Everyone, "Hey Britain, those aren't yours!" Britain, "So."

Stumbled across this and it had some wonderful pictures of unique artifacts, so I thought I'd share. Britain celebrating giving back the most meager artifacts, while they still have the Rosetta stone, Parthenon Marbles and much MUCH more:
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/benin-bronze-returns-britain-intl-cmd-gbr/index.html



And while we're memeing and it's Halloween:

 

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Will the Horses of Saint Mark be returned to their rightful owner?

These four gilded bronze horses were part of a monumental Greek bronze quadriga made in the classical or early Hellenistic period. According to an ancient source they were in the island of Chios. In the 5th c. the early Byzantine emperor Theodosius II had them removed and placed in the Hippodrome of Constantinople. They were looted in 1204 by the Venetians who placed them on the St Mark Basilica in Venice. They were looted in 1797 by the French who placed them some years later on the Carrousel triumphal arch in Paris. They were returned to Venice in 1815 and have not left Italy until now. But are the Italians their rightful owners? The had looted these horses, too... Should they return them to Turkey because these horses were taken from Constantinople which is now Istanbul, or to Greece because they were taken from Chios in the first place?

 

If Italy really believes that ancient art belongs to its original creators and owners, then it should voluntarily return the horses to Greece, along with all of the thousands of other artworks and artifacts that the Romans -- Western and Eastern alike -- stole from Greece.

 

That's a complex question. A lot of Greek masterpieces were looted by the Romans, but often from Greek cities like Taranto or Syracuse (by Marcellus) or different places in Sicily (by Verres), all places that are in Italy now. And the thousands of Greek artefacts that are now in Italy (Attic vases, marble and bronze statues, etc.) had not been looted but legally bought by Etruscan or later Roman amateurs. The artefacts that had been really looted have vanished...

 

But what about an owl tet, minted originally in Athens but found in Turkey? Should we all gather up our owls and ship them to a museum in Athens, or should it be Turkey?

What about an artifact originally from Cappadocia, found in Cappadocia, but on display in a museum in Istanbul? Should it be returned, since at the time of production these were completely separate kingdoms?

What happened when South Sudan split from Sudan, Timor L'Este split from Indonesia, or the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia split apart. Were the new states required to repatriate everything they had from each other back to their original places?

What about me? Do I need to ship myself back to Luxembourg, because my ancestry is from there and I have their passport? But then the other half of my family is from Israel, but of course they were booted from there to Spain - which offered me citizenship too, and then from there to Turkey, but is now Bulgaria. Which do I choose? Do I just buy two homes, or does this only apply to artifacts - so I only need to ship all my family letters and photos back to Luxembourg?

Or maybe, just maybe, we can count all of these artifacts as belonging to all mankind, and focus on the public accessibility of the most important artifacts, rather than getting caught up on where things should go?

 

The Brits have it because they expended the blood and money to defeat Napoleon; the French had it because they expended the effort and money to excavate it. Sorry, but that has been the way of the world since time immemorial. I'm glad they did because only that way did it become known, studied, and ultimately the key to translating hieroglyphics which unlocked the entire world of ancient Egypt for us all. What would have happened if they decided to do the currently sensitive and "correct" thing to do and just left it there? Absolutely nothing. No one in Egypt or their colonial masters in the Ottoman Empire, who sat on it for centuries, could have cared less about their pre-Islamic patrimony. Suddenly, and only once Westerners demonstrated that the object had great value for world civilization, did Egyptian nationalists spot an opportunity and start chirping about "theft".

 

My point, of course, is that the Italians are hypocrites in claiming ownership of any object that ever spent time in their territory. I know perfectly well that they would fight tooth and nail to resist the same sort of claims that they usually make themselves.

I do, however now believe -- I have changed my mind about the issue -- that the UK should return the Elgin Marbles to Greece. They were ripped from the Parthenon, quite literally, and should be restored to the place they belong and reunited with the pieces that weren't taken. The argument that used to be made that the Greeks can't be trusted to take proper care of them is no longer valid in my opinion. The case of the Elgin Marbles is basically sui generis, and I don't ascribe to the fear that their return will inevitably lead down the slippery slope to the destruction of the British Museum.

Unless you're an artifact, I don't think your family history is particularly relevant. In that regard, though, even though I was born in the USA, I was granted restored German citizenship four years ago (as was my son, in turn) in the interest of restitution and reparations, based on what the Nazis did to my mother and her family. As far as I'm concerned, it's the least the present German state could do.

 

You're correct. I suspect that the majority of Greek vases that come on the market or are already in museums were made for the export trade in the Kerameikos district of Athens, and were found in Etruscan or other tombs in Italy.

 

I like what @kirispupis said, in his last paragraph. And, perhaps, there is no right or wrong answer. Perhaps, it's just a matter, of what people want to do, or what people like. What I want, or what I like, is for all artifacts, to belong to all of humanity. I would like anyone, to be able to own any artifact, no matter where that person lives, and no matter who that person's ancestors were, and no matter where that artifact was originally created. Regarding artifacts taken during times of war, or taken by force, it doesn't bother me at all. All of this, is just my personal preference. I'm not saying, that I'm right or wrong. It's just, what I want, or what I like.

 

Yes, I understood that. I was just making the point more general.

While in general I believe major artifacts like these need to be determined/negotiated on a case by case basis, I do worry about setting precedents in a society like today's - where there seems to be a universal rejection of the hypothesis that the answers to the most complicated questions are usually grey, and not black and white. For example, should Berlin return Nefertiti and the Ishtar Gate?

I was being silly here, although another point could be made with some of the things my family took from Luxembourg (which, sadly, weren't coins...) I have letters, photos, and patents. My mother had a statue of Jesus, carved out of a stump - surprisingly beautifully done for an amateur. That's in my cousin's possession now since it has little place in a Jewish household. Should those types of artifacts be returned? Most would say no, but that's only because my family wasn't famous...Imagine they'd taken instead something from Charlemagne, who from a rather shaky family tree is supposedly my 36th great grandfather?

Yes, I agree there are cases when artifacts should be restored, but I do believe that in the vast majority of cases they should not. IMHO we should be more concerned about priceless artifacts of great importance to world history, that are now hidden away in vaults where no scientists or the general public have access.

 

Yes, this is what I meant. Thinking about it more, I would love for the world to pass the following regulations.

1) Any historic artifact must be made available to qualified researchers at their request. It does not need to be handed over to them. They may have to fly to your house and examine it there, but they cannot be denied. They may also take photos of the artifact and make them publicly available.

2) Certain artifacts judged to be of high cultural value must be made publicly accessible. They do not need to be accessible in that country. For example, if the owner is in China, then that artifact must be on display in a museum in China. The item, though, must be displayed. If there's no room to display it, then it must be returned to the owner.

 

100% agree!

 

..well, i way i see it, the Brits did a good deed(not that they meant to) by taking those works of art out of a land that was at the time, unstable...we know that the Turks hid munitions in the Pantheon and it was massively ruined from that in modern times...and.... bottom line is...Greeks were our models in Western Civ and really the Greeks and their stuff belong to all of us, Greeks included..

 

You mean the Parthenon, not the Pantheon, I suppose . It is true that the Turks had stored ammunition in the Parthenon in 1687, but there was a war going on and the Venetians, knowing where the powder was, did not hesitate to aim at the temple / church / mosque. Unfortunately this kind of things happen during wars. The Allied in 1944 bombed and completely destroyed the historic monastery of Monte Cassino in Italy, and in 1945 the whole city of Dresden, an 18th c. gem. Some officers sometimes try to avoid such disasters. One day of 1944 in Sienna, Italy, gunners submitted their artillery preparation plan for approval by General Monsabert, he just said : "If you shoot at anything older than the 18th c. you will be court martialed."

Before 1687 the Parthenon was mostly intact, its sculptures had been respected for centuries by the Christians and by the Muslims. None had been defaced by anybody, even those who were easily accessible.

The Acropolis drawn in 1670:


drawing of part of the W. pediment in 1674:

Plan of Fanelli (1707) showing the two fatal successful Venetian cannon shots :

Explosion of the Parthenon:

The Caryatid porch of the Erechtheion in 1751 : all drawings of the pre-Elgin period show the statues intact, except the N-E one which was missing long before. They had suffered no iconoclasm from anybody, and were not under threat.


Lord Elgin having the sculptures removed from the still standing parts of the Parthenon (Watercolor by Edward Dodwell, 1801):


The Caryatid porch as left by Lord Elgin (Watercolor by Edward Dodwell):


Another view of the porch, drawing by Simone Pomardi, 1804:

 

i stand corrected.....and yes, its not an isolated victim of destruction of war to be sure...but it is a biggie...

 

I greatly appreciate the many points above about how complex the history of any artifact is, making it virtually impossible to determine who "really" ought to have any particular ancient artifact. Two additional complexities: 1) the massive migration of peoples that has occurred over the last 2-3 thousand years, and 2)...

We all have a ridiculously massive number of ancestors. Assuming an average 25y/generation, 1000 years gets us to 1 trillion ancestors (not actually possible of course, there's lots of duplication within each person's family tree). Assuming a very generous average 30y/generation, that still gets us 10 billion ancestors each within the last millenium. In other words, it would be astonishing if anyone today with even a little bit of European ancestry wasn't descended from Charlemagne.

Coupled with all the migration mentioned earlier, each one of us is related to tons of ancient people who lived anywhere in the world you can name.

The natural move is to rely, not on ancestry, but on cultural descent. But if anything, the history of culture is even more complex and interconnected than ancestry is.

That leaves geography. Why should geography matter so much when we are all connected in multiple ways to every ancient location on Earth?

Recent looting, e.g. the Elgin Marbles, may well be different. I think a legitimate case can be made based on the very recent value to Greeks that these have had. This doesn't apply to anything forgotten though, e.g. something just now recovered from the ground.

 

For fun, I actually traced things back. Yes, there are several links here that are on shaky ground with genealogists, but it was still a fun exercise. My belief is there are millions out there with similar ancestry. I once read that ~14% of Norway can trace themselves back to one 10th century king.

On a more serious side, I've also traced my Luxembourg routes to the 16th century. Those roots are less shaky, since the records were pretty good. Interestingly, despite Luxembourg being larger at the time and borders being porous, they pretty much stayed within modern day Luxembourg.

The thing is, though, when we can't even trace ourselves back to one particular place, how are we expected to judge to which group of people and place a particular artifact belongs?

 

I am particularly fascinated with the Bust of Nefertiti as I have a painting on papyrus that a friend in Egypt sent to me in exchange for a coin years ago. This particular bust was found in Egypt in 1912 by a German archaeologist and sent to Germany with paperwork apparently giving a vague description of the bust as being of some unknown Egyptian princess. This bust has been displayed in the Neues Museum for much of the time since then and has been an object of Egyptian efforts seeking it's return since 1924.

IMHO the bust belongs in Egypt. The German museums have made literally millions of euros, marks etc for over 100 years and really their desire to retain the bust is based on revenue - not appreciation of historic culture.

I also believe the Luxor Obelisk in Paris needs to be returned to Egypt.

 

I hope the British Museum does not buckle. The artifacts are currently housed in safe places that anyone from the world can visit. The same cannot be said if they were returned to some of the countries demanding them back.

 

People can't visit Athens? Seriously?