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Comment by notpushkin | Hacker News Reader

> While some critics of repatriation have raised concerns over how poorer countries will care for their returned artifacts, 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.”

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.)

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Many artifacts were stolen from legitimate kingdoms / village councils / etc that no longer exist, so for these artifacts returning it to the corresponding modern government is fairly appropriate.

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.

Would make sense imo to auction them to the highest bidder and distribute it to the heirs. Or give the heirs shares of a corporation that holds the artifact.

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.

> 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.

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.

> the government doesn't "own" it in the way King Charles owns the Crown Jewels

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.

This is spot on. Why should a “mosern country” be the owner of an artifact? I wonder honestly, I am not just whining.

You steal a mummy from egipt, take it to london, put it in a museum.

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?

Yeah but it gets absurd if enough time passes.

"Your ancestors wronged my ancestors 1000 years ago, so now modern you owes modern me"

Yes, and repay it by giving back said object. Egypt or those countries didn't ask for rent or back payments so let's stop imagining strawmen.

Repay what? The people of modern Egypt have no connection or inheritance claim to the ancient artifacts, other than their having been created in a similar place where the modern Egyptians are currently living. They don't even share a remotely similar culture. The same is true of many other places that had their artifacts collected, in that the people have no legal claim to the artifacts other than their having existed in a place in time nor do they often have any shared culture with the people who created the artifacts.

Indeed, it is even arguable whether they are even genetically similar to the ancient Egyptians, due to the migration of the Arabs from the peninsula when spreading Islam over time.

From what I've read, the Egyptian genetics are still relatively similar to Egyptians from several thousand years ago, due to the relatively small number of Arabs involved in the Arab conquest of Egypt. However, the only kinds of inheritance that I believe are strong are familial or cultural. I don't believe in broad umbrella genetic inheritance claims without any establishable familial connection. Beyond this, I think the idea of geographic artifact ownership claims, based solely on the geographic origin of artifacts, have little to no merit.

Beyond this, I think the idea of geographic artifact ownership claims, based solely on the geographic origin of artifacts, have little to no merit.

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).

> That's fine, but the world disagrees with you, by and large.

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.

This is I think a thing that is difficult for Americans to understand, because the only Americans who have a thousand years of family history in the place they currently live are also asking museums for their stuff back.

There’s a big difference between a culture that mostly ceased to exist in the past 200 years, because of the USA, and one that ceased to exist 3500 years ago.

false dilemma, there are more options

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.

Depending on the time period, anyone between the Egyptians, Hyksos, Nubians, Libyans, Persians, Assyrians and the Romans, and indeed the British, since they all at one point were the official rulers of Egypt.

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)

Mummies are maybe a bad example, as one could argue, that bodies should be by their grave.

Or a perfect example - because there are extremely few cultures and circumstances in which very old human graves are moved when the government or rulers changed?

Graves generally aren't permanent; most plots are leased for a fixed term. What is done with the caskets and contents thereafter varies widely.

Is that really how pyramids worked? King Tut in the pyramid for 60 years then to the Nile his bones?

It sort of worked like that, though that wasn't the intention? By which I mean, as I understand it, all the pyramids were robbed a very long time ago, but Tutankhamun's tomb survived undisturbed until the 20th century because it wasn't in a pyramid.

And in fact modern Egyptians are more Arabs — the Copts are closer to, but still very far from, the ancient Egyptians.

Therein lies the crux. In all these srories imperialism is a western power only thing. Meanwhile the region is constantly going back and forth in several imperialist waves. There is still imperialism active in dafur.

> Or people of egypt represented by their government,living in an area where the mummy was stolen from?

Whose culture and polity have no continuity with that of the people who made the mummy, but rather with that of later invaders.

What do you mean “stole”? From whom? They were literally abandoned.

>They were literally abandoned.

Interesting take. If they were abandoned then I dont see how anyone could claim ownership of it.

Abandoned property generally belongs to whoever finds it and claims it.

The act of stealing was buying it from a local trader who considered it part of the heathen past.

Because they are more secure there. These are irreplaceable items. Pick your favorite cultural artifact, would you help move it to a more secure location if there was a lot of instability that could lead to it being destroyed? Even if that more secure location was a different country? I personally would.

Sorry: I must have explained myself badly. We agree (I preder the artifacts in, say, London rather than in modern “Egypt”).

I would recommend reading "Africa is Not a Country" that delves into this exact question. It is the pinnacle of self-serving arguments for European countries to first spend centuries colonising Africa, stolen its wealth and cultural artifacts, enriching themselves in the bargain, and dividing the continent in a way that would guarantee political instability, to then use that same instability as an excuse for not returning those cultural artifacts.

Of course this article is about Indonesia - that's not a country that screams instability in any case

Having been multiple times at the Chirac Quai Branly museums, it's pretty clear the argument is valid: most pieces seem totally forgettable and would likely have been discarded by their owners. Heck, even the "royal door of XXX king palace" is a 1-meter wooden door with carvings that aren't particularly fine. Those artifacts still exist and have value because they are exposed in a museum in Paris, otherwise nobody would care.

The Netherlands has accumulated so much art and antiques in the last 200 years that most of it never sees the light of day. It sits in giant secured vaults.

> Heck, even the "royal door of XXX king palace" is a 1-meter wooden door with carvings that aren't particularly fine

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.

To be honest, artifacts are not wealth. Resources are wealth and you do not use artifacts as resources. They can be a display of wealth but not the wealth itself.

I'm sure your keepsakes would be more secure in my safe deposit box but that doesn't give me the right to break into your house and take your shit.

especially when you consider the British Museum hasn't been great about preventing theft recently

> isn’t the rightful owner.

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.

There is no "nation from which the items were taken".

I’m not sure I follow - The items were taken from somewhere at some point in time and now there is a country on that territory.

Take an extreme hypothetical. Suppose in the 1500s the government of Spain had taken some artifacts relating to the indigenous peoples of New Mexico. Would the government of the United States really be the rightful owner of these artifacts?

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.

I don’t see the controversy of your example because since there was no UNESCO and other global agreements in the 1500s, the indigenous people of this area are still around and so it would be the local Native American tribes that can have a legitimate claim on their heritage.

Lots of native american tribes committed genocide and destroyed other tribes. If Tribe A made some artifacts, and then was genocided out of existence by Tribe B, which was then conquered by the Tribe C (USA). Would you want Tribe B to have ownership of the artifacts of tribe B?

Including your 'tribe C' (the USA) with two indigenous tribes (A & B) in your example is highly disingenuous. And self-serving to your contrived hypothetical.

It is an interesting theory, if I understand it. Is the Idea that controlling a geographic region makes one the rightful heir to any artifacts created by people and cultures previously in the region?

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 think it’s clear the spirit of my comment was to mean that the descendants of the original owners would be one of the parties with a claim to have their artefacts repatriated. It’s clearly not a strictly geographical problem.

Are we talking genetic ancestry? What if the genetic ancestors have little in common with the current geographic population What if the genetic ancestors themselves were brutal slavers and overlords who extracted the riches by force?

This is a very good point, which I brought up in another comment. Arguing on the basis of broad genetic ancestry to establish ownership of ancient artifacts can quickly get murky and nonsensical, when considering nations that exist today with similar genetic ancestry, and also those former nations which may have been antagonistic, yet have similar genetics.

The idea of a nation-state is surprisingly recent and not completely universal, right? Historically people might be organized along kinship, tribal, ethnic, religious, or some other lines. Then an empire could pop up and control various groups of those, often against their wills, sometimes via intermediaries (which might not even map well to the underlying peoples).

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).

Interesting thought. Perhaps the Egyptian relics should be repatriated to modern day practitioners of Egyptian polytheism. I believe the Kemetic Orthodoxy is currently headquartered in Illinois, USA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kemetic_Orthodoxy#Worship

Hah. I’m going to intentionally pass on that one, my main point was that it is hard to make these decisions. The existence of surprising edge cases like yours just goes to show that it is a hard problem.

Egypt abandoned monotheism for Christianity before surrendering to Muslims.

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