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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Repatriation of Artifacts
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
The great museums of the world, especially Europe and North America, contain artifacts removed from their native lands. If this case had happened one hundred years ago, there would have been little question of returning the specimen. Not all the cases are straight forward, but many artifacts were taken without permission.
There are movements around the world to repatriate artifacts. I know the arguments are not new, but I am curious as to what shippies think.
What should be given back and why? What is the moral course?
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Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The great museums of the world, especially Europe and North America, contain artifacts removed from their native lands. If this case had happened one hundred years ago, there would have been little question of returning the specimen. Not all the cases are straight forward, but many artifacts were taken without permission.
There are movements around the world to repatriate artifacts. I know the arguments are not new, but I am curious as to what shippies think.
What should be given back and why? What is the moral course?
Instinctively, I separate specimens that are bilogical, like fossils, from art and other man created artifacts. I'm not sure it's a valid distinction, but I think there are different arguments about the value of native context that are easier to prove for biology.
Cultural artifacts are more difficult, in part because things have a history. I can sympathize with the Metropolitan Museum being forced to return Ectruscan antiquities recently looted from tombs, but are the St Mark's Horses going back to Istanbul or some minor greek colony?
What about artifacts that would have been destroyed by air pollution or sold by corrupt officials if left in their country of origin like the Elgin Marbles?
What about artifacts that were taken from their place of origin and destructively modified like the Elgin marbles? What about artifacts that were moved many times over the millennia like the Obelisks in Central Park New York?
It's a muddle, but that's not a good excuse for allowing patrimony to be looted.
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Tortuf
Ship's fisherman
# 3784
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Posted
For purely selfish reasons I would like all famous artifacts, paintings, interesting fossils, etc., to be located in the several fine museum buildings here in Nashville.
I don't think that is likely to happen.
There are places that I would not return artifacts to like say any territory controlled by the Taliban. You may remember what those assholes did to the Buddhas in their territory.
I also understand the ethics of giving a people back what was theirs before a bunch of artifact snatchers cum archaeologists wafted them away.
My beau ideal would be an agreement among museums and governments to have regularly touring collections go around the world so everyone could see important things in person. Seeing something in person is a significantly better experience than just pictures.
I saw pictures of the Rosetta Stone when I was a kid. When I finally saw the real thing I was awestruck. I couldn't move for about ten minutes. Others should be able to have that same experience.
Posts: 6963 | From: The Venice of the South | Registered: Dec 2002
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
I am somewhat torn on this. I think that cases where artifacts have been taken for private collections, or private gain, there is a good call to repatriate them.
Where they have been saved, and made available for public viewing, where they otherwise were not, then I do not think that repatriation is as straightforward.
In truth, I am all for allowing people to see artifacts, and allowing academics to study them in detail. They are best where this can happen, wherever this is.
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Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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Clemency
Shipmate
# 16173
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Posted
On a few holidays looking at ruined abbeys in France I kept finding that they were even more ruined because various parts - cloisters and chapter houses - had been spirited off to the USA in the mid-20th century. William Randolph Hearst (I think it was) tried to do this with part of Bradenstoke Priory in Wiltshire - I gather it got as far as a pile of packing cases on the dock, but various legalities ensued and it never left these shores - instead it got reconstructed as part of a castle in Glamorgan, where I was somewhat surprised to make its acquaintance a few years ago. .Once could be peeved, but everything is really about stories and hey, this adds to the story... I have been involved in the removal of a wrecked and vandalised church to an open-air museum thirty miles away, to see it resurrected is quite something...
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Who knows where the Time goes?
Posts: 90 | From: Northumberland, UK | Registered: Jan 2011
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
It's a fascinating question because it raises fundamental issues about what you REALLY believe about how the world is run. It's possible to identify a number of internally coherently positions, all of which have interesting consequences if applied consistently.
1) Might is right. The artefacts ended up in their present location as a result of a particular history of power relationships at a particular time; we should respect this. This, in practice, is how we live our lives; everyone in England lives on land conquered by William in 1066 and given out by him to his followers who then sold it on to whoever now owns it. Should I abandon my flat to the legal inheritor of a claim by a Saxon Earl, or a Welsh ruler? And, of course it's even more obvious for our American brethren; given that none of the treaties made with the Amerindian tribes were respected, any American who seriously proposes that Israel should dismantle their settlements needs to consider the land they are living on - and go back to Europe, whilst English people should return to Saxony etc etc...
2) Artefacts belong to the present occupants of the land in which the artefacts were made. This is probably the weakest argument: given that waves of conquest have overwhelmed almost all territories of the world in the past 5000 years, the fact that the present occupants are there doesn't really give them a particular claim.
3) Artefacts belong to the cultural successors of their original creators. This is more coherent - if such a group can be honestly identified. It results in some claims being ruled out: the Turks have no claim on Graeco-Roman artefacts, for example. The Egyptian situation is more complex: that Egyptian Christians tended to destroy the idols of the gods of their ancient pantheon, let alone the disruption of the Arab invasion, suggests that modern Egyptians don't really have a claim to their artefacts on that basis. (I'm not suggesting it's OK in the present time to go thieve them, just that there's no duty to return the contents of Egyptological museums in the West). Of course the Elgin marbles are making their appeal on this basis: modern Greeks claim to be the successor of the Greeks of Athens etc. However it's perhaps worth asking whether ALL the nations of the West don't have as good a claim to be their cultural successors.
4) 'It's the common heritage of all humanity'. This has the virtue of being attractive - though is hard to implement in practice. When does an item of art turn into 'the common heritage'? At the moment of creation? So an artist doesn't have the right to sell it - as the proponents of the free downloading of music and films would argue? After the extinction of copyright? But why then? Who decides how long copyright persists? However in terms of practical implementation, the idea of encouraging more museum exchanges to allow more people to share the history of the world is, of course, valuable. However states have to disclaim any possible rights over items exchanged in order to participate, and that can be hard for some countries.
5) The 'property right' concept. One of the more helpful ideas in political philosophy is that an item becomes mine if it was freely available, but I improved it somehow and continue to want to own it. It is still present in English law: if I squat an empty property and its owner doesn't make a claim against me after a sufficient time has elapsed. In terms of an artefact, if I find it in the course of an archaeological dig, then I have every right to it. English law also respects treasure trove.
My own feeling is that there isn't an alternative to 1 / 5 that can be coherently implemented, so we should stick with those. And one can argue that the racism implicit in the claims of the Greeks to the Elgin marbles should perhaps be examined ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
Posts: 5018 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Feb 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
and go back to Europe, whilst English people should return to Saxony etc etc...
Not quite the same argument, time is a factor.
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
3) Artefacts belong to the cultural successors of their original creators.
The Egyptians do maintain some continuity to their past. Both genetically and culturally. The Greeks completely do and, though some of our concepts come from them, our cultures do not.
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
And one can argue that the racism implicit in the claims of the Greeks to the Elgin marbles should perhaps be examined
Culturalism, tentatively; racism, no.
Code fix
Gwai, Purg Host
[ 30. December 2012, 21:27: Message edited by: Gwai ]
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Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Bostonman
Shipmate
# 17108
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
3) Artefacts belong to the cultural successors of their original creators.
The Egyptians do maintain some continuity to their past. Both genetically and culturally. The Greeks completely do and, though some of our concepts come from them, our cultures do not.
We start running into even more problems, unfortunately, when there's a disconnect between the cultural successors of the creators of the artifacts, and the culture of the current nation on the land. Are Eastern-Roman artifacts found in Anatolia rightfully held by the Turkish or Greek governments? What about artifacts of Islamic Spain? Are they Spanish, by virtue of having completely wiped out the Moors, or do they default to Morocco or something? Would the Turks have become the legitimate inheritors of Greek artifacts had they killed off the Greeks?
Any country with sufficient layers of cultural change gets very complicated, very quickly.
Posts: 424 | From: USA | Registered: May 2012
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Biologically the present-day inhabitants of Anatolia are as much the descendents of those who lived there 2000 years ago as the present-day inhabitants of Attica are of those who lived there. Possibly more so, there was a very very large movement of people into what is now Greece during the so so-called "Dark Ages".
In some ways the current Greekness of Greece is a deliberate reinvention. Quite a lot of people in what is now Greece spoke Albanian three centuries ago. And others spoke Turkish, and various Latin and Slavic languages. The unifying factor was Orthodox religion, not language or ancestry. And in the big forced population movements of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Turkish-speaking Orthodox had to go to Greece and learn to speak Greek, and Greek-speaking Muslims to Turkey and learn Turkish.
Also the Ottoman Empire did consider itself the successor state to Rome (as did the Russian Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, and at a later date the Greek Kingdom). One of their predecessor kingdoms even called itself the Sultanate of Rum.
So its, er, complicated.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Ender's Shadow
Shipmate
# 2272
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
There is an enormous altar that takes up an entire hall in one of the Berlin museums. Were it to be returned to Pergammon, one would have to travel a lot further to see it.
But it was 'stolen'.
Hmm - by the Turks invading Pergammon, stealing the ownership from the Greek inhabitants? Or by the Christians who caused it to fall into disuse, depriving the god of it of his worshippers? ![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Surely the Germans who took it away did so openly, with the agreement of the Ottoman government of the day?
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Test everything. Hold on to the good.
Please don't refer to me as 'Ender' - the whole point of Ender's Shadow is that he isn't Ender.
Posts: 5018 | From: Manchester, England | Registered: Feb 2002
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bib
Shipmate
# 13074
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Posted
It took a lot of negotiations to get the return of Australian Aboriginal artefacts stolen from that race and taken to British museums. There may be some that are still to be returned. Many of these articles include skulls, bones and religious artefacts. The insensitivity of the museums in holding on to these articles has always shocked me. Imagine if someone took your mother's body and displayed it in a museum.
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Posts: 1307 | From: Australia | Registered: Oct 2007
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leo
Shipmate
# 1458
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ender's Shadow:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
There is an enormous altar that takes up an entire hall in one of the Berlin museums. Were it to be returned to Pergammon, one would have to travel a lot further to see it.
But it was 'stolen'.
Hmm - by the Turks invading Pergammon, stealing the ownership from the Greek inhabitants? Or by the Christians who caused it to fall into disuse, depriving the god of it of his worshippers?
Surely the Germans who took it away did so openly, with the agreement of the Ottoman government of the day?
Just checked it - you are right.
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Posts: 23198 | From: Bristol | Registered: Oct 2001
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
Too many issues for a single answer.
How sacred are the artifacts to currently living peoples?
Are we talking human body parts?
Should only the people of a culture have access to the artifacts of that culture? Or is there value in dispersing artifacts throughout the world? Have changes in mobility changed the answer to that question?
Are artifacts of a culture safer if dispersed instead of all in one space where a major disaster (flood, war) could wipe out the collection?
How do we stop theft of artifacts for commercial gain? A few years ago there were news articles about theft of graveyard sculptures from New Orleans cemeteries to sell to antique shops.
At what point did theft occur so long ago it doesn't count?
Hunters of Native American artifacts on protected soils like government controlled lands are a current problem. So is the Smithsonian's reluctance to return body parts and sacred items stolen a century ago for the museum.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
Another question: does it make a difference if the artifacts in question were looted by a private individual or by a government?
A good example is the Schliemann gold, which was originally looted by a private individual (Heinrich Schliemann) from the site of Troy, contrary to the wishes of the Ottoman government of the time. It was later looted by the Red Army from its protective bunker in Berlin, contrary to the wishes of the German government of the time. (Well, at the time it was taken there was no independent German government, but if one had existed and known what was going on it probably would have objected.) Is the second looting more or less justified because it was carried out by a state, or does it make no difference?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
And, of course, the inverse question also suggests itself. Does it make a difference if the artifact was looted from a private individual instead of a government? Do we feel more empathy for people like the Goodmans/Gutmanns because they're real people with faces and bodies instead of collective and largely conceptual entities like states? Should we?
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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Ricardus
Shipmate
# 8757
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
What about artifacts of Islamic Spain? Are they Spanish, by virtue of having completely wiped out the Moors, or do they default to Morocco or something?
Which kind of raises the issue of how much 'culture' is a modern concept ...
As in Ottoman Greece, the most important distinction was religion, not culture. 'Moor' in Medieval Spain simply meant a Spanish Muslim. Genetically they probably owed more to indigenous Spanish Christian converts to Islam than to the Arab / Berber invaders. Culturally they were very Arabised, but so were the 'Mozarabs', i.e. the Christian minority in the Muslim kingdoms - it's known that the Mozarabs used Arabic for important affairs even after the Reconquista.
[ 01. January 2013, 09:54: Message edited by: Ricardus ]
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Posts: 7247 | From: Liverpool, UK | Registered: Nov 2004
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Golden Key
Shipmate
# 1468
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Posted
IMHO, everything should go back where it came from, UNLESS
a) the people whose culture it came from vote that they no longer want it;
b) they are given ownership, but agree for the artifact to tour or be loaned to a museum;
c) or they (or others) are likely to destroy it, (e.g., the Taliban).
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Posts: 18601 | From: Chilling out in an undisclosed, sincere pumpkin patch. | Registered: Oct 2001
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