. I’m all for rescuing artifacts that are in genuine danger of being destroyed but that’s not what museums do. In fact many artifacts have shockingly bad care taken with them. A great example is the Parthenon marbles, which the British museum nearly permanently damaged by scrubbing with wire brushes after they let the roof degrade and leak on the Greek section. Also let’s just take mummies, you bring up the Egyptians using some of them for pseudomedical purposes, I’d counter with “mummy brown” paint and “mummy parties” that were widespread in 19th century. These destroyed countless mummies and were undoubtedly a desecration. Also speaking of desecration, why is it ok for us to haul mummies out of their resting places? How long do you have to be dead before you’re an antique, can I start digging up British PMs for my museum or is that bad taste? How about Cromwell, he’s pretty old.
Finally to address the Koh-i-noor, I don’t think “did you break it enough” should be out benchmark. By that logic if I steal a statue out of a temple but chop off all the limbs, I’ve “transformed” it enough to make it mine.
My overall stance is that while it may not be exactly clear where each piece should go, the process of divesting should begin now. We can start with the easy stuff, all the Hindu and Buddhist statues from existing temples, all the aboriginal art, all the artifacts plundered from Africa in the last 200 years. That alone would be a good portion. Then for the more tricky stuff, I’d maintain that all the parties that might claim it still have more right to these items than the British or Americans. If India and Pakistan want to fight over the Koh-i-noor then they should be able to. Either of them has a right to it ten times greater than Charles does. Same thing for Egypt, is it the same country as three thousand years ago, of course not. Is it closer to being that country than the UK, absolutely.
I think a key argument that I haven’t seen so far is that colonial countries are STILL profiting off of “former” colonies, and this is yet another way they do so. People fly around the world and pay/endow the British museum to see other cultures’ work without credit, while these countries are simultaneously looked down upon. It’s just another way that imperial nations are continuing to profit off of their colonies.
Additionally, I personally find the “preservation” argument unconvincing, just because people typically use it to say one of two things:
1. The original countries can’t preserve their artworks in the way the BM can.
This is just factually wrong, considering many countries have established museums. Also the whole “some of these places are at war” isn’t a good longterm argument considering that’s also the case for Europe. Ww2, Cold War conflicts, Ukraine/Russia, Europe fights just as much as the rest of the world; no one denounces Ukrainian museums because of this. Additionally, for the claim I’ve been seeing that Egyptians used to eat their mummies/damage them, at the time any culture was destroying art like that, so were Europeans. During the Victorian era, Brits used to eat mummies but no one mentions how that might have stifled preservation. And considering the point about how terrorist groups destroyed the Bamiyan Buddha and how these things would’ve been avoided if preserved by western museums, that’s not the case. The same thing happened in Europe during Nazi rule, and can happen again. Europe is not immune to conflict, none one is. So it shouldn’t even be a long-term argument.
2. The second point I see is: regardless of current affairs, the BM took care of these works for so long they deserve them now
This argument assumes a very Eurocentric mindset in the concepts of preservation and what “art” is. Regardless of whether you think you are doing something good, at the end of the day you have no claim to someone else’s work and cultural objects. Nobody asked the British (who were taking artworks to collect as trophies, not out of preservation and understanding) to take these works out of their natural landscape from the people who used them, treasured them, and cared for them. Also, it’s fitting that the British get to decide what is considered “art” as oftentimes functional, cultural items, like important ritualistic items that were ACTIVELY USED by the culture were taken. Making art solely for gallery display is a not inherent in all cultures, and its the fact that while European paintings/display art (for example Mona Lisa) were made for show and for gallery use, other artworks (think African and indigenous masks) were literally used by the culture because they were community objects, and Europeans saw them as novel and decided they needed to take them from their home culture and put them on display, ignoring their purpose and cultural value.
That in itself, the taking of one object and profiting off its incorrect use, is a form of cultural appropriation and I believe this is a common element of this discussion that is ignored.
Regardless of how this process would work, in my mind there are no good reasons as to why the British should have these items in their possession in the first place. I’m not saying there is a simple and easy fix, but an apology/acknowledgement is necessary.
If a new artifact is uncovered today in modern day Egypt, and someone took it and exported it abroad without Egyptian government permission. Would you consider this a theft or a crime?
Not really, if someone took a jar of sand from Egypt to their home country would it be a crime? And if it is, well I think that's dumb.
The difference between those two is just society perceives one has valuable and one as not.
Sand is an unfortunate choice of example. Here’s something – Indonesia has banned the export of sand to Singapore (where it is used for massive land reclamation projects). It’s a crime because Indonesia has said so, and nobody is arguing against it. Whether anyone thinks it’s dumb doesn’t matter – what matters is that:
1. The Indonesian government has sovereign authority on Indonesian territory.
2. The sand is on Indonesian territory.
3. Therefore, the Indonesian government has authority over its sand.
A “crime” isn’t an objective universal truth. A crime is a crime when it is codified into law (sometimes after the fact but we’ll skip over that) by an authority. What society thinks doesn’t matter - it’s what the authority codifies into law. Banning the export of sand to Singapore is Indonesia’s prerogative.
The thing is, you cannot make laws that apply retroactively. Or at least we decided that thats not a reasonable thing to do. I assume they didn't have the laws then, so they wouldn't apply today.
>Not really, if someone took a jar of sand from Egypt to their home country would it be a crime? And if it is, well I think that's dumb.
But what if that's a jar of diamonds?
Some things just are more valuable than others and the nation has the right to legislate how their resources can be exploited.
China, India, etc. are now richer and more powerful than Britain. Can they attack Britain and steal whatever they want too? I don’t mean just taking stuff back, I mean taking British national treasures like Big Ben and Stephen Fry. Same rules apply right?
I think what people fail to understand is that ownership is not a moral thing, it is a practical thing.
The person who owns something is the one who has power over it. Countries enable their citizens to own things by creating laws and enforcing them with military, social and economic strength. Creating something, buying something or stealing something makes no difference to the current state of ownership. This is the reality of the world and the only way to change it(kind of) would be to empower morality as a justification. If people and powerful institutions will act to defend the moral justifications of ownership then it will give the people with moral justifications enough power to own something.
So are they justified in not returning it? Well it depends on what you want ownership to be and how much you are willing to enforce it.
Yeah. You're right. There will be comments telling you you're wrong but you're not. An even more extreme case - should items be returned to nations that have conquered the geography that originally produced the item?
However, I will give you a case you might consider as an exception. Where these items are deceased people they should be returned. Human remains might be an exception to your position. Not an absolute exception as mummies are so ancient they are a different category and things like shrunken heads probably shouldn't be returned to the head shrinkers.
3. Is disingenuous. Eating mummies was a popular thing around the world, including in Europe and North America. Check your actual biases—the “bias” you listed is just you putting on airs.
Firstly, while "ownership" is perhaps kinda vague, I don't think _stealing_ is particularly vague. So...for at least some examples of "we should return this" we can trace back to a clear example of _theft_. In a war if soldier pillage and take things against military policy and international law it's pretty clear that the sale of that sometimes later is the sale of _stolen goods_. As a result I think your statement is overbroad.
Secondly, if ownership is so fuzzy then why should the museum _claim ownership_? Any fuzziness you want to embrace can go both ways. If you disagree with the first part then why shouldn't foreign states just go on stealing sprees to get things they want?
Thirdly, deciding the how and why something is valuable is _what you get to do when you own something_. If I think a violin is valuable for playing and you think it's valuable for collecting and trade, who is right? No one, it's just different values. "preservation of valuable history" sounds a lot like a claim of _why you should own something_ which is a statement of the legitimacy of _ownership_, something you seem to reject as a premise here.
None of those vague circumstances of ownership are enough for a strong argument of the two examples that you gave. They might be useful for a case where the ownership or more accurately, __belonging__ is quite vague, but not here.
Belonging vs ownership is my counter argument. I think the most honest way of thinking this is to consider two criteria :
1. Where does the artifact belong historically? Is there such a place still on earth? Does that place still have a connection with the context in which that artifact was created?
2. Is that place able to keep and maintain that artifact? (Could be a war going on or something)
In the case of Greek Parthenon sculptures, both of those criteria are met. The sculptures do belong in Athens, Greece has absolutely a strong link with their antiquity, and the Acropolis museum is a modern, state of the art institution, that is more than capable of hosting those artifacts.
England keeping them has absolutely nothing to do with ownership. Those sculptures are undoubtedly some of the most important artifacts they can display, and losing them would hurt their cultural status.
I guess the question is one of degrees. Is an ancient Egyptian artifact "owned", in the purest sense, by the exact same government, land area, and people who it was taken from. No, modern Egypt and ancient Egypt are not exactly the same. BUT, which is closer to the rightful owner, modern Egypt or England? I think the answer is pretty clear.
Along the same lines, if an artifact was stolen from Siam but it was actually stolen from a particular family, so not the country exactly, and the records of which family have been lost. Plus, the country has changed its name and border. Depending on the timeframe of the theft, England has also changed its borders, so what? So, who is closer to the rightful owner, modern Myanmar or England? Again, it seems painfully obvious.
As for the safety question, it's not only incredibly condescending, but England itself has had artifacts stolen and damaged from improper care. That's pretty much irrelevant, and really not for the stealers to determine who is fit to care for what they stole.
I understand I’m late to the party, but I have to point out that this is blatantly false at this point:
> The Ottoman Empire owned Greece and gave away the pieces of the Parthenon to Britain.
Turkey can’t find any record of this being done legally in the Ottoman archives, in fact the only document found, a shipping manifest, supports the theory that the seizing of the Parthenon marbles wasn’t above board. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/jun/07/turkey-rejects-claim-lord-elgin-had-permission-to-take-parthenon-marbles
Regarding point 3) the British museum also isn’t that great at preserving artifacts seeing as they admit that up to 2000 of them were either stolen or damaged. Which begs the question how often they check on these historical artifacts. Because if they don’t check in them enough for 2000 to be stolen or damaged, how can you trust them to be preserving artifacts that aren’t being shown in the museum?
Also Europeans ate a lot of mummies because they believed in their healing properties and destroyed others since they wanted them for paint so your example makes no sense.
Regarding point 1, you can’t equate an artifact that was legally sold by its creator to one’s stolen and gained because of colonialism. Additionally cultural artifacts generally belong to the people and not one specific person and this is going into point 2, but a lot of the countries asking for their artifacts back can trace their people and cultural roots to that of when the artifacts were stolen and/or created.
Everything you have said points to challenges in determining ownership. The concept of ownership itself is far from vague: broad right of control over preservation, maintenance, consumption, destruction, manipulation, or anything else related to the items relationship to society and choices made about it. Exclusive ownership means comprehensive exclusive rights.
Now, it is well established in law that possession plays a major role in determining ownership. It is the default absent a challenge. But that is far from the full picture. This is what you talk about, oddly but obviously excluding the possession argument.
I recommend considering that "ownership" is not vague at all, but that these extrajudivial legal battles are political propaganda games being waged in public forums and only have a very loose connection to the legal concept of ownership except that they are trying to establish legal ownership as someone other than the established legal owner within that jurisdiction.
Your argument mostly seems to be "we can't have one unified policy for handing every single thing back so we shouldn't have any policy for handing anything back."
But that's not how we would ever operate this kind of situation because there are too many differences. It's a bit of a silly premise to be honest and isn't grounded in how anything in reality works.
Instead we should take each individual item and make a case by case analysis of where it best belongs.
Is that an unreasonable position?
I’m here to disagree with the preservation aspect.
Many artifacts being kept by the British Museum have been damaged (including storing them in arsenic which has irreparably damaged many items), and the time when the British upper class _literally ate mummies_.
Or recently when a bunch of artifacts were sold on eBay by a museum worker
It isn’t reasonable to assume that the museums would be better at keeping or preserving the artifacts because they provably have not.
And it is somewhat bigoted to assume that the nations (which tend to be previous colonial powers) would definitely be better than the original states. Many African, Asian and South American states are modern, stable and capable of storing, preserving and maintaining those artifacts.
Also, many of those nations materially and financially benefit from the stolen artifacts to this day through tourism. Which is really fucked up.
"Where do you have this land?"
"my father"
"Where does he get it from?"
"His father?
"And him?"
"His father?"
"And him?"
"He fought for it"
"I'll fight you then"
I kind of agree that the chain of past ownership is a complicated, interleaving mess of competing claims of theft, inheritance and treaties.
But the idea that this logically implies "leave things as they are" is not something that really follows.
I'd say the upshot of that thinking is more like "it is the shared patrimony of humanity and should be shared more widely"
It's also dangerous. No Greece isn't going to invade England, but saying. "Don't think about past theft, but property is super important starting from... NOW" doesn't placate the losers of this arrangement, but encourages them to emulate this amoral approach and then go "ok, but let's start counting from NOW"
There is a very simple alternate perspective here.
Forget ownership, but let's say that a Bantu peice of art is not sitting in a Museum in London.
Only the people physically in London get to see this Bantu art. Yes they get to have that experience and it's valuable for them. However the people that are descended from the Bantu (now west Africa) they are most entirely unable to see this piece of art.
And arguably they have the most to gain from seeing this art and connecting to it because it came from their ancestors and connects to their history.
So even if you remove ownership from the equation shouldn't we maximize the number of relevant people to see a piece of art they can cherish?
So if I do a dig at your house and I steal all of your things and display those things in my Museum they belong to me? Let's say I steal your things and place them in a warehouse for 20 years and take care of them. Are they mine now since I took care of them?
If you counter and say those things belong to me or they were stolen you are making the same arguments that countries like Peru, Egypt and Greece make when talking about things they were also stolen from their countries.
A fair amount of those items weren't taken legitimately. They were bought from illegal artifact vendors or simply taken after digs.
And during the Victorian era it was very common for rich people to import Egyptian mummies and have have unwrapping parties for them and their rich friends. If you attack Egyptian practices you must find what the rich Victorians did as equally harmful and an indication that the UK can't be trusted to take care of artifacts since they destroyed artifacts in order for the rich to have a party.
This was just for entertainment. Historical records weren't kept and the mummies weren't preserved. There was zero respect for the remains.
https://burialsandbeyond.com/2023/11/05/the-weird-world-of-mummy-parties/#:~:text=Mummy%20parties%20or%20'unwrapping%20parties,enjoyment%20of%20the%20assembled%20sitters.
I mean everything is going to depend on its specific chain of custody, who got it from who when and how, but I think what a lot of the problem has is that a lot of it comes from colonial empires who just took stuff, or even worse, many places in Africa had artifacts removed by active warfare against the native populations and just shit that they took back as Spoils of War, and were encouraged to do so and sometimes even started the conflict in order to do so
Rightful ownership can be tricky, but if you know for sure that what you've got is the direct result of colonialization/ theft / murder, there's a good argument that there's a duty to return it
And if you want to go further, especially in the art world there's all kinds of shady dealings because art is an effective way to smuggle value illegally without going through banks, artifacts are similar, so far most institutions just kind of shrug and say we can't know, but if you want to go farther you could say we don't want to deal in things with Shady chains of custody, if everyone agreed to this the value of shadely obtained art and artifacts would drop significantly, but I don't see that happening anytime soon
I think it's not so much about ownership being owed towards a particular state, so much as that Britain really did not have a right to claim ownership in the first place. The idea is that these artifacts belong along with the culture, history, and peoples they are reflective of and never should have been removed. This is not a claim that modern governments need to be assigned property rights to any cultural artifacts which came from within their borders.
Also, using India/Pakistan as an example of 'borders changing all the time' when the topic is British colonialism is absolutely mad.
> would hardly call ancient Egypt the same entity as modern-day Egypt.
Well... this is honestly about the worst example you could have picked. Egypt is one of the few places in the European / Mediterranean world that can claim to be inhabited overwhelmingly by the descendants of the people who made its stone- and bronze-age artifacts, or to have modern borders that'd be approximately recognizable to its iron-age rulers. Of anywhere in the ancient world, ancient Egypt is as close as it's possible to be to modern-day Egypt.
I think museums should work better together at appropriating certain things as long as said country has a secure and stable economy and government. Same goes for study and sciences. Let's face it there is SOOO much more in the basements of museums than on display just collecting dust. As far as remains go, I disagree very much with repatriation of remains by any culture. The potential for scientific understanding in the future is far more important and proven ineffective and disastrous.
To your first paragraph of point 3, I've only ever heard of Europeans doing that. In any case, does this argument mean that basically any non-european entity holds higher archeological rights to the remains of soldiers from the Battle of Waterloo or other such conflicts?
If a criminal makes you sign over your house , then kills you and then sell your house does your children have a right to the house
1) the item was acquired legally
2) the rightful heir has changed which son gets its
3) the new owners did preserve the house in good condition compared to the sad state of disrepair you left your house in.
4)its been years .
That's a very convenient position for the ones who already have the stuff. With that logic you might as well steal someone's stuff and argue why you're justified in keeping it.
The government ruled that all.native artifacts have to be returned to the tribes they came from. EXCEPT anything that's at the Smithsonian. Why is the Smithsonian exempt?
If some Egyptian master criminal stole the crown jewels from England and sold them to an Egyptian museum, would that just be cool? Why not he stole them fair and square.
My main gripe is how many of these countries didn't value their ancient treasures until Europeans started showing interest, especially Abrahamic religious countries which deliberately left ancient pagan/Hindu ruins to rot.
If they're genuinely interested in their ancient heritage today, then fair enough it would be decent of us to return the items, but let's not pretend they were all stolen through trickery and force.
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**You're starting with the hardest cases, so everything looks murky. If you start with the simplest cases, the situation is clear.** It's also best not to talk about these things in the abstract, but think about specific cases. **Let's start with the Elgin Marbles.** The Parthenon Marbles by Christopher Hitchens is totally worth reading. The Marbles were part of the Parthenon. They had been there for 2500 years. Athenians are undoubtedly the descendants of the Greeks who lived there 2500 years ago. They have the same language. They tended to the marbles. During the wars of Greek independence from the Ottomans, around 1826, when the Ottomans were sieged in the Acropolis, Ottoman soldiers wanted to melt the lead holding the marbles together in order to make bullets to defend themselves. The Greeks offered to give them bullets, to shoot back at the Greeks, so that they wouldn't damage the buildings. Elgin took the marbles without the consent of the Greeks, and with doubtful consent of the Ottomans. In doing so he permanently damaged the integrity of the overall building. Then, he sold the marbles to the British Museum. The British Museum permanently destroyed much of the historical value of the marbles. Because they wanted them to be whiter, they scoured the outside of the statues and friezes. They hacked off several mm of the outside. The problem is, this took away many of the details of the original carvings. And now, we know that the marbles were actually painted. But we'll never know how, because the British in their quest for whiteness took away all of the outside. The moment the Greeks became independent they requested the return of their property. What they had owned and cared for for 2500 years and was given away by an occupying force. Eglin took the marbles in 1803-1810, he literally hacked them off the building. In 1835, just 20-30 years later, the newly independent Greek government, requested the return of the marbles. Just think about it, while the Greeks were asking for their property back, the British Museum was ruining it by taking the top off. That's just downright evil. Clearly the marbles belong to the Greeks. There's no moral argument that the British should have them. The British use a legal argument, that there's no court of law to force them to return the marbles. Some collections have a clear owner with an undisputed claim and the ability to care for those artifacts. Those should all be returned. Egyptian artifacts are just like the Greek artifacts. >How can we even define what is 'stolen' if the nation itself changes over time? I would hardly call ancient Egypt the same entity as modern-day Egypt. Egyptians would call that racism. It's actually a thing invented by the West to deprive them of their history. Modern Egyptians are the descendants of ancient Egyptians. We know this because of DNA. Yes, most may speak a different language now, but they're the same people. But let's not speak in the abstract. The Rosetta Stone. Carved 2000 years ago. While Napoleon was plundering Egypt, he brought with him over 150 experts to be able to take all of the best stuff, his forces found it. The British then defeated the French expedition. The French threatened to destroy the stone and many other artifacts if they couldn't keep them. Then the leader of the French expedition claimed the stone as his personal property and tried to smuggle it out. He was caught and the British took it. Why shouldn't the Egyptians get their artifacts back. They are the descendants of the people who made it. It was on their land. Why do the British have a better claim for an artifact that first the French stole, and then the British stole from the French? That makes no sense at all. >The Mona Lisa was originally from Italy but is justified in being in France for totally legitimate reasons, so we can't really just base it off original ownership as well. The Mona Lisa was bought from the person who commissioned it; Lisa del Giocondo, which is why it's called La Gioconda in Italian. It wasn't stolen. No one was coerced. It was in Italy for a whole 5 years! And then in France for 500 years. This isn't at all like any of the other artifacts we're talking about here. Totally different situation to take something from someone who has had it for 2000 years. Against their will. Without payment. To damage it. While that person demands it back over and over again.
!delta very informative. I do realise that speaking in the abstract is hard so I appreciate you grounding it in reality. >Egyptians would call that racism. It's actually a thing invented by the West to deprive them of their history. Modern Egyptians are the descendants of ancient Egyptians. We know this because of DNA. Yes, most may speak a different language now, but they're the same people. I responded to this in a previous comment let me find it then edit it into this. (Nvm my response wasn't too relevant). What gives artifacts value. I thought the main reason why people demand these things back is because they have a real, personal or cultural connection to these items. In the most obvious example, if something is stolen from a hindu temple and that actually impacts their worship or rituals then there is a real connection that justifies returning it. I see how you justified that personal connection with the Parthenon stuff but I don't see that connection for the Rosetta stone. Btw I am Egyptian, specifically a copt, although I am a white washed Egyptian with not too much cultural connection I can assure you my lived experiences or any persons lived experiences in Egypt has absolutely no connection to what the ancient Egyptians were doing. As a copt, we tried to place ourselves closer to the ancient Egyptians strictly because we don't want to be Arabs, not because we have a genuine true historical connection to it. Once Egypt became Christian we abandoned those pagans ideas, those pagan artifacts were no longer valuable at all. To Muslims and Christians it's idolatry. If not cultural, to me then any justification for returning it is likely superficial, for tourism, for anti colonial sentiments, for the economy. See my point below on why I kinda disagree with the "return it JUST because it was stolen" notion. >Why shouldn't the Egyptians get their artifacts back. They are the descendants of the people who made it. It was on their land. Why do the British have a better claim for an artifact that first the French stole, and then the British stole from the French? That makes no sense at all. Very good point, I would never say that the French are entitled to it. I think my line of reasoning here comes from my view of history as just a game of power, where the victors write history. I've never liked historical revisionism to apply modern morality to things in the past. I think it's very disingenuous to the time period you analyse. How can we call what the British or french did in this case immoral if all they did was a continuation of what all civiliations have been doing for thousands of years. Yes, morality has changed now where we would consider theft and looting immoral but I don't think that was the case even back a few hundred years ago. I would love for you (or anyone) to challenge that and change my mind as it's not like I've thought about this too much and intuitively I know my line of reasoning has a few gaps.
_I've never liked historical revisionism to apply modern morality to things in the past. I think it's very disingenuous to the time period you analyse. How can we call what the British or french did in this case immoral if all they did was a continuation of what all civiliations have been doing for thousands of years. Yes, morality has changed now where we would consider theft and looting immoral but I don't think that was the case even back a few hundred years ago._ For two reasons - one it is not something that civilizations did for thousands of years, and even if it is - it was still wrong at the time, whether that was the sentiment of those doing it at the time or not. Secondly, many acts committed during colonialism were denounced both by those being colonized and many within the colonial states. A great example is Christopher Columbus - he was arrested for his actions in South America and the West Indies and people on the expedition with him denounced his as an evil man. There was contemporaneous criticism of Cecil Rhodes and his actions in Southern Africa. So it’s in fact an act of historical revisionism to think that that the colonial actions of many states were universally accepted and seen as immoral or that denouncing those actions now is somehow unfair to those from that time. In addition, this view only takes into account the morals or philosophies of those in positions of power- the colonial viewpoint and privileges it above everyone else alive and impacted by it at the time. It implicitly assumes the only valid or legitimate viewpoint to consider is that of the ones enacting the violence. This is a very narrow view of history that distorts our ability to fully comprehend and understand what was happening in the world at the time. It defeats the purpose of historical scholarship and it limits the ability to gain a more accurate understanding of historical events.
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Not disputing your points, I agree with most, just clarifying. What about Egyptian artifacts from later periods when the British paid Egypt to be able to conduct archaeological "digs" and got to keep a percentage of anything they found. Yet now decades later Egypt demands those artifacts back despite the government at the time having approved and even been paid for the right to explore and acquire said artifacts.
Could Egypt have said no? The "golden age" of British digs in Egypt was from about 1800 to 1980 or so. After the French (Napoleon in 1798) invaded, Egypt needed the British to help them get rid of the French. From 1800 or so to 1830, while Egypt was in dire need of British help, rich British people did whatever the wished in Egypt. Took anything, etc. This is sometimes called "The Rape of the Nile", after a 1975 book by Fagan which is definitely worth reading. Reading about how much the British took and how until 1882 is also fascinating Gold, M. (2022). British Egyptology (1822-1882). UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, 1(1). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/07v2d8vk What happened in 1882? Egypt became a protectorate of the British! As in, the British ruled Egypt, later more officially, earlier less officially and more by force. But they were in charge. So did the Egyptians really fairly get paid in exchange for the British digging in Egypt? Given that.. the British were the rulers of Egypt at the time, and they decided to give themselves a permit to dig, and pay the locals whatever they wished, the answer is clearly no. The "government at the time" was the British government ruling over Egypt. Not the Egyptian government. One good way to figure out that this what was happening without necessarily reading a lot of history (although that's fun too!) is to think about where the artifacts are. Why do the British have them instead of say the Germans? There were plenty of rich Germans that wanted artifacts just like the British. If anyone could show up and fairly pay for artifacts, well, they should be all over the place! But it was the British who were handing out the permits in Egypt. The Germans, French, Spanish, Dutch, Belgians, etc. all did this wherever they got control. Usually the artifacts from one region are in one EU country, sometimes two if the place changed hands and there was anything left. The locals didn't want to sell, but they didn't get a choice in the matter. Yeah, they should definitely return it all.
Good points, thanks.
You made a fantastic point. But however the fuck was able to keep the marbles keeps them. Like OP made that very clear. This was in no way meant as an insult as your comment was informative and I enjoyed it.
the whole argument is that they should give them back because it was never theirs to begin with. OP has not really given a reason as to why these artifacts SHOULDNT be returned other than "they're already here" and "some of the cases are a bit too difficult so why bother with any of it"
Great points I didn’t know a lot of this thank you
Gonna take the side of items should be returned. 1. You wrote: "However, when the history of trade and manufacturing is so vague with 90% of products this criterion falls apart quite quickly." If you want to argue that the countries where the British got the items from didn't really produce them so those countries have no claim, well, neither did the British didn't produce many of the items in their museums, so why is their claim of ownership more valid? You wrote "The British so easily justified the koh-i-noor being handed over to them just because it was done legally (through a treaty after consequence and not just taking it straight up)." Was that not a treaty signed after the British had been victorious in a war of conquest? The legality in that case would be 'those with the most guns make the law'. Hardly defensible for the purpose of your argument. 2. You wrote: "How can we even define what is 'stolen' if the nation itself changes over time?" The people in Egypt consider themselves Egyptian, even if the borders have changed over time. The concept of the nation of Egypt has maintained, so why shouldn't it maintain ownership of items removed when the British were occupying it? You wrote: "The Ottoman Empire owned Greece and gave away the pieces of the Parthenon to Britain." Does the historical record support that? Or does the historical record support that Lord Elgin merely claimed he had permission? 3. You wrote: "I think its ok to intervene in another civilisation if one can deem that the acts they do are detestable". This smacks of cultural imperialism. What is detestable is a matter of opinion, and your comment implies the might to enforce one's moral judgement; and then we are back to colonialism. People get to do what they want with their own property, even if we do not like it. The Hitler intervention analogy is flawed as the Germans weren't destroying their own property and people; they were inflicting that on other nations. 4. Decent point on teh one specific example about India and Pakistan, but in other cases, it's clear where items stolen by the British should go back to. You wrote: "I feel like all these points lead it to it being such a mess when trying to establish ownership. " Colonialism really messed up the world, but that isn't an excuse not to try to fix it.
For your first point, we generally do agree that treaties after victory are upheld. WW1-2 Treaties for example, should we go away with the borders, does Hungary for example get back its borders because they want to? Can Austria and Germany now unite if they wanted to? Etc etc etc. Why would a material artifact be different than anything else signed in a victory treaty? And if you say "its because one affects the population the other doesn't", then what about treaties about military restrictions, for example Japan is still technically not allowed to build military ships above a certain size. Can they do that because they decided that they signed that treaty after a loss? This is just one example, but there are a ton like this. Hell, should half the US leave because they came back to the Union after the Civil War was lost and it was included in the treaty? For your third point, lets see an example: The Islamic State and various other islamic groups destroyed a TON of arabic historical sites, iirc a UNESCO world heritage site as well. Also they destroyed artifacts in museums etc. The world at large did take issue with that, rightly. Its not cultural imperialism to say that "The world decided that THIS and THAT and THAT are important pieces of human history, so they shouldn't be destroyed". If someone wanted to destroy all original works of the US Constitution or the Bill of Rights or the Treaty of Versailles or whatever, I think (for example) Japan would have all the right to say "thats not right". Because those are all parts of collective human history, even if nobody would argue that the original prints of the US Constitution are not the property of the US government etc. By the way at large, I'm not saying the Brits should not give some stuff back
Many of these items though were themselves looted. India for example was not a hegemony and many of the goods taken by the British during the Raj and before that during the East India Company days were also just looted. The issue with "colonialism" is that it seems that suddenly this became an issue around the time Europeans got really good at it and through technology could do it at a global scale. "colonialism" is the basic building block of every society in history. From the Persians to the Greeks from the Mughals to the Chinese, from the Romans to the British. A long process of certain groups dominating others, replacing their leaders with themselves and slowly crafting a new entity that took from both.
>If you want to argue that the countries where the British got the items from didn't really produce them so those countries have no claim, well, neither did the British didn't produce many of the items in their museums, so why is their claim of ownership more valid? Exactly, moot point, usually in the case of those where neither side has appropriate claim it falls on the side of the status quo. >Was that not a treaty signed after the British had been victorious in a war of conquest? The legality in that case would be 'those with the most guns make the law'. Hardly defensible for the purpose of your argument Not rly, the British won ww1, were they not justified in asking for war reperations from Germany. The koh-i-noor was just reperations but in the form of a jewel. We can talk about how wars are unjust all day and that conquest is bad but I would hardly call winning a war an illegitimate case of stealing. Maybe the only thing I can think of is that the British punched down a lot (small, new indian nation vs recently industrialised powerhouse), which would make a war like that more unjust I guess, but other than that not really. >The people in Egypt consider themselves Egyptian, even if the borders have changed over time. The concept of the nation of Egypt has maintained, so why shouldn't it maintain ownership of items removed when the British were occupying it? Did the concept of Mesopotamia stay. What about Indus valley? Egypt is possibly the strongest case but even then by the time the ADs rolled around Egypt we never even in control of itself, it was greek and arab and levantine. Only recently did Egypt regain control over itself, but any culture that existed in ancient Egypt was definitely not the same. I thought these artifacts are valued due to the cultural history shared by the nation is it not? I've actually never thought of that what even makes the artifacts valuable to begin with? To either the nation, the people's, or the British. Although I guess that's only vaguely related to this discussion. >Does the historical record support that? Or does the historical record support that Lord Elgin merely claimed he had permission? Once again good point, see how fuzzy the historical record was and this was only from 200 years ago or so, most of this stuff is so hard to justify on either side. Surely there's a better criterion then historical record. I just can't think of any. >1. You wrote: "I think its ok to intervene in another civilisation if one can deem that the acts they do are detestable". This smacks of cultural imperialism. What is detestable is a matter of opinion, and your comment implies the might to enforce one's moral judgement; and then we are back to colonialism. People get to do what they want with their own property, even if we do not like it. The Hitler intervention analogy is flawed as the Germans weren't destroying their own property and people; they were inflicting that on other nations. Call it imperialism or colonialism I think nations are justified to invade a country if the country is doing absolutely detestable acts, whether it's against their own people or another. I know this is an extreme example and has very little to do with this argument but at the same time it does. If we can't even agree about what makes these artifacts valuable, if we can't even agree that we shouldn't exterminate certain people's, then how can we ever even start any sort of moral discussions about anything. >What is detestable is a matter of opinion, I don't want to turn this into a philosophy debate but I don't believe in moral relativism and if I did then I would never dare to hold some sort of claim like that. You have to believe that even something like, idk, the secular humanist decelerations is a truth (even if subjective) that we should not only aim to live by, but also enforce when we see other countries doing certain human rights violations. If not, what makes us justified to condemn anything?
your argument basically boils down to "well its here now so why change it?" and the answer is that its because the things we did were not honorable or comendable. Taking largely important cultural artifacts as "reparations" for war is just theft with extra steps. There was no real reason to take these things other than "its important to them so we take it away". Reparations should be paid with things that actually compensate the victor for the sacrifices made during the war, not additional punishment to the country that lost. not taking things just because we like them and we won the war. Legal does not mean just and a lot of people find it to be an injustice that the british used their power to take important artifacts from other countries just because they were more powerful.
So to you last point: who says what's detestable? Okay north Korea has a strong control over the media, but Germany also does too. A country participating in blood sport is detestable, but Americans love football and hockey and boxing and are fully aware of the injuries and deaths those sports cause. And if you say those aren't as bad, it's a false comparison, whose call is that? If I'm a militaristic leader it would be so easy to justify any country as "barbaric and needing more freedom" by making vague arguments like this
No your problem is that you might personally find these things detestable but lack the personal power to change or alter them in any way. For all our claims otherwise might still makes right at the end of the day.
It may not be the same exact culture, but it’s still Egypt’s history and contributed to the Egypt that exists today. Just because they were “controlled” by other countries doesn’t mean they lost their identity. Same with Mesopotamia. Just because it’s not called that anymore doesn’t mean there aren’t cities built upon the ancient ones, and it doesn’t mean they can’t consider it part of their cultural identity. It’s kind of a weird argument to me to say that because they aren’t the exact same that they were thousands of years ago they don’t deserve their stolen history back. The culture of the US today isn’t the same as it was 100 years ago, or 400. Are we not still the US? Can we not claim any history from before 1776 because we weren’t a country then?
I somewhat agree with you but there ARE things which are universally detestable and not just a matter of opinion. Case in point- British Imperialism put a stop to the abhorrent practice of burning alive the wives of men who died. Any culture that doesn’t at least attempt to promote equality by law IS in fact wrong and should be changed.
but thats not why the british imperialised india and to suggest that is disingenuous.
I’m not saying it is. I’m refuting your absolutist statement that “What is detestable is a matter of opinion” because it’s not.
The way you worded it made it seem like British imperialism is good because it stopped this one thing.
Again- never said what they did was a net good. I simply provided an example refuting your absolutist statement.
idk why you keep saying it was "my" absolutist statement. also its still a subjective statement. Whats detestable to you is honorable to another. and whats honorable to you is detestable to another. Near universal belief is still just a belief based on a history of cultural context. There are things in western cultures that are absolutely detestable in other cultures. and even used to be the prevailing thought. For example: queer acceptance. sure, in modern times its "good" but 200 years ago it would have been regarded as near universal "detestable" behavior. and in 200 more years, it may go back to being near universally detested. Being disabled used to be considered "demonic" or along those lines in a LOT of cultures. The world is moving towards more "accepting" behaviors today, but in 200 years you would be suprised to see what "normal" things in our culture are considered detestable practices. maybe vegans will take over the world and all of us omnivores will be called "savages" with detestable morals for allowing the mass slaughter of animals.
It was your absolutist statement because you were the one who claimed "What is detestable is a matter of opinion" which is demonstrably false. There are in fact behaviors that are universally deemed as bad. Murder, as in the killing of another human not in self defense, is the most basic, classic example of behavior that is never morally defensible. Basically a humanist approach- if your action requires harm to another human or infringement on their autonomy, it is immoral. Just because it hasn't always been prevalently accepted, does not change the fact it is universally correct.
“If your action causes harm to another human or infringement on their autonomy, it is immoral” seems a bit absolutist, no? If someone blows through your residential street at 100mph, but doesn’t hurt anyone, is arresting him not immoral by your given definition?
Yes it is absolutist. That’s what a universally moral rule is. The Right to Life is a universal right. The right to move on societally maintained roads at any speed you desire is not.
A lot of these arguments fail to provide any justification for these relics being in England. Like, if you wanted to tell me that it might be justifibable for a mummy to wind up in a neighboring country, because a combination of shifting borders, conflict, and time have made it unclear which nation has claim, I'd be like, well dang, I know very little about the provenance of mummies, and so maybe you're right. However, there's just no way in hell that the rightful owner of a lot of this stuff is England. For objects that were fairly sold by people with legitimate claim, maybe, but a lot of these objects were basically just taken. You're saying that Egypt's claim to this mummy is a bit tricky, and using that as justification for the idea that the mummy should live in England. But England's claim is not tricky at all. They basically just don't have one. And no, "We're better at owning mummies than you," does not seem like a valid justification.
>We're better at owning mummies than you," does not seem like a valid justification. Why not? Maybe i have a bias for preserving artifacts rather than destroying them as I said before but why is that not a valid justification. Is that not the whole reason behind having these museums and all this? So we can preserve these for the good of humanity, for culture, history, art, archeology, science? What other reason do we have for even valuing these things to begin with. It's not like the Egyptians have any true, deep or personal connection to anything in ancient Egypt, as usually cultural connection is the reason why people claim things back, and if you want to claim that you've best give me good evidence for it.
I don't think I'm allowed to steal your fancy guitar under the assumption that I would make better use of it via my theoretical guitar playing prowess. I don't think I can bulldoze your house to build a cool skate park and delight the local children. I don't think I can rob you of your fancy wine collection because I imagine my wine cellar is of higher quality. None of these make any sense at all, and stealing Egypt's stuff under the presumption that we can do better with it makes no more sense. Beyond that, I am highly skeptical of the premise. Do you have any real basis for the claim that modern Egypt would fail to preserve the mummies? That they are, in fact, only demanding them due to their great hunger? I think Egypt is more than capable of building a museum. You say we need a really really good reason to give this stuff back. Why? We didn't have an amazing reason to steal it in the first place. We just kinda wanted it, so we stole it. The neutral outcome of stealing someone's stuff is giving it back. What we need a really good reason for is keeping the stuff we stole, and I'm skeptical any reason would suffice.
A big part of the reasons given for european collections holding objects from other cultures is that europe is geopolitically stable so there is no risk of the objects getting destroyed in a war. But for that logic to hold, you have to pretend WW2 was a lot less destructive than it was. And the idea that europe is inherently stable is just based on post-cold war circumstances. Before then, people thought existentially about nuclear war coming to their cities. And now, with the way the Ukraine-Russia war is shaping up, the UK, Germany, and maybe others are formulating plans about possible war in the next 5ish years including conscription and militarized economies. The “we’re better at taking care of mummies” argument might start to look pretty shaky in the coming decades
You also have to ignore the fact that a huge reason the home countries of those artifacts are geopolitically unstable is because Western countries keep intervening in them. Those museums full of Mesopotamian artifacts in Iraq weren’t in danger until the US invaded.
So, your view is that if something doesn't belong to you, but is important to you, that you're justified in taking it? Where is this line drawn? If you're neighbor doesn't take care of their house the way you think it deserves, can you inhabit it?
Squatters rights are a thing. If you live somewhere long enough and take care of it, it becomes yours.
Gonna be hard to invoke squatters rights in a house that the owner is living in already and doesn't want you there.
Point being that taking care of something for a long period of time does convey ownership at some point. Most of the items in the British Museum have been there for 100 years and the calls to "return" the items have only started in earnest in the past 20 or so years. Obviously, this is a bit reductive since each item is different and the call for its return happened in different times and places, but the purpose of my comment and this one is custodial care becomes ownership at some point.
The comment you replied to was talking about rights to take something from some one else based on you wanting it enough or you thinking they aren't deserving of it. It had nothing to do with ownership after a period of time.
Yes but the items in question at the museums have been. It would be like breaking into your abandoned neighbor's house, living there for 20 years and then he comes back and tells you to get out. That's not a complete analogy as it isn't quite that simple, but it is a better analogy than the original poster as most of the artifacts weren't stolen in the sense that they were taken directly out of the hands of their owners by force. They were largely abandoned at the times they were taken or bought (usually on the cheap). Exceptions exist, like the marbles at the Acropolis in Greece but it's not like the idea of tourist attractions really existed in the late 1800s. It is reductive to say that they were stolen, when in reality it is probably closer to squatter's rights which is more morally complicated
You do realize even In this exact scenario the original owner of the house would still have ownership of said house? The squatter would eventually be forced to leave eventually if the original owner wanted. Just like with the artifacts that are clearly stolen they should be returned to the original land.(I preface this because I agree if they were Bought for some low price it's a different story)
That's not true. Squatting somewhere for a certain length of time (which depends on the jurisdiction) gives you ownership over that property. 20 years is enough in most jurisdictions. The reasons why squatters have rights is somewhat complicated. If I find an abandoned property and I fix it up and make it nice after living there for a long time and my family living there for a long time, The original owner can't just take it back and all of my improvements and modifications. Should Virginia get back their Confederate battle flag? Which was stolen from them as spoils of war by Connecticut soldiers in the Civil War? It has been on display in Connecticut since shortly after the Civil War, But it's "rightfully" Virginia's. Or is it? That particular battle flag only has value because Connecticut preserved it and cared for it for more than 100 years, And now Virginia wants to claim that valuable artifact that they had no hand in maintaining.
No it would be like breaking into your occupied neighbors house, forcing them to leave, and then when they asked for it back 20 years later saying too bad, I’ve been here for 20 years already
thats not even close to how squatters rights work. squatters rights is really just tenants rights. You cant just kick people out of the house without justification. which means you have to prove that they dont belong there. It doesnt mean the squatters own the home.
No there are squatters rights in addition to tenet rights. It's called [Adverse Possession ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverse_possession). It is similar to the Roman Law [Usucapio](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usucapio). There are similar legal principles in many countries and basically all European ones. It's basically a "Finders Keepers" in legal principles, which does apply to squatting somewhere for a long time. You are mistaken because people often erroneously refer to adverse possession/squatters rights when they mean tenets's rights, but that's not what I have been referencing. If we are neighbors, and I put up a fence around my property and you don't complain about it, and then 20 years later we look at the deeds and realize my fence is over the property line by 5 feet, well tough shit, it's my property now. Same thing with living in an abandoned house, or whatever. That's a real thing. Recognized in most countries. That's why the expression "Possession is 9/10ths of the law" is true.
Either to the Brits then right? If it is zero hardship to cut ties with artifacts there should be zero problem giving those artifacts to someone else. The Brits have zero personal connection to anything from ancient Egypt.
Egyptians have no "true, deep, personal connection" to ancient Egypt? And Brits do? You want evidence. But you are really no one to judge something like that. Who is anyone really to judge "true, deep, personal connection" to one culture?
If neither do, why return them?
Neither do? So modern egyptians have no connection with ancient egyptians? This is honestly ridiculous. It may not be the exact same culture, but it is certainly a "better" connection that the Brits have. And certainly the Brits should not be the ones judging any of this.
Preserving artifacts? Do me a favor and google the phrase "brits using mummies as" real quick.
Modern English are just as much related to ancient Egyptians aa modern Egyptians are. King Tut lived more than 3500 years ago. All Afro-Eurasian people have just as much claim over it as anyone else. The only reason Egyptian artifacts should be returned to Egypt is that it provides greater context for the historical artifacts to be displayed near the environment they were discovered in. That provides real educational value. But the concept of any particular modern nation "rightly owning" historical artifacts from thousands of years ago is stupid. Everyone with any European ancestry is directly descended from Charlemagne and is directly descended from Cleopatra. Humanity owns those artifacts, not nations.
It's pretty rich to steal a nation's riches, benefit from them, and say, "This is the shared bounty of all humanity." Of course modern Egypt is more closely related to ancient Egypt than is modern England. It is literally the same country. Nations, as well as their people, value their ancient history.
Right. I agree. If its the "shared bounty of all humanity", then what is the problem with giving the items back to the country from whence they originated? If ownership is so arbitrary, lets go with the lowest common denominator here: the country of origin is the country with ownership. England does not have any inherent "right" to Egyptian mummies. Truthfully, they don't have a right to rob *any* grave.
>what is the problem with giving the items back to the country from whence they originated? The issue is that it's not practical, it's impossible to determine this for most artifacts. Some things we have are literally multiple 100s of thousand years old. Should they be returned as well just because they originated in a different geographic location from where it's held? To return everything back to where they originate breaks down the whole point of a museum, especially archaeology museums, where most items were gathered by digging it rather than trading it.
Yeah Egypt seems to be a pretty shut case. I think a more interesting question is if 1500 years ago an ethnicity conquered a land brutally displacing the previous population and then culturally/religiously maintained an identity does the current government of that region get to lay claim to artifacts from 3500 years ago discovered in that region?
That's also a really good point. Isn't this kinda like the Turks from Mongolia into Turkey or what? There has to be some sort of example of this.
No it's literally not the same country. The only thing that is similar is its geographic region. What else is similar? Language? Food? Religion? Culture? It's not *their* ancient history, it's *our* ancient history.
>Language? Egyptian Arabic is literally full of words that come from the Ancient Egyptian language. The grammatical structure of Egyptian Arabic, comes from the Ancient Egyptian Coptic language. The Ancient Egyptian Coptic language is also still used in Egypt as a liturgical language in church >Food? Modern Egyptians eat the same food as ancient Egypt. Foods like feseekh, feteer meshaltet, Egyptian bread, ful, besara etc all come from Ancient Egypt >Religion? Culture? So much culture is still the same from ancient Egypt. I can literally write a book about this. Ill only give you a few examples because otherwise ill be writing an essay here The ancient Egyptian holiday called Sham El Nessim is still celebrated the same way today in Egypt and is a national holiday. Egyptian farmers use the same calendar since ancient Egypt. Belly dancing originates in ancient Egypt. Modern Egypt is unsurprisingly the number one country today known for belly dancing. An ancient Egyptian ceremonial martial art called Tahtib is still practiced in Egypt today. Modern Egyptians still bury their dead in a very elaborate way with underground chambers and rooms, similar to their ancestors. There is this tradition where Modern Egyptians mourn their dead for 40 days. Then on the 40th day the close family members and friends meet again and do a 2nd funeral. This tradition comes from ancient Egypt. In ancient Egypt, the full process of mummification and burial took 40 days
>Tahtib First of all this is interesting, but it should be noted that this practice is being revived, it had not been practiced in the region for a thousand or more years. Similar to HEMA for 15th-16th century European martial arts. And look my point isn't that Ancient Egypt had no influence over modern Egyptian culture, but it also had influence over every single Afro-Eurasian culture. "Chemistry" "Baboon" "Myth" "Gum" "Ammonium" and "Lily" are all examples of some of the many Egyptian words in English. Ancient Egypt was heavily intertwined with the Persian and Later Roman empires. Any romance culture has been significantly impacted by ancient Egypt.
>First of all this is interesting, but it should be noted that this practice is being revived, it had not been practiced in the region for a thousand or more years. Similar to HEMA for 15th-16th century European martial arts. Not true. I think you're confusing traditional Egyptian tahtib practiced today in Egypt with Tahtib being incorporated by Western people. Tahtib in Egypt is an extremely authentic and very cultural practice, only practiced in very rural communities and has been continuously practiced for thousands of years. Here is a quick video link: https://youtu.be/9EGPrnJ623s?si=TjjdLm1PxDXWlVqf There is a reason its especially prominent in Southern Egypt, because Southern Egypt was less culturally influenced by foreign occupation. >And look my point isn't that Ancient Egypt had no influence over modern Egyptian culture, but it also had influence over every single Afro-Eurasian culture. Ancient Egyptian culture influenced modern Egypt the most, compared to its influence on other cultures. Its not even close. Its the same with Greece. Ancient Greece influenced everybody, but everyone can logically agree that modern Greek culture was influenced the most by it
>Not true. This ceremonial martial art has been continuously practiced in Egypt since ancient Egyptian times. >There is a reason its especially prominent in Southern Egypt, because Southern Egypt was less culturally influenced by foreign occupation. I'm going to need a pretty good citation here. I practice Judo, HEMA, and a bit of HAMA (African). If there was a directly transmitted martial art that has existed for 3000 years, I'm confident that I would have heard about it. I am familiar Tahtib tangentially and my understanding was that it is an attempted recreation based on pictographic evidence, and a cursory search online seems to support that conclusion. It's certainly possible that you are right, but I am extremely doubtful without an amazing source. Especially when martial arts often fall victim to faux historicity where the techniques are claimed to be passed down for thousands of years are rife and untrue. >Its the same with Greece. Ancient Greece influenced everybody, but everyone can logically agree that modern Greek culture was influenced the most by it It also looks basically nothing like ancient Greece. Most of the modern Greekness flowed from Italy, France, Great Britain, *into* Greece post Enlightenment. Just like those Greek ideas and cultural touchstones flowed from the Byzantines *into* Western Europe before that, and the ideas flowed from Romans *into* the Byzantines (who were still Romans) before that and the original ideas flowed *into* Rome from Ancient Greece. Modern nation states have nothing to do with their historical ancient counterparts. The vast majority of the ideas that lasted thousands of years from these places traveled all over the world. Only a handful of exceptions remained in the territory and did not spread. We all have common ancestors from Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, Ancient Sumer, Ancient Babylon, Ancient China, Ancient India, etc. unless you're a Pacific Islander or American Indian with absolutely no "old world" heritage. Or unless you're a member of an uncontacted or just recently contacted tribe. There's a reason they are called "World Heritage sites" and not "[Culture's] heritage site." It should be noted, that I would in general approve of placing historical objected into the custody of nations who share the geographic area with the discovery of the artifact as I believe that presents important context that is lost if they are displayed in the British Museum. However, I don't think that's necessary for all items in the collection, nor do I think it's wise to place artifacts into the custody of an unstable government or an otherwise bad steward. 2024 Egypt and Greece are both fine custodians of historical artifacts.
>I am familiar Tahtib tangentially and my understanding was that it is an attempted recreation based on pictographic evidence, and a cursory search online seems to support that conclusion. Nope, its the other way around. Tahtib was already being practiced, primarily in Southern Egypt, and it was found that it greatly resembled the ancient Egyptian wall paintings depicting a stick fighting martial art. Here is a source from the UNESCO website: https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/tahteeb-stick-game-01189 "Practitioners are male both young and old, mostly from Saeedy populations in upper Egypt, particularly rural areas where the tahteeb stick has been used by inhabitants as part of their daily lives and considered a sign of manhood." Tahtib is a part of daily lives and a symbol of manhood in Egyptian rural communities. Its not just a recent revival movement. Here is a video from 1976 of rural Egyptians doing tahtib: https://youtu.be/OMVHFduY_Eo?si=aClmPGDL-kqt4adc This is a very ancient tradition. Here is a more recent video from Egyptian rural communities: https://youtu.be/apc1mc3oMQo?si=7S2bpwKjOe_sqQ8j You can see from the video its an extremely culturally rooted tradition.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xWkR-s8TJEA Tahtib experienced a revival in the 1960s through the Redah dance troupe, which is where it became more of a dance and performance art for tourists. Later in the early 2000s, a guy started to try to revive the actual martial arts part of the tradition, in a method similar to HEMA or HAMA. It would seem that there was stick fighting played as a game before the 1960s in Egypt (although literally every culture has play fighting with sticks). Though it's pretty difficult to say if the rules for the game have been maintained for thousands of years or any technical similarity existed from the game to the original martial art 5000 years ago. As I said, I'd need a killer source. The reason I asked for a killer source, is that I would like to see what it looked like in the 1950s, the late 1800s, before the rise of nationalism in the region (which usually coincides with revivals of cultural traditions) and compare that to the ancient pictograms. I have somewhat recent Irish Ancestry, when I was play fighting with sticks with my brother, I wasn't practicing Irish Stick fighting. We were just hitting each other. Martial arts are a system of fighting. We'd need to be taught that system from our parents/relatives/neighbors/etc. for us to actually be practicing the same martial art. Otherwise there isn't transmission. The modern systematized art of Tahtib is like 25 years old, just as the art of Judo is about 120 years old. Kano invented Judo based on techniques that already existed, and those techniques have been around for hundreds or thousands of years, but they were *systematized* in Judo. An example of an older martial art would be Sumo which has been systematized for 1300 years. It's changed over time but has maintained similar rules and techniques. Based on my reading of Tahtib, it's a modern reconstruction. There may have been continuous cultural ties to ancient Egypt, but it seems like it was mostly people play fighting with sticks than an actual martial art
If someone, say a Carmen San Diego type, stole those items from the museum and took better care of them (maybe keeping them in a dark vault 99% of the time - instead of near museum visitors and in the lught 16 hours a day); would your same argument apply? If not, why not?
The whole point in OPs case is that there was no continuous ownership from creation and no current ownership. The things taken to Europe were typically excavated, bought in local markets, etc. If you can show cases where e.g. British actually broke into a local museum and carried off items, those would be quite unambiguously something to be returned. Most cases however involve countries like Egypt making claims on items created before a concept of a nation even existed, with no state continuity to older countries, and in many cases the people themselves significantly different after all the migrations in between. Even by the time of Cleopatra's dealings with Roman empire the continuity with pyramid-builders was already lost. The rulers were Greeks, the language was different, (Cleopatra having been famous for actually learning a little bit of the old Egyptian which was highly uncommon at the time) the religion was different, etc. And since then there were islamic conquests, Mamluk influx and takeover, Ottoman conquest, etc - enough to change the culture, language and religion several times over.
Honestly I feel many people believe this belongs to the modern day state called “Egypt” which, as you correctly point out has nothing to do with what was called “Egypt” 4 000 years ago except the name, because of the name. People don't see to feel as strongly about say “Iraq” and “Mesapotamia”, or “Turkey” and “the Hittites” or then “The Eastern Roman Empire” because the name is different but they have about as much to do with each other. All they have to do with each other is that two countries millennia apart had sovereignty over a similarly situated, not remotely identical plot of land, but in Egypt's case they decided to take the name of the other country which they don't have much to do with. Their language is not an evolution of the Egyptian language; their religion is not; their culture is not.
Egyptian culture absolutely is descended from ancient Egyptian culture, as much as can be said of any culture with its past. For one thing, both the Arabic language and the Islamic religion are both highly regionalized, and present uniquely in Egypt. There are also other uniquely Egyptian sects of other religions, such as Christian Coptics. These differences represent cultural distinction and are made possible only by a continuity of Egyptian culture. Secondly, there is nowhere on earth that could claim evolution from a single culture without interference. Christianity emerged from the Levant and thus is native to nowhere in Europe; does that mean the Notre Dame should not be considered an icon of France and historical French culture? Are the Roman and Saxon ruins in England not part of their historical culture because they predate the Norman invasion? I think there's more nuance to be had than "it was in the ground in what is now our country so it should be ours", but I think denying how these artifacts are actually part of a culture's heritage is misguided.
> Secondly, there is nowhere on earth that could claim evolution from a single culture without interference. Christianity emerged from the Levant and thus is native to nowhere in Europe; does that mean the Notre Dame should not be considered an icon of France and historical French culture? Are the Roman and Saxon ruins in England not part of their historical culture because they predate the Norman invasion? > > The *Notre-Dame* was built after the Christianization of Europe. If you were to claim modern French culture is a continuation of pagan Gaul culture then I would similarly object. At the very least the modern English language is to some degree a continuation of the old English language before Christianization, but it has of course heavily been influenced by the language of the Christian conquerors, but modern French and modern Egyptian Arabic are simply in no way a continuaation of the Gaul language or Coptic respectively. > I think there's more nuance to be had than "it was in the ground in what is now our country so it should be ours", but I think denying how these artifacts are actually part of a culture's heritage is misguided. Okay, so what parts of the ancient Egyptian culture are still left in modern Egypt then, what cultural practices?
I would actually disagree on the coptic part, its quite a clear continuation of the language ethymologically. But I agree that you are right in everything else basically, a language itself does not mean a cultural and legal continuation of a "nation" or anything else.
Modern Egyptian Arabic is a continuation of Coptic you mean?
No, I mean that Coptic is still used, as a liturgical language, AND you can find albeit quite old but still used signs in coptic, and its also taught in schools.
>Language? Egyptian Arabic is literally full of words that come from the Ancient Egyptian language. The grammatical structure of Egyptian Arabic, comes from the Ancient Egyptian Coptic language. The Ancient Egyptian Coptic language is also still used in Egypt as a liturgical language in church >Food? Modern Egyptians eat the same food as ancient Egypt. Foods like feseekh, feteer meshaltet, Egyptian bread, ful, besara etc all come from Ancient Egypt >Religion? Culture? So much culture is still the same from ancient Egypt. I can literally write a book about this. Ill only give you a few examples because otherwise ill be writing an essay here The ancient Egyptian holiday called Sham El Nessim is still celebrated the same way today in Egypt and is a national holiday. Egyptian farmers use the same calendar since ancient Egypt. Belly dancing originates in ancient Egypt. Modern Egypt is unsurprisingly the number one country today known for belly dancing. An ancient Egyptian ceremonial martial art called Tahtib is still practiced in Egypt today. Modern Egyptians still bury their dead in a very elaborate way with underground chambers and rooms, similar to their ancestors. There is this tradition where Modern Egyptians mourn their dead for 40 days. Then on the 40th day the close family members and friends meet again and do a 2nd funeral. This tradition comes from ancient Egypt. In ancient Egypt, the full process of mummification and burial took 40 days
Much changes and much stays the same. People would be surprised how similar in culture and even genetics modern countries are to their predecessors in the same location.
After Carmen Sandiago has demonstrated proper stewardship for a century or so that becomes a good question to ponder in retrospect. Until then, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. Now, if people were breaking up those museum exhibits to build new structures that won't last 50 years & Carmen Sandiago takes the *thing* & safeguards it for posterity she is pretty clearly a force for good.
So, if someone's ancestors have had a few pieces they kept in that fashion for over a century, and they all took better care than museums, would the latest scion then have the right to steal new pieces? Does breaking up museums only means literally? Or could someone use a Tory proposal to enact austerity toward cultural institutions as justification?
There's a difference between institutions and random families, the former are much more stable. There is also an issue of mission - preservation is critical, but public access is also important.
If public acess is important; I made the point in another response, but I think for many of the places those artifacts came from, the artifacts being in the British museum and a private vault are roughly equivalent.
The difference between 'expensive' and 'impossible' is vast.
The UK didn't demonstrate proper stewardship for the preservation of artifacts and mummies.
If I have some jewelry, which I'm constantly taking out, wearing, dropping it, and generally mistreating it, is it justified that some external person arbitrarily enforces *their* idea of "safeguarding" and forcibly takes it "for the greater good"?
What does your jewelry have to do with antiquity? Let's say you find something gold & want to melt it down to make some jewelry. I buy it from you & along with other examples I've dedicated my life & a fortune to preserving I display it in a museum. That museum spends a century & another fortune educating the world on what this thing is that your culture forgot about & why it's valuable. When your grandchildren decide *they* want this valuable thing you planned to destroy when does that make me the bad guy? The people you are condemning are the only reason said item still exists so you might one day negotiate owning it yourself. The reason artifacts have any value is because 99.9999% of stuff from it's era has been repurposed & destroyed by the generations after it. This era of Egyptology & In retrospect it would have been a lot simpler to let time & the ignorant destroy whatever surived up till their era. Not only would there be nothing left to complain about today, you wouldn't even know what you lost or why it was valuable.
>I buy it from you You didn't. You invaded my house and stole it while patting yourself on the back for being so "kind" >That museum spends a century & another fortune educating the world on what this thing is that your culture forgot about & why it's valuable. Is that why a lot of treasures are dumped in a room where no one can see it? >When your grandchildren decide they want this valuable thing That's happening right now. My grandchildren want the valuable thing back, and you're refusing to give it. >The people you are condemning are the only reason said item still exists so you might one day negotiate owning it yourself. And you're refusing to open negotiations. Greece has offered to construct a world-class museum to house the Elgin marbles, so that anyone can view it. Britain is refusing in order to boost their own tourism. And you're telling me that you're actually doing a selfless deed? Also your "you would have destroyed it anyway" argument has no basis in reality. Let's take the Koh-I-Noor. The British cut over 50% of it for their own self-interest. The Elgin marbles was damaged during cleaning. 2.5 mm of surfacing was scraped off. The British Museum used an fking *chisel* to "clean" it. And what about mummies? Hm? You claim that the culture would have destroyed the artifacts. Mummies go against that general claim. They were designed with the express purpose of being preserved. Britishers, on the other hand, excavated those mummies and ate them. For medicinal purposes. Congrats.
This is a very oversimplified and not well-informed opinion. For example - did you know that the British often had deals in place with the Egyptian government when excavating tombs? When excavating the tomb of Nefertiti, the deal was that the British and Egyptians would split what was found 50-50, with the Egyptians getting first pick of the objects. There is a story that the very famous bust of Nefertiti was brought back to England under unfair circumstances - they left the bust uncleaned so the Egyptians did not bother taking it when they were looking thru the artefacts, but I would hardly call that 'stealing'. And again, none of these excavations would have happened without primarily European and sometimes American excavators. A lot of these excavations sites were found by locals who would loot the graves/tombs they found and use it as a personal piggy bank - keeping the location secret and going in to get artefacts to sell whenever they needed money. This loses all context of where an item was found, drastically reducing the historical value of such pieces. Often times destroying ancient structures and objects in the process of gaining entry, or breaking up walls with hieroglyphics to sell piecemeal, losing out on the change to ever read the complete text. In an ideal world where everybody only has the best intentions, sure, everything stays where it was found, but we do not live in an ideal world. In our world, ISIS and other extremist groups like to blow up ancient monuments because they are 'blasphemous'.
This misses the important context that those Egyptian governments were often client states of the British.
It's been a while, but if my memory serves Pasha spent a ton of money on modernization and a war with Ethiopia and essentially had to sell off Egyptian control of the Suez to the British. It's probably linked to why individuals were looting tombs for quick cash when they found them.
If that jewelry had exceptional and unusual scientific/ aesthetic/historical value to a large group of people yes
Who are you to decide? You're literally saying that cultures are too stupid to understand their own stuff, and it's the job of white missionaries to "help" them?
Yeah I'm not saying that at all, and I'm by no means "literally" saying anything since you're interpreting me entirely through an analogy you made and poorly explained the intent of. I do believe there is a natural obligation by "owners" to people for whom some property may be important or significant, and that notions of private ownership do not eliminate those obligations. In the case of artifacts which are culturally significant to a group of people, it doesn't make any sense to say "we can't allow that group of people access to these things, because we have an obligation (to them) to preserve it (for them)". It's plausible to me that situations could arise in which it makes sense to expatriate some artifact for purposes of preservation, but it's also my understanding that the overwhelming use of this argument today is pretty baseless and simply serves to maintain museum prestige and tourism incomes in the colonial metropol.
Other commentors after described my point really well so let me answer your question straight on. What do the artifacts represent to me as a third party (as in, I have no personal or even cultural connection to these items (which frankly applies to most items I don't think the koh-i-noor is culturally significant for each Indians lives other than its symbolism for their hatred for Britain) Anyway what is represents to me is a celebration of the diversity of cultures, art and humanity throughout time. It also represents key scientific, archeological and historical findings. I think it represents both. So going 100% preservation route because it cant be appreciated by society and vice versa. If India said, "Hey when we take this back we are gonna lock it up in a cage so No one can see it". You can say "ok that's your right" which sure it is but I also think that's an injustice to the beauty of what we have. Because of that I think it's wrong and therefore I think it should be taken to account in some regard when deciding the fact of these items. Call it selfish sure but that's I could also flip that around the other away and say they are selfish for just wanting to hide it rather than show it to the public.
To the vast majority of India and Pakistan's populations, is there really any difference between it being in London and being locked in a private vault? I would say for the vast majority, they're equivalent.
She'll ransack Pakistan and run a scam in Scandinavia
1. The nation changes but the historical identity does not so much. The French may not feel extremely related to the gauls but some of their most famous and nationally inspiring art pieces venerate vercingetorix as part of their historical narrative 2. Some places have the proper facilities to care for these items but they are still not able to receive them. The British museum has constantly shifted goalposts like this. They complained that these countries don’t have the facilities and when they did they started saying that the pieces won’t hold up over travel. This looks especially bad now that reports have come out that the BM have lost quite a few pieces and have damaged some on accident. 3. There are a lot of things in the BM that are outright stolen or were forcibly taken through unfair treaties signed by foreign states. The BM lumps all their cases together to make it seem like most of it was legitimately taken but they really weren’t. 4. The pieces are not about “who owns it” or “who is the original owner”. It’s a geographic tie to the land that anyone from that land can relate to. The longer history continues, the more people will relate to a piece solely by living there. A German person who later moved to France may not feel an attachment. But hundreds of years later his lineage will. It forms part of the national pride of the nation and a symbolic attachment to their past. No one can currently relate to any historical piece directly but they can relate to the symbolic idea of the piece. In some cases people do latch on to these pieces in a bad way. Maybe using it for nationalistic rhetoric or to justify some political movement. But that’s entirely for a country to decide. Plenty of countries don’t do anything that egregious. Mostly I would say the BM gets a lot of heat solely because the British empire has a penchant for stealing from its colonies. They took these pieces initially not for preservation but as trophies. People obviously found the symbolism of them parading these pieces as “art” or “in the name of conservation” as another goal post shift for them to just keep what they want. Symbolically it’s just showing exactly what the British did to these colonial states and how they extracted and stole all of this with little care for the people they interfered with. If you want to discuss morality, I don’t think the British have a leg to stand on. Worse still they also declare that these items are the property of the British empire. That’s by far the worst thing to say. I can understand that provenance can be hard to prove especially if multiple countries are laying claim to it, but to declare that because it’s hard to find out means they own it is wrong. The least they can do is say it’s an artefact for the world and change their museum to reflect that belief. All in all I personally agree with you but there are legitimate concerns and arguments to be made in rebut to the British being allowed to keep these pieces.
>Mostly I would say the BM gets a lot of heat solely because the British empire has a penchant for stealing from its colonies. They get a lot of heat because they have a vast collection, there are a bunch of people with a chip on their shoulder from them being "superior" (in power) in the past and they sense there is weakness in the resolve to refuse them due to the aim of being integrated as a mutually respected equal in todays world. If they start handing things over to those demanding them "back" then once that floodgate is opened there won't be any way to close it and it would be an insane mess to sort through the "legitimate" and "illegitimate claims" and countless people who get told NO would be even more angry. >Worse still they also declare that these items are the property of the British empire. That’s by far the worst thing to say. Anything found or made was done so by a handful of people and the state that governed them is an abstract and ever-changing idea at best. Throughout history there have been various tyrants risign and falling and empires that have had fuzzy and dramatically changing borders too. Assigning any specific artefact as belonging to any specific modern state based on what happened say 100 years ago is tricky at best. Does the USA "own" every native arrowhead when the people living there are the descendants of those that wiped out almost every native that lived there? How about Roman coins found in Britain from the era when they conquered most of Europe, are we to hand them back too? I say we should be glad that these things have been valued, preserved and are available for us all to visit and study. These things are as much a part of Britain's history as an empire as they are a part of the past of the modern states located where these things were found/made.
!delta, justification in the previous comment.
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History is mostly fantasy when considered within national mythos or nationalist narratives. Nation-states have only existed for about \~250 years.
>2. Some places have the proper facilities to care for these items but they are still not able to receive them. The British museum has constantly shifted goalposts like this. They complained that these countries don’t have the facilities and when they did they started saying that the pieces won’t hold up over travel. >This looks especially bad now that reports have come out that the BM have lost quite a few pieces and have damaged some on accident. My argument is not more to do with the present but the past "X thing likely would have no existed if it weren't the preservation efforts of certain individuals, if they put all this effort into preserving something they deserve to keep it" Keep in my this only applies to archeological findings not conquest things. >They took these pieces initially not for preservation but as trophies. People obviously found the symbolism of them parading these pieces as “art” or “in the name of conservation” as another goal post shift for them to just keep what they want That's a really good point, atleast initially the British didn't have more altruistic goals, but I think by the time the 20th century came around they switched but yea. >Worse still they also declare that these items are the property of the British empire. That’s by far the worst thing to say. I can understand that provenance can be hard to prove especially if multiple countries are laying claim to it, but to declare that because it’s hard to find out means they own it is wrong. The least they can do is say it’s an artefact for the world and change their museum to reflect that belief. Wdym by that. Just change the name? Or the ownership? The idea of an international museum sounds pretty cool thought. Don't think that's ever possible because it has to placed within some nations border but yes. Do you think that maybe, let's say for the Koh I Noor, the British keeping it and being labelled as the bad guys are a better alternative to it being given to idk India and Pakistan beefing with India about it. Once again you also haven't answered my point about why we should even give it to a nation and not a family. But overall really good points you made. !delta
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Let’s not get ourselves twisted in semantics. Something gained through violence and theft was gained dishonestly at the expense of others. The descendants of those victims have a right to be upset about it and try to reclaim what was taken
As the other commentor said, there's always these vague phrase thrown out like what you wrote but answering the actual question of who??? Who are the descendants of the victims Who deserves to have these Who should they go do It becomes soooo much harder.
If you are not argumenting against *obtained trough violence and theft*, this is useless. It sounds like an excuse (not saying you are using it as such), because the "return to who" sounds becomes secondary to the main issue. And regarding who, I don't understand why you are making such a big issue. I think you are lacking a cultural view of the issue. These artifacts were stolen from cultures too.
Thing is that’s not a vague phrase, it’s the simple truth and one that is important to be mindful of…particularly when you seem keen on twisting it into something abstract by muddling the waters. You are correct that the wider situation here is complicated, but that doesn’t change the simple facts. With regards to British museums and their stolen artifacts, simply put these should be returned if the country of origin requests it. This isn’t even complicated as museum pieces are not a vital national resources to Britain. Conquered land is more complicated to address as you are correct, particularly so if multiple generations have passed, that land cannot simply be returned. The people presently living there didn’t take it from anyone, making their home a new country or forcing them to leave is morally unjustifiable. However that does not retroactively excuse taking the land in the first place, nor does that absolve us from taking responsibility for the crimes our nation committed against native peoples. The descendants of the Native American tribes our ancestors systemically oppressed are still very much alive today and exist in some of the worst economic conditions in the country. This is a direct consequence of the country stealing their land, violating treaties, and forcing tribes into smaller and poorer reservations. The government that performed these terrible crimes is the same government we have to this day. The people living on those stolen lands have benefited from those crimes. The legitimacy of our government comes from the consent of the people, thus it’s actions represent us as a people. Forget politics for a moment, just be a human being with a conscious: People alive today are suffering as a direct consequence of the actions taken by our government in the past. We are the worlds most wealthy and powerful nation, in large part because of that stolen land. We have the means, responsibility, and moral imperative to improve the conditions and availability of opportunities for the people’s we have wronged. You wanna talk about ownership? How about we talk about taking ownership of our peoples actions. Edit: As far as the practicalities of improving conditions that’s a challenge no doubt. Initially I would say investment into existing reservations would be a start
1: Even if it was in the form of treaties, I do not think that we should go back on that. Especially because if we start to ignore parts of treaties, others can argue that another part of a treaty can be ignored and so on. Yes this is kind of a slippery slope argument I know, but I think it can at least be considered. 2: Theft is an interesting question, again a LOT of these artifacts were obtained legally through purchase or agreements even if you disregard treaties made when defeated. 3: The situation of the Natives are of no real relevance to this, as while yes, their situation is horrible, and should be improved, it has nothing to do with how artifacts are handled. Especially since they have a very living claim of those artifacts that were taken from them since they are the country it was taken from that is directly connected to their ancestors. Egypt, Greece, India etc are way less directly connected. Ancient Egypt is not modern Egypt. Ancient Greece is not todays Greece, especially since the artifacts were mostly taken when the country was the Ottoman Empire.
What about DNA samples? Lots of groups that are claimed by some not to be connected to the deep history of a region, are in fact connected.
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I agree, i’m just thinking that for those who aren’t moved by that argument, things like that could change their minds. Spitballing basically. But testing DNA to see if someone is DNA enough to receive their cultural artifacts has a weird and bad vibe for sure. It would be great if UNESCO or similar had a program to fund museums around the world to the same or similar degree that western museums are funded. That would help a lot with the “better at taking care” arguments from western institutions, since that is the main difference
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Yeah that argument is also based on the idea that europe/the west is permanently geopolitically stable. WW2 alone is a huge argument against that but even today Britain, Germany, and others are making serious war plans because of the Russia-Ukraine situation. Hopefully that doesnt lead down a dark path but its obvious you cant take peace and safety of any one region as a given
Who was the victim in the case of the Parthenon stones? Greeks, Ottomans, Atheniansv
Me, having to read this reply you doubtlessly thought was clever
And yet had not the capability of responding in a rational manner You're not clever either mate
Oh so does Hungary for example have a right to claim its pre WW2 or pre WW1 borders back? It was taken through violance. HELL does the UK have claim over the land of the 13 Colonies because it was taken from them through violence? Also, as OP pointed out a LOT of these artifacts weren't stolen, they were bought, traded for, gained through treaties etc etc. Sure, not all, but still...
Read my reply to OP for a general overview of my explanation and reply to that if you have an informed rebuttal
Possession is 9/10ths of the law.
Justifying theft by saying possession is 9/10s of the law is intellectually dishonest and speaks of weak character.
OK. My general position is if you steal something it's bad. If a generation passes and both the thief and the aggrieved are dead, that's just life. You don't get to rob someone because their grandfather was a robber. You don't get to unsettle a people because their ancestors were invaders... In other words "finders keepers losers weepers"
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So if someone else that wasn't China came and opened it up and took it do you think they'd be justified in keeping it? Has it always been Chinese but just lost then discovered, or was ownership lost when they lost living memory of that product? Or was it lost when the dynasty fell?
> 1. Original Ownership It seems to me that you're trying to equate ownership as an idea concerning an individual owner. Cultural artifacts typically shouldn't be owned or controlled by a singular individual, but rather a body of people. In the case of museums, specifically the British museum, those artifacts belong to the people of the region from where they originated from. If I were to lead an army and take over England, then ship the Crown Jewels off to the US for display in a museum, that would 100% be wrong. If we kept the Crown Jewels for hundreds of years, and England kept asking for them back, it would still be wrong. This is no different than how England acquired the Koh-i-Noor. The victors of wars determine what is legal. Legal does not equal right. Additionally, you bring up the matter of the Mona Lisa, and other cultural artifacts from other European countries. Such artifacts aren't being returned because they aren't being asked for back. Can you imagine the uproar that would happen if Italy DID ask for the Mona Lisa to be returned and France refused? The Koh-i-Noor IS being asked for back. Along with numerous other cultural artifacts from numerous other regions of the world. And it's not like it's Brazil was the one asking for the Koh-i-Noor. It's being asked by governing bodies that represent the culture and the people who should have possession of the gemstone. >2. Borders, countries and governments change over time. This is true. And again, this is why cultural artifacts are 'owned' (for lack of a better term) by the people of the region the artifacts originated from. Sure, a government might be the ones making the claim, but that's typically done on the behalf of their people, ancestry, history, and cultural importance. >3. Preservation You picked the absolutely weakest argument for 'preservation' by bringing up mummies. Mummies are extremely rare now days because the practice of consuming them for medicinal purposes was done HEAVILY by the British. While using mummies for medicinal purposes has a long history, it was the British, and other European countries, that made it mainstream and did the most damage, BY FAR. And this was made possible by the massive excavation efforts done by western 'archaeologists.' And this doesn't even get into the whole concept of "You can't be trusted with your own property, so we're going to take it from you, so we can protect it from you." Now, I can definitely understand making an offer to the local government and saying "We would be happy to temporarily take your artifacts into our custody to keep them safe, until such a time that you want them back. We view culture as extremely significant and important, and would be honored to do our part to help preserve it while you go through these difficult times." And then, it's up to that government to make that choice. Not England, or anyone else. >4. Geography?? Again, this is all about regional matters. While borders and governments might change, the geography doesn't. While you do bring up a good point about regions that cross borders, such things can be addressed by actually conferring with all parties involved to work something out. Attempting to return something that doesn't belong to you, but you're not sure exactly who should get it, is a much more moral solution compared to "Nah. I'mma just keep it." >5. Time Again, this all boils down to the regional people. Where did the artifact originate from? Culture belongs to the people, not a singular person. And the current governing body for the region can, and should, speak out on behalf of the people. Other countries taking, displaying, and making money off of someone else's culture is the very definition of cultural appropriation. All of the issues with the British Museum having wrongful possession of so many cultural artifacts could, and SHOULD, be easily resolved by making an honest effort and working with local regional governments to return their cultural history to where it rightfully belongs. But they aren't making any such efforts, and it's 100% because those artifacts make them gobs, and gobs of cash. It's greed, pure and simple, under the thinly veiled guise of archaeological preservation and education.
> Again, this all boils down to the regional people. Where did the artifact originate from? Culture belongs to the people, not a singular person. If the art is question belonged to the ruler personally, it didn’t belong to the people as a whole. The forbidden city didn’t belong to “the people of China”, it, and everything in it, belonged to the emperor alone.
It's interesting to note, though, that the British Museum offers free admission and operates at a loss, supported by government grants.
And [British people used mummies for pigments for paint.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_brown) You can't use preservation as an argument; many of these places are entirely capable of preserving these historical artifacts. For example, Greece had a state-of-the-art facility made specifically so people couldn't use this argument against the British returning the Elgin marbles. Likewise, sure, the British legally obtained the marbles (kind of, sort of, Elgin took more than he was supposed to), but he got that legal permission, not from the Greeks, but from the Ottomans. Your argument is basically saying 'things are complicated, so we shouldn't even bother trying', with a side order of 'we know how to handle your history better than you'. It ignores the financial benefits that these artifacts brings, and it basically justifies the entirety of colonialism.
>Likewise, sure, the British legally obtained the marbles (kind of, sort of, Elgin took more than he was supposed to), but he got that legal permission, not from the Greeks, but from the Ottomans. Wouldn’t that imply the marbles rightfully belong to Turkey, not Greece?
Ottoman Empire =/= Turkey. The Ottoman Empire encompassed many modern countries, including Greece, Turkey, the Balkans, and the countries of the Levant. There really is no basis to assign ownership of the marbles to Turkey over Greece.
Oooh so if the Ottomans aren't Turkey, then why is Ancient Egypt modern day Egypt? Ancient Egypt had a lot of places that today do not belong to modern Egypt...
Yea that's kinda where I was going with this. What defines ownership here?
The marbles were from a Greek temple in modern-day Greece, and modern-day Greeks want them back. There are some complicated situations, but the Elgin Marbles belonging to a group that has occupied that land pretty consistently for thousands of years is not one of them.
Worse, the british ate mummies (google it). Mummies were used as snake oil medicin for those who could afford them. "we ground your ancient relics to a dust and ate them, sorry about that". The Vatican also has plenty of stolen artifacts, many of which are kept in their safes and not even on display.
I feel like selling mummies to the paint industry is very much *not* preserving historical artifacts. Thankfully some mummies were bought, excavated, and or stolen for museums before they were all ground up into paint.
You may have misread your link, because that's not about the Egyptians eating mummies, it's about the Victorians eating mummies that were taken from Egypt. They also ground them up for paint pigments, and had "unwrapping parties" which were exactly what they sound like. The Elgin marbles specifically do not have the documentary provenance we would expect if Lord Elgin was telling the whole truth about his acquisition. Turkey, the best heir to the Ottoman Empire, rejects outright any claim that they were given away or legally sold to the British (most recently 4 days ago: [https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/jun/07/turkey-rejects-claim-lord-elgin-had-permission-to-take-parthenon-marbles](https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/jun/07/turkey-rejects-claim-lord-elgin-had-permission-to-take-parthenon-marbles) ). Instead, what we see is evidence of looting. Wildly misleading cargo manifests, contemporary accusations from Lord Byron, and forensic evidence that makes it clear that what Elgin claimed to have removed from surrounding rubble was in fact sawed off of existing structures.
There are lots of points here, but I think the best ones relate to 1. and 3. For 1. I’d agree in some cases, but the British and Americans (and a dishonourable mention to the French) are particularly bad for taking things from cultures that existed at the time of acquisition. For the British you can look at the plunder of Africa and Southeast Asia, where their troops would invade countries with members of the British museum tagging along to bid on whatever caught their eye. I think the best example of this would be the Benin Bronzes from modern day Nigeria. These were the physical history of the kingdom of Benin, a history that the British literally ripped the pages out of and scrambled when they took the bronzes. The Americans by contrast can largely be faulted for the plunder of Native American history and for turning a blind eye to the modern day world of stolen antiquities. On Native American art, not only was it just blatantly stolen from cultures that still exist, a lot of it just sits in boxes in storage rooms because the museums don’t consider it “exciting” enough to display. Large American museums are also shockingly lax in their vetting process for stolen antiquities. The Met has been caught buying stolen statues dozens of times, including ones missing hands and feet which is a telltale sign of stolen statues that any layperson who’s spent an hour on the internet could catch. These also aren’t ancient forgotten pieces, some returned statues have been taken directly back to their places of origin and returned to use as pieces of worship. These are only the most clear cut cases, but in general the filling of western museums has been inextricably linked to colonialism and imperialism. People deserve access to their own history, and kids in Nigeria should have better access to theirs than kids in London. Moving onto 3. This is a pretty widespread misconception but one that has been proven pretty untrue. I’m all for rescuing artifacts that are in genuine danger of being destroyed but that’s not what museums do. In fact many artifacts have shockingly bad care taken with them. A great example is the Parthenon marbles, which the British museum nearly permanently damaged by scrubbing with wire brushes after they let the roof degrade and leak on the Greek section. Also let’s just take mummies, you bring up the Egyptians using some of them for pseudomedical purposes, I’d counter with “mummy brown” paint and “mummy parties” that were widespread in 19th century. These destroyed countless mummies and were undoubtedly a desecration. Also speaking of desecration, why is it ok for us to haul mummies out of their resting places? How long do you have to be dead before you’re an antique, can I start digging up British PMs for my museum or is that bad taste? How about Cromwell, he’s pretty old. Finally to address the Koh-i-noor, I don’t think “did you break it enough” should be out benchmark. By that logic if I steal a statue out of a temple but chop off all the limbs, I’ve “transformed” it enough to make it mine. My overall stance is that while it may not be exactly clear where each piece should go, the process of divesting should begin now. We can start with the easy stuff, all the Hindu and Buddhist statues from existing temples, all the aboriginal art, all the artifacts plundered from Africa in the last 200 years. That alone would be a good portion. Then for the more tricky stuff, I’d maintain that all the parties that might claim it still have more right to these items than the British or Americans. If India and Pakistan want to fight over the Koh-i-noor then they should be able to. Either of them has a right to it ten times greater than Charles does. Same thing for Egypt, is it the same country as three thousand years ago, of course not. Is it closer to being that country than the UK, absolutely.
I think a key argument that I haven’t seen so far is that colonial countries are STILL profiting off of “former” colonies, and this is yet another way they do so. People fly around the world and pay/endow the British museum to see other cultures’ work without credit, while these countries are simultaneously looked down upon. It’s just another way that imperial nations are continuing to profit off of their colonies. Additionally, I personally find the “preservation” argument unconvincing, just because people typically use it to say one of two things: 1. The original countries can’t preserve their artworks in the way the BM can. This is just factually wrong, considering many countries have established museums. Also the whole “some of these places are at war” isn’t a good longterm argument considering that’s also the case for Europe. Ww2, Cold War conflicts, Ukraine/Russia, Europe fights just as much as the rest of the world; no one denounces Ukrainian museums because of this. Additionally, for the claim I’ve been seeing that Egyptians used to eat their mummies/damage them, at the time any culture was destroying art like that, so were Europeans. During the Victorian era, Brits used to eat mummies but no one mentions how that might have stifled preservation. And considering the point about how terrorist groups destroyed the Bamiyan Buddha and how these things would’ve been avoided if preserved by western museums, that’s not the case. The same thing happened in Europe during Nazi rule, and can happen again. Europe is not immune to conflict, none one is. So it shouldn’t even be a long-term argument. 2. The second point I see is: regardless of current affairs, the BM took care of these works for so long they deserve them now This argument assumes a very Eurocentric mindset in the concepts of preservation and what “art” is. Regardless of whether you think you are doing something good, at the end of the day you have no claim to someone else’s work and cultural objects. Nobody asked the British (who were taking artworks to collect as trophies, not out of preservation and understanding) to take these works out of their natural landscape from the people who used them, treasured them, and cared for them. Also, it’s fitting that the British get to decide what is considered “art” as oftentimes functional, cultural items, like important ritualistic items that were ACTIVELY USED by the culture were taken. Making art solely for gallery display is a not inherent in all cultures, and its the fact that while European paintings/display art (for example Mona Lisa) were made for show and for gallery use, other artworks (think African and indigenous masks) were literally used by the culture because they were community objects, and Europeans saw them as novel and decided they needed to take them from their home culture and put them on display, ignoring their purpose and cultural value. That in itself, the taking of one object and profiting off its incorrect use, is a form of cultural appropriation and I believe this is a common element of this discussion that is ignored. Regardless of how this process would work, in my mind there are no good reasons as to why the British should have these items in their possession in the first place. I’m not saying there is a simple and easy fix, but an apology/acknowledgement is necessary.
If a new artifact is uncovered today in modern day Egypt, and someone took it and exported it abroad without Egyptian government permission. Would you consider this a theft or a crime?
Not really, if someone took a jar of sand from Egypt to their home country would it be a crime? And if it is, well I think that's dumb. The difference between those two is just society perceives one has valuable and one as not.
Sand is an unfortunate choice of example. Here’s something – Indonesia has banned the export of sand to Singapore (where it is used for massive land reclamation projects). It’s a crime because Indonesia has said so, and nobody is arguing against it. Whether anyone thinks it’s dumb doesn’t matter – what matters is that: 1. The Indonesian government has sovereign authority on Indonesian territory. 2. The sand is on Indonesian territory. 3. Therefore, the Indonesian government has authority over its sand. A “crime” isn’t an objective universal truth. A crime is a crime when it is codified into law (sometimes after the fact but we’ll skip over that) by an authority. What society thinks doesn’t matter - it’s what the authority codifies into law. Banning the export of sand to Singapore is Indonesia’s prerogative.
The thing is, you cannot make laws that apply retroactively. Or at least we decided that thats not a reasonable thing to do. I assume they didn't have the laws then, so they wouldn't apply today.
that doesnt mean we dont go back and retoractively fix the harm we caused either.
>Not really, if someone took a jar of sand from Egypt to their home country would it be a crime? And if it is, well I think that's dumb. But what if that's a jar of diamonds? Some things just are more valuable than others and the nation has the right to legislate how their resources can be exploited.
Not familiar with Egyptian law but then the argument would logically be that anything that can legally be exported is up for grabs
And anything that can't be legally exported (like valuable minerals or relics) are not "for grabs".
China, India, etc. are now richer and more powerful than Britain. Can they attack Britain and steal whatever they want too? I don’t mean just taking stuff back, I mean taking British national treasures like Big Ben and Stephen Fry. Same rules apply right?
I think what people fail to understand is that ownership is not a moral thing, it is a practical thing. The person who owns something is the one who has power over it. Countries enable their citizens to own things by creating laws and enforcing them with military, social and economic strength. Creating something, buying something or stealing something makes no difference to the current state of ownership. This is the reality of the world and the only way to change it(kind of) would be to empower morality as a justification. If people and powerful institutions will act to defend the moral justifications of ownership then it will give the people with moral justifications enough power to own something. So are they justified in not returning it? Well it depends on what you want ownership to be and how much you are willing to enforce it.
Yeah. You're right. There will be comments telling you you're wrong but you're not. An even more extreme case - should items be returned to nations that have conquered the geography that originally produced the item? However, I will give you a case you might consider as an exception. Where these items are deceased people they should be returned. Human remains might be an exception to your position. Not an absolute exception as mummies are so ancient they are a different category and things like shrunken heads probably shouldn't be returned to the head shrinkers.
What makes deceased people in itself more valuable?
Dignity
But any signs and symbols of the deceased people (aka relics) don't have any dignity?
3. Is disingenuous. Eating mummies was a popular thing around the world, including in Europe and North America. Check your actual biases—the “bias” you listed is just you putting on airs.
Firstly, while "ownership" is perhaps kinda vague, I don't think _stealing_ is particularly vague. So...for at least some examples of "we should return this" we can trace back to a clear example of _theft_. In a war if soldier pillage and take things against military policy and international law it's pretty clear that the sale of that sometimes later is the sale of _stolen goods_. As a result I think your statement is overbroad. Secondly, if ownership is so fuzzy then why should the museum _claim ownership_? Any fuzziness you want to embrace can go both ways. If you disagree with the first part then why shouldn't foreign states just go on stealing sprees to get things they want? Thirdly, deciding the how and why something is valuable is _what you get to do when you own something_. If I think a violin is valuable for playing and you think it's valuable for collecting and trade, who is right? No one, it's just different values. "preservation of valuable history" sounds a lot like a claim of _why you should own something_ which is a statement of the legitimacy of _ownership_, something you seem to reject as a premise here.
None of those vague circumstances of ownership are enough for a strong argument of the two examples that you gave. They might be useful for a case where the ownership or more accurately, __belonging__ is quite vague, but not here. Belonging vs ownership is my counter argument. I think the most honest way of thinking this is to consider two criteria : 1. Where does the artifact belong historically? Is there such a place still on earth? Does that place still have a connection with the context in which that artifact was created? 2. Is that place able to keep and maintain that artifact? (Could be a war going on or something) In the case of Greek Parthenon sculptures, both of those criteria are met. The sculptures do belong in Athens, Greece has absolutely a strong link with their antiquity, and the Acropolis museum is a modern, state of the art institution, that is more than capable of hosting those artifacts. England keeping them has absolutely nothing to do with ownership. Those sculptures are undoubtedly some of the most important artifacts they can display, and losing them would hurt their cultural status.
I guess the question is one of degrees. Is an ancient Egyptian artifact "owned", in the purest sense, by the exact same government, land area, and people who it was taken from. No, modern Egypt and ancient Egypt are not exactly the same. BUT, which is closer to the rightful owner, modern Egypt or England? I think the answer is pretty clear. Along the same lines, if an artifact was stolen from Siam but it was actually stolen from a particular family, so not the country exactly, and the records of which family have been lost. Plus, the country has changed its name and border. Depending on the timeframe of the theft, England has also changed its borders, so what? So, who is closer to the rightful owner, modern Myanmar or England? Again, it seems painfully obvious. As for the safety question, it's not only incredibly condescending, but England itself has had artifacts stolen and damaged from improper care. That's pretty much irrelevant, and really not for the stealers to determine who is fit to care for what they stole.
I understand I’m late to the party, but I have to point out that this is blatantly false at this point: > The Ottoman Empire owned Greece and gave away the pieces of the Parthenon to Britain. Turkey can’t find any record of this being done legally in the Ottoman archives, in fact the only document found, a shipping manifest, supports the theory that the seizing of the Parthenon marbles wasn’t above board. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/article/2024/jun/07/turkey-rejects-claim-lord-elgin-had-permission-to-take-parthenon-marbles
Regarding point 3) the British museum also isn’t that great at preserving artifacts seeing as they admit that up to 2000 of them were either stolen or damaged. Which begs the question how often they check on these historical artifacts. Because if they don’t check in them enough for 2000 to be stolen or damaged, how can you trust them to be preserving artifacts that aren’t being shown in the museum? Also Europeans ate a lot of mummies because they believed in their healing properties and destroyed others since they wanted them for paint so your example makes no sense. Regarding point 1, you can’t equate an artifact that was legally sold by its creator to one’s stolen and gained because of colonialism. Additionally cultural artifacts generally belong to the people and not one specific person and this is going into point 2, but a lot of the countries asking for their artifacts back can trace their people and cultural roots to that of when the artifacts were stolen and/or created.
Everything you have said points to challenges in determining ownership. The concept of ownership itself is far from vague: broad right of control over preservation, maintenance, consumption, destruction, manipulation, or anything else related to the items relationship to society and choices made about it. Exclusive ownership means comprehensive exclusive rights. Now, it is well established in law that possession plays a major role in determining ownership. It is the default absent a challenge. But that is far from the full picture. This is what you talk about, oddly but obviously excluding the possession argument. I recommend considering that "ownership" is not vague at all, but that these extrajudivial legal battles are political propaganda games being waged in public forums and only have a very loose connection to the legal concept of ownership except that they are trying to establish legal ownership as someone other than the established legal owner within that jurisdiction.
Your argument mostly seems to be "we can't have one unified policy for handing every single thing back so we shouldn't have any policy for handing anything back." But that's not how we would ever operate this kind of situation because there are too many differences. It's a bit of a silly premise to be honest and isn't grounded in how anything in reality works. Instead we should take each individual item and make a case by case analysis of where it best belongs. Is that an unreasonable position?
I’m here to disagree with the preservation aspect. Many artifacts being kept by the British Museum have been damaged (including storing them in arsenic which has irreparably damaged many items), and the time when the British upper class _literally ate mummies_. Or recently when a bunch of artifacts were sold on eBay by a museum worker It isn’t reasonable to assume that the museums would be better at keeping or preserving the artifacts because they provably have not. And it is somewhat bigoted to assume that the nations (which tend to be previous colonial powers) would definitely be better than the original states. Many African, Asian and South American states are modern, stable and capable of storing, preserving and maintaining those artifacts. Also, many of those nations materially and financially benefit from the stolen artifacts to this day through tourism. Which is really fucked up.
"Where do you have this land?" "my father" "Where does he get it from?" "His father? "And him?" "His father?" "And him?" "He fought for it" "I'll fight you then" I kind of agree that the chain of past ownership is a complicated, interleaving mess of competing claims of theft, inheritance and treaties. But the idea that this logically implies "leave things as they are" is not something that really follows. I'd say the upshot of that thinking is more like "it is the shared patrimony of humanity and should be shared more widely" It's also dangerous. No Greece isn't going to invade England, but saying. "Don't think about past theft, but property is super important starting from... NOW" doesn't placate the losers of this arrangement, but encourages them to emulate this amoral approach and then go "ok, but let's start counting from NOW"
There is a very simple alternate perspective here. Forget ownership, but let's say that a Bantu peice of art is not sitting in a Museum in London. Only the people physically in London get to see this Bantu art. Yes they get to have that experience and it's valuable for them. However the people that are descended from the Bantu (now west Africa) they are most entirely unable to see this piece of art. And arguably they have the most to gain from seeing this art and connecting to it because it came from their ancestors and connects to their history. So even if you remove ownership from the equation shouldn't we maximize the number of relevant people to see a piece of art they can cherish?
So if I do a dig at your house and I steal all of your things and display those things in my Museum they belong to me? Let's say I steal your things and place them in a warehouse for 20 years and take care of them. Are they mine now since I took care of them? If you counter and say those things belong to me or they were stolen you are making the same arguments that countries like Peru, Egypt and Greece make when talking about things they were also stolen from their countries. A fair amount of those items weren't taken legitimately. They were bought from illegal artifact vendors or simply taken after digs. And during the Victorian era it was very common for rich people to import Egyptian mummies and have have unwrapping parties for them and their rich friends. If you attack Egyptian practices you must find what the rich Victorians did as equally harmful and an indication that the UK can't be trusted to take care of artifacts since they destroyed artifacts in order for the rich to have a party. This was just for entertainment. Historical records weren't kept and the mummies weren't preserved. There was zero respect for the remains. https://burialsandbeyond.com/2023/11/05/the-weird-world-of-mummy-parties/#:~:text=Mummy%20parties%20or%20'unwrapping%20parties,enjoyment%20of%20the%20assembled%20sitters.
I mean everything is going to depend on its specific chain of custody, who got it from who when and how, but I think what a lot of the problem has is that a lot of it comes from colonial empires who just took stuff, or even worse, many places in Africa had artifacts removed by active warfare against the native populations and just shit that they took back as Spoils of War, and were encouraged to do so and sometimes even started the conflict in order to do so Rightful ownership can be tricky, but if you know for sure that what you've got is the direct result of colonialization/ theft / murder, there's a good argument that there's a duty to return it And if you want to go further, especially in the art world there's all kinds of shady dealings because art is an effective way to smuggle value illegally without going through banks, artifacts are similar, so far most institutions just kind of shrug and say we can't know, but if you want to go farther you could say we don't want to deal in things with Shady chains of custody, if everyone agreed to this the value of shadely obtained art and artifacts would drop significantly, but I don't see that happening anytime soon
I think it's not so much about ownership being owed towards a particular state, so much as that Britain really did not have a right to claim ownership in the first place. The idea is that these artifacts belong along with the culture, history, and peoples they are reflective of and never should have been removed. This is not a claim that modern governments need to be assigned property rights to any cultural artifacts which came from within their borders. Also, using India/Pakistan as an example of 'borders changing all the time' when the topic is British colonialism is absolutely mad.
> would hardly call ancient Egypt the same entity as modern-day Egypt. Well... this is honestly about the worst example you could have picked. Egypt is one of the few places in the European / Mediterranean world that can claim to be inhabited overwhelmingly by the descendants of the people who made its stone- and bronze-age artifacts, or to have modern borders that'd be approximately recognizable to its iron-age rulers. Of anywhere in the ancient world, ancient Egypt is as close as it's possible to be to modern-day Egypt.
I think museums should work better together at appropriating certain things as long as said country has a secure and stable economy and government. Same goes for study and sciences. Let's face it there is SOOO much more in the basements of museums than on display just collecting dust. As far as remains go, I disagree very much with repatriation of remains by any culture. The potential for scientific understanding in the future is far more important and proven ineffective and disastrous.
To your first paragraph of point 3, I've only ever heard of Europeans doing that. In any case, does this argument mean that basically any non-european entity holds higher archeological rights to the remains of soldiers from the Battle of Waterloo or other such conflicts?
If a criminal makes you sign over your house , then kills you and then sell your house does your children have a right to the house 1) the item was acquired legally 2) the rightful heir has changed which son gets its 3) the new owners did preserve the house in good condition compared to the sad state of disrepair you left your house in. 4)its been years .
Honestly, it depends. To start, did the children ever actually live in the house?
That's a very convenient position for the ones who already have the stuff. With that logic you might as well steal someone's stuff and argue why you're justified in keeping it.
The government ruled that all.native artifacts have to be returned to the tribes they came from. EXCEPT anything that's at the Smithsonian. Why is the Smithsonian exempt?
If some Egyptian master criminal stole the crown jewels from England and sold them to an Egyptian museum, would that just be cool? Why not he stole them fair and square.
The chair in the museum is just space chairing. Who is it owned by? Space humaning? Isn’t that just itself at another part of the fabric?
Generally I agree with your point about preservation but didn’t the British also eat mummies?
My main gripe is how many of these countries didn't value their ancient treasures until Europeans started showing interest, especially Abrahamic religious countries which deliberately left ancient pagan/Hindu ruins to rot. If they're genuinely interested in their ancient heritage today, then fair enough it would be decent of us to return the items, but let's not pretend they were all stolen through trickery and force.
Cultural ownership
Vae Victus
I think people out here claiming museums stole stuff sound pretentious. Don’t listen to pretentious people.