The Netherlands has returned some stolen artifacts to Indonesia
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
The discussion is important and the history of how these museums came to have the items they do is fraught with depredation but that is't the whole story. I feel like there is nuance around how many of these items that have ended up in the museums of the West and that nuance is paved over by labeling everything as stolen.
I don’t see a single missing artifact on this list that was taken by Europeans and lost in WWI or WWII: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missing_treasures
Plenty lost in other parts of the world though!
For a more concrete example: The Colonial Collections Committee report behind the article discusses a total of 390 items. 10 of them were known to be lost before the 1990s. Further 17 were not found in an inventory at that time. One additional item was determined to be a loss that had been reported earlier. Two further items had been reportedly transferred somewhere else, but their current status is unknown.
The USSR systematically stole from all the areas they occupied. They stole the indexes and inventories, so it's not known what was taken.
Entire libraries and museums just vanished.
The Soviets implied they were destroyed in the war, but there is strong evidence the Soviet system of looting preserved much. In the early 1990s, some treasures started to leak out.
Wikipeia is good at some things, and terrible at others. Compiling a list of "missing treasures" is far beyond it's competency.
If the best place to hide a lie is between two truths then the best place to hide a stolen item is between two that were legitimately acquired. This debate always seems to acknowledge that there are items completely illigitmately acquired but then shrug shoulders that nothing can be done because there are other items that were legitmatley acquired and somehow that's supposed to be convicing.
It's an idictment against the British Museum and by extension the UK that these items we do agree are stolen simply aren't returned.
That's a hard sell when the country that winds up with the artifacts was also the primary agitator of political, social and economic turmoil (you know, the usual colonial stuff). An arsonist shouldn't get to keep victims' heirlooms to "save them from the conflagration".
To clarify further, modern Indonesia includes some 17,000 islands that historically included almost as many different cultural variations.
The Dutch East Indies included (according to the Dutch) most of those islands and more.
The spice trade was a major revenue stream, so much so that one activity included destroying alternative sources of certain spices on islands that weren't part of the Dutch industrial spice pipeline - to avoid any chance of rivals from France, Germany, England, Spain, etc. sneaking in and getting their own cuttings to start rival plantations.
The VOC (under that name (or another later?)) were active in the region from 1600 - 1940 (ish) when the Japanese swept through and seized oil supplies, etc.
As for the rest; slavery, starting civil wars to divide and conquer, several waves of outright direct warring, destruction of libraries and buildings from local empires that went back centuries, .. the usual fun and games of colonial powers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_Indies gives a bief outline.
And of course this has happened: https://www.smb.museum/en/museums-institutions/ethnologische...
I can see a happy medium, where (ex)colonizers return artifacts to neutral safe harbor near the home country.
If Indonesia is unstable or if museums don't meet standards, then let artifacts be held in Australia. If Egypt is too unstable, then have the artifacts returned to Dubai. With the frequency of 'just stop oil' vandalism, I'm not sure if the west is the safest place for these artifacts anyway.
Alternatively, national embassies also make for great safe harbor. This way the artifacts are nominally returned to the home country, without needing to cross borders or jeopardizing the artifact's safety.
You don't seem to be disputing that the items were stolen but rather claiming that some of the theft was justified.
This is a bad argument, because it's irrelevant.
Imagine getting your car stolen, and the thief says it's justified because he is rich (partly due to stealing a lot of cars) and he can afford to send the car to the shop for maintenance more often.
The object belongs to the original owner. Even if that original owner would choose to destroy or damage their object on purpose that would be up to them.
But the government of the country the artifacts are being returned into isn’t the rightful owner. (I do think returning is the right thing to do, but it should be a bit more thought through.)
Who has more claim on the item... someone who stole it and kept it for 100, 150, 200 years? Or people of egypt represented by their government,living in an area where the mummy was stolen from?
"Your ancestors wronged my ancestors 1000 years ago, so now modern you owes modern me"
That's fine, but the world disagrees with you, by and large.
And it needs to have some way of adjudicating these claims. Granted, fine-grained aspects of "familial" vs. "genetic" inheritance (throwing in migrations and multiple waves of forced assimilation) might muddy the waters a bit.
But the vastly bigger point is -- to a first-order approximation, the criterion of "proximate geographic origin" provides at least some form of an objective basis of ownership, and a reasonably workable and intuitive one at that. Meanwhile, as of the 21st century, the consensus view is that the ownership "claims" of recent colonial powers who extracted these artifacts coercively have no merit or basis whatsoever.
Per what the world at large seems to think about these matters. You can disagree of course, and go stand in front of your local museum and hold up a sign stating so, if you like.
(And nevermind the "solely" part please. Yes, there are corner cases like Anatolia where one group comes in and basically genocides the groups living there, so why should the current population get ownership of everything buried underground? Interesting questions, but again corner cases -- and the current population of Egypt seems to be the very opposite of such a case, for the very reasons you stated).
I honestly don't like the way I ended that last sentence. If I could re-write it I'd replace "merit" with "basis in cultural lineage". I would agree that most people in the world don't default to feeling this way, but I also don't think most people have a well thought out idea of why they disagree. If it is considered that the current geographic ownership claims are retroactive ownership claims based solely on the current owners of the geography, for items that existed on the land long before the current legal nations came into existence, the claims make much less sense.
> the criterion of "proximate geographic origin" provides at least some form of an objective basis of ownership
This is part of the reason why I don't like how I used "merit", as it could get confused with legal merit, which wasn't really my intended meaning. However, the problem with this argument is that many of the cultural objects that were collected in years past were collected prior to the modern nations existing in those places. Due to this, this argument really would have little legal merit for virtually all the countries where artifacts have been collected, as those countries did not exist when the British collected the artifacts, and their current claims are a retroactive idea of ownership over what was collected before the current nation came into existence.
>the consensus view is that the ownership "claims" of recent colonial powers who extracted these artifacts coercively have no merit or basis whatsoever
There may be a opinion in the popular consciousness about this general topic, but there can't be a legal consensus, as every claim has to be evaluated individually. Without documentation on the origin and the original owners of the artifacts, and documentation establishing that said artifacts were retrieved illegally, it is impossible to establish legally that the current owners do not actually have ownership over the artifacts.
>the current population of Egypt seems to be the very opposite of such a case, for the very reasons you stated
This is very much not what I stated. The civilization that created the ancient Egyptian artifacts is completely distinct from the current culture. Besides having genetic similarities, which all humans do to some extent, modern Egyptians have near zero cultural lineage tracing to the ancient Egyptian civilization.
the "most right" answer doesn't mean its the right answer. compromise results in wrong answers when there is a right answer. this isn't a standardized test.
I have no idea why citizens of modern Egypt, which didn’t get formed until 1953, would be more entitled to up to 3500 year old artifacts more than the then actual owners (agree with the means or not)
Whose culture and polity have no continuity with that of the people who made the mummy, but rather with that of later invaders.
Interesting take. If they were abandoned then I dont see how anyone could claim ownership of it.
Of course this article is about Indonesia - that's not a country that screams instability in any case
Perhaps your subjective standards are not universal when determining cultural/aesthetic significance of artifacts.
I saw a railroad spike in an American museum once, it wasn't decorative, or made of precious metal (just steel), but it meant something to the locals. I don't doubt the other adjacent pegs were scrapped or rusted away, but that peg was culturally significant due to the historical nature of the railroad itself.
And who is qualified to determine the "rightful owner"? The current government of the nation from which the items were taken is the one in charge of policy regarding their cultural and historical artefacts.
For other countries it's not quite as extreme, but in general the link between ancient culture in place X and modern country in place X is less strong than people try to make out.
Does the USA have a claim to all indigenous Artifacts created in the US? It doesn't seem that different than Egypt laying claim to Egyptian artifacts.
I do think the best thing to do is to return artifacts to their rightful owners, but figuring out who the rightful owners is, can be quite difficult.
I mean, if they stole some artifacts from a tribe, which was subsequently wiped out by a tribe of bitter rivals, do they give their artifacts back to the rival tribe that later went on to form a government? (Just as a hypothetical, hopefully this is general enough that it is clear that I’m not trying to describe any particular real situation).
Otherwise, unless there is a clear claim of individual/familial ownership vis descendancy, then returning artifacts to a legal national government is still a least bad option. In this case the artifact belongs to the people and is stewarded by the peoples' government - the government doesn't "own" it in the way King Charles owns the Crown Jewels. (Ideally this government would be democratic, but international legitimacy should be enough for the UK to hand over the goods.)
There are a ton of exceptions - Rohingya artifacts shouldn't be sent blindly into Myanmar - but I promise the people involved are taking this seriously. It seems condescending and arrogant van Bommel really failed to "think through" her usage of a metonymy.
I'm not sure about Indonesia government but I'm confident if my forefathers made artifacts and it got 'returned' to US gov what would happen is a bunch of rich city dwellers would get to see it in an exhibit somewhere, some director will see a fat salary and meanwhile I have no share or compensation nor practical ability to access the artifact.
How do you expect such a clean and clear historic record considering these artifacts were taken from places subjected to deep exploitation by the same countries that today possess the artifacts? Surely keeping records of historical artifacts for use centuries later, would have been a lower priority for the local population than survival.
Would the Crown Jewels still be owned by Charles (or his heirs) if the UK ceased to be a monarchy? I hope not — when the monarchy falls all “royal” property should become public property.
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/stuff-the-british-sto...
Things like:
- The current government in power may not allow the artifacts to be returned to the original people, but will accept them and place them in the national museum. In many of these cases; the original people actually oppose the "return" for now, and are waiting for the political situation to change.
- The current government actively blocks the return of artifacts as it would be victory for their opponents
- In some cases, the artifact would have been wholly unremarkable except for the fact it was taken by the British; that is it has a lot more significance as a "Thing the British Stole" and would have been lost to time otherwise
- Many artifacts require very intricate preservation activities that the receiving country isn't equipped for
- If the artifact involves human remains, there are all kinds of laws preventing the movement/transfer/relocation of human remains in both countries
In general I think returning them is a good thing, but more often than not there's an enormous legal/moral/ethical quagmire surrounding them
Edit: No judgement intended either way on this particular instance. I just wanted to provide a good resource if others are interested in learning more about the general situation.
But even with 1707 you’re talking 30% of the age of the USA again.
Great Britain the name of the island both are located upon. England and Scotland will always be a part of Britain, because that's a geographical area, not a political one.
Not necessarily: they could dig a big canal across the island along the border.
The Stone of Scone is a good example of something else, though: if you declare that your king is coronated on a particular stone, when your neighbor conquers you what do you think your neighbor is going to do with the stone? Same thing you would do if you conquered them.
Anyway, James VI of Scotland became King James I of England, which merged the claims, and meant that from then on, claims to the Scottish throne and claims to the English throne would be the same thing.
Cruel, destabilizing, more atrocities than any other empire, but somehow the royal class had a culture of conservation for (some) wildlife and historical artefacts.
This is an interesting example of survivor's bias. We know about the atrocities the British Empire committed because many of their victims survived. You should read about the Soviets, the Assyrians, or heck even just read the Bible. History has a lot of atrocities in it. As an empire goes the British were pretty run-of-the-mill, maybe a bit light on the genocide.
Lol, no. Not even close. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_under_the_Mongol_E...
I certainly know many people in countries from which these things were taken who think they are safer somewhere stable - I have heard exactly the comment that returning things will probably mean then end up stolen by politicians from Sri Lankans with regard to the things the Netherlands returned to Sri Lanka.
Also, consider what would have happened if the things from what is now Iraq had been there at the mercy of the likes of ISIS.
In many cases the people know occupying a territory have a different culture and history to the ancient people who made something. They may even have been the conquerors who destroyed the culture that made artifacts.
You cannot put that as a reason to keep the artifacts in the UK, of all places.
And of course there's a lot to say about it, even taking the absolute most charitable view, that's 90 years of mild effort after 3 centuries of slave trade. Considering what the UK keeps doing at that time and for the century after, I also wouldn't take the a naively charitable read of it in the first place.
The idea of reparations has come up. Should the US be paying or the African countries who profited and kept it going for another 100 years.
Reparations are a different topic and wouldn't necessarily solve the problems of slavery/colonization.
The British had the comparative advantage in shipping
PS: my question would be how many other countries you think were ahead of the UK in terms of trade slave when it was all the rage for European countries ?
I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying, but do you mean that Sri Lanka politicians stole the golden cannon or something else returned from Netherlands? Do you have a citation for that?
I’m not being facetious here, but isn’t the USA (and other nations) basically that? So much of the wealth was accrued through the “low” labor costs of early industry.
Now I also learned that Egyptian authorities have since found even more mummified cats, perhaps even millions. But it's still a very striking example of the plundering mentality of the big naval powers.
https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0jr4z6k/why-tonnes-of-mummif...
To be semantic it's not plundering, even slaves were purchased from locals.
Do you even know that the gold was removed by the British, and not some enterprising locals? The British were not cultural outliers in their graverobbing. They were outliers in that they saw historical value in items and chose to preserve them, instead of deconstructing them.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/26/british-museum-s...
Why would you? By calling it the 'ebb and flow of history' you seem to imply that the things we do to each other is beyond the control of humans.
But of course we're fully in control of what we do, so the question is rather: if we have the possibility to do good, and it comes at virtually no cost to us, then why not do good?
After all, the British Museum, the main example for restitutions, is located in a global city, given completely free access to its huge collection on display and pays for preservation. The global cultural value it adds is much larger than individual museums all over the would could provide.
> Marieke van Bommel, director general of the National Museum of World Cultures, tells the New York Times’ Lynsey Chutel that “the thief cannot tell the rightful owners what to do with their property.”
And in the meantime the academic establishment seem to ignore doing what's best for the artefacts or the public. Abused children are taken away from their parents, but artefact are to simply be given back to whatever state has jurisdiction over some area they were in way back?
There seems to not be a simple answer on when things should be given back or not, but at least some effort should be put into figuring out some triage criteria.
> art project idea: "The British Museum", which is housed somewhere outside the UK and will accept and display any donations from anonymous donors into its collection that were provably stolen from Great Britain
Please don't shoot the messenger here. I'm just saying hypocrisy doesn't negate legal rights. I'm American, so no dog in the fight, but the UK would have the right to take those artifacts back.
The UK has been very stable for a long time, however they are profiting indirectly from the museums, since it s a driver of tourism.
Should the UK become less stable, we should have a hard look at ensuring the continuity of the collection. As others have mentioned, a lot of these things would have been destroyed or forgotten had the British not decided it was important to keep it - and as time goes on, those things become even more irreplaceable.
Immigration/tourism requirements are always the strictest against the very countries who were plundered during colonial times, in comparison to rich countries with an imperial past/present.
Most of the world will never visit the UK. Most of the value that the British museum supplies goes back to the UK in the form of tourism and to close allies of the UK in terms of exposure to these artifacts.
The UK allows only 83 countries' passport holders visa-free.
I picked Singapore at random. Probably some other country is even more visitor-friendly.
The “easiest” city to visit for the majority of the world depends on several factors, such as accessibility, flight connections, visa requirements, and infrastructure. However, based on these considerations, Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is often cited as one of the easiest cities for global travelers to visit. Here’s why:
1. Geographical Location: Dubai is centrally located between Europe, Asia, and Africa, making it a natural hub for international travel. Most of the world’s population is within an 8-hour flight of Dubai. 2. Major International Airport: Dubai International Airport (DXB) is one of the busiest airports globally, with direct flights to over 240 cities across six continents. Emirates Airline, based in Dubai, has extensive routes connecting the world. 3. Visa Policies: The UAE has relatively flexible visa policies. Many nationalities can obtain a visa on arrival, while others have access to electronic visas or straightforward visa processes. 4. Tourism Infrastructure: Dubai is extremely tourist-friendly with world-class hotels, transport systems, and tourist attractions. 5. Political Stability and Safety: Dubai is considered a safe and politically stable city, which adds to its appeal for international visitors.
Other cities like Istanbul, Singapore, or London also offer excellent global connectivity and infrastructure, but Dubai’s visa policies and central location make it a standout.
Trivially false. The UK has strict requirements for Russia, a former imperial power. The USA was formerly 13 British colonies and has few restrictions.
Russia is currently in direct conflict with the UK (specifically financial and indirect military support to Ukraine, obviously not with regards to a hot war). Whereas that is not the case with any African nations I am aware of, yet many of those nations face significant travel restrictions not faced by a pre Ukraine invasion Russian population.
Most of the collection of the British Museum is not on display at any given moment (if ever). They could lose 90% of their inventory and the display would be exactly the same.
But that's beside the point. Museum entry may be free, but London is pretty expensive to go to, especially if you are from a place where the items in question were plundered (ie poor third world countries). In some cases it may even be illegal. Most of the people whose cultures those items belong to cannot afford to go visit the museum.
As for London being expensive, well visiting any foreign country is expensive by non-natives. At least in London you can get a large set of cultural exposure in a single visit.
> Most of the people whose cultures those items belong to cannot afford to go visit the museum.
There is no ancient Greek or Egyptian alive today, those cultures are long dead. What claim do modern inhabitants of those regions have over these artefacts?
So why not use this logic to extract all of The Hague's Mauritshuis (including The Girl With The Pearl Earring) to London? Let's include the most prized artifacts of other European countries too in this "large set of cultural exposure".
I think the default should be to return to the native country wherever possible. Although it does beg the question of what to do if the native countries have changed significantly due to imperialism/colonization, idk.
But I do appreciate the value of cross cultural sharing so perhaps museums could have a rotating selection that they can borrow for some time from the native country, as long as the transport does not have negative impacts on the artifacts.
Isn't this like saying "I'm not going to return what I stole because you clearly aren't capable of taking care of it, if you are it would never have been stolen"
I think there's a misunderstanding about the intention behind asking for return of stolen artifacts. It's not aleays about the artifacts themselves or how valuable they are or preserving them at all.
Returning items is like acknowledgment of historical mistakes and a signal that the other party is ready to make amends.
Merely acknowledging the mistake while holding onto the stolen artifacts is just a lip service that isn't even sincere.
The fish should never been taken but trying to do the ideal thing will kill the fish. Be practical not idealist.
You have a very cynical and skewed view of things. These museums were built specifically for the public good, to show off things that were of no interest in their original countries at that time. The British didn't say they wanted to build public museums to increase tourism, that came later as an unintended consequence.
You have a very cynical and skewed view of things.
Was anyone in the Mesopotamian area interested about cuneiform tablets a century ago? Where locals doing any archeological digs at Ur or Uruk?
It grants free access to British citizens and those few who can afford to travel to the UK. The grand majority of the world’s population cannot afford this.
Most important, the locals living in cities that were pillaged by the British can’t access cultural items at all. Sure, the museum entry might be free, but they can’t afford to travel to an island far far away.
I think that's besides the point.
To me this means a goodhearted effort to right past wrongs.
Firstly, as others have pointed out, the British Museum is not freely accessible to the vast majority of the world population. The world is larger than WEIRD countries and the richer sections of formerly colonised countries countries
Secondly, it is not the British Museum's decision to make about whether the cultural artifacts of other people is more valuable to "global culture" than it is to the culture it originated from. Let's take an example: India and China both have a population more than double that of the EU. Which means a museum located in either country provides visa-free access to billions of people with relatively cheap travel.
Would that be an argument to move the Girl With the Pearl Earring from The Hague's Mauritshuis to New Delhi or Beijing? Would it be an argument to move the painting to the British Museum? Indeed why not move the entire Mauritshuis to the British Museum? After all London receives far more visitors than The Hague does. Surely the global cultural value of those artifacts is greater than the value that the Dutch place on it.
Consider that you apply this logic to extract all Dutch artwork from that country and place it in a second country. Consider that the second country was largely responsible for such extraction, which included not only cultural artifacts but also wealth. Consider that the second country now places visa restrictions that make it harder for Dutch people to visit the country and even if they did, the cost of actually doing so would largely exclude most Dutch people. What effect would this extraction of cultural heritage have on the Dutch?
The reason why children are protected from abusive parents, is because they are protected by human right laws. A child is legally entitled to an upbringing safe from abuse, so a state is obligated to remove children from abusive housrholds.
Of course antiquities aren't people so they don't have any human rights. That is why it's stupid to compare artifacts to abused children.
My counterpoint is wondering how many would have been destroyed by ISIS or civil unrest in some of the less stable regions of the world.
This line of thought is fascinating to me.
We should preserve them for all of humanity? Who chooses the custodian?
We want a more nationalist case for repatriation to country of origin? If they get destroyed, it’s not the self-professed custodian nation’s problem or loss.
Cynical, perhaps, but you need to balance self-determination with preservation. Maybe having their artifacts back will provide a drive to stability for the sake of heritage.
I can’t help but feel that all future generations should have the opportunity to learn from artifacts as well, but I’m saying that from a Western perspective.
I have no idea how one should fairly choose a custodian or determine what “stability” really means.
Maybe as humans touch all corners of the globe, we just accept that historical artifacts are ephemeral things and enjoy them while they last.
The idea that modern Egyptians have any claim over the artifacts when they don't share a culture or civilization with those who created the artifacts is tenuous. The artifacts don't belong to the land itself. They belonged to people of a no longer existing civilization that once inhabited the land.
In the case of Britain, they got the artifacts because they established a protectorate over Egypt and thus were able to excavate and do civil engineering.
However, the fact that the artifacts were there to be discovered in the first place was because the Arab and later Ottoman overlords left them there.
So who should rightfully claim them? One of the historical suzerains of Egypt? Or the current nation of Egypt who inhabit the ancient Egyptian territory?
I can’t think of the ‘right’ (ie just) answer to that question… only practical ones.
Also, western institutions have not been ideal stewards themselves, historically. The Pergamon kept the Ishtar gate through bombings in WW2 and the GDR. The British Museum has lost untold numbers of artifacts because they don't even have the resources to do a complete catalog of their collection, let alone properly conserve them.
I’m personally saddened by all the artifacts destroyed recently in the Middle East over ideological differences.
It's not working well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan#Destruction...
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/26/isis-fighters-...
A hot take on this could be to just return a rock of equal size. It is not clear how all the information gathered should be factored into this.
In many cases, they could be replaced with collected, saved, and preserved.
Our current sense of historical preservation was not as pervasive in the past. In many places these materials would have been consumed or destroyed by locals who had more pragmatic concerns and no interest in the past.