With the invasion of Ethiopia in 1868 the British forces won the day and then looted the royal palace and the territories churches taking back the booty to Britain where it sits in a few institutions including the British museum, the British library and the Victoria and Albert but also in private hands.
There are attempts being made to repatriate the objects back to Ethiopia though I personally do not hold out much hope in that after 140+ years but even today a piece of an Egyptian monument was collected off the private market and given back by the Metropolitan museum of art.
4 comments:
You Know how it is mate, you can't really trust the locals with own culture, they don't know how to look after it, so it's best off somewhere safe.
If you start giving things back to people where would it end!
[!!]
I feel quite disturbed to see this demand. Let's stop looking at it, as those making the demand want us to, and start looking at what is really in question.
We're facing a determined effort by a certain section of the community to distribute the contents of major museums across the globe.
Do we really want to do this? Is it remotely in our own interests to do this? Is it in the interests of anyone? (Other than Mugabe-type politicians who will, of course, turn the stuff into money somehow and gain political points back home). Surely it is not. So... why do it?
Some may argue that people descended from people living in one place have a right to whatever people living at that time had, if it is owned by people living in the west. The argument would seem very questionable. But actually mostly they do not attempt to argue at all -- they just assert and demand. This again is rather familiar, in a depressing way.
Surely this is just another piece of ideology? We all know that there are people going around who hate us, hate our society and are determined to give away whatever is ours to whoever else they can find, whatever the consequences, however insane, disgusting or treacherous.
These people are the enemies of us all. Enough crap about "fairness" -- do we want our museums given away or not? If not -- and why on earth should we? -- then we need to confront this kind of demand forcefully. Enough!
Hi Roger, You make a good point, - I can only be so flippant about such an issue because I am not involved with this type of material. This is a deep and complex question. However, I am also very wary of special interest groups wanting to unpick history, and right all the perceived wrongs of the past.
I should draw a distinction between ‘material culture’ and more human capital, but an apology for actions of wholly different generations is also rather odd concept. Who is to apologise and compensate us for feudalism or the highland clearances?
Most nations, governments, and individuals, did thing in the past well outside the current mores, - which is the point - these things change. As a former imperial nation, we have done more things to more people than most. Our recent involvement in Iraq, and the ensuing damage to museums and archaeology, illustrates that we still have at least our fingers in that particular pie.
I am also aware that history may seem very different for an Ethiopian, an Armenian, a Greek, or Zionist. As scholars and specialists, studying the nature of the past in all it’s myriad of fragments, we are also a special interest group.
While wholesale cultural repatriation is a Pandora’s box, I think we should be as flexible and supportive as possible in the interest of scholarship and learning. However, appeals to nationalism, and other political posturing, in all its forms, should not be allowed to prevail.
Come the spoils of empire, Rome has no shortage of Egyptian obelisks and much of the finest African art was carried away in the nineteenth century including the sculptures of great Zimbabwe.
This international depletion of the heritage of smaller countries is done often in the names of science and preservation and of course lust for the object.
The great treasure houses of the world are left to act as protection for objects that are of international heritage. Just a few years ago fighters in the former Yugoslavia were blowing up the 500 year old Mostar bridge in an effort to ethnically cleans Bosnia and Hercegovina or how about Rawanda. Ethnic cleansing is not just about people!
The sad thing is it is perhaps unwise to lend objects to those people who feel the artifact was stolen from them.
Trying to internationalize museums of international history is a possible direction for these collections perhaps the galleries in London, Berlin or New york can become Embassies looked after and published as seen fit by representatives of those nations or cultures but the objects remain where they are?
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