Who Owns History?

When I started this blog I never dreamed I would spend much of my efforts on this question. Countries like Egypt, Italy and Greece seem to have the idea that everything created historically in their territory is their property.

Unfortunately for them the Parthenon marbles left with legal permission which the British museum displays online while the St. Louis art museum received the okay from Egypt's Supreme council of antiquities before it purchased the mask of Kanefernefer. The fact that we now realize the mask was probably stolen some 50 years ago is not the responsibility of St. Louis.

Sloppy work of those at Egypt's Supreme council of antiquities also probably lead to Berlin being in possession of the famous bust of Nefertiti. The bust left for Berlin in 1912 after the councils representative Mr. Gustave Lefebvre gave the German excavator the claim to it.

As a note the damage to the antiquities and history of the country of Iraq would be even greater if it were not for all those foreign collections which ensure the legacy of societies as distant in time as they are in geography.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7709000/7709332.stm