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Comment by dietr1ch | Hacker News Reader

Well, they got their exhibits for free, didn't they?

Funny line-- but I think it's important to highlight how the Brits were able to find value and unlock a history in objects that other cultures stopped caring about.

While people like to say they "stole" things, there's no evidence they ever took something that others actually cared about or took the least interest in protecting. The Elgin marbles were just flopped around a field and no locals seemed to care at all. Some of the items were purchased directly from their owner at a price negotiated with a willing seller.

I think the British museum is proof of how scholarship and gentle care can preserve our past and create something that people love to visit and learn about.

Such a kind British museum offering to maintain these artifacts to the point of denying return to the origin countries when requested. Clearly this is for the preservation of our past and the benefit of humanity.

Absent any proof that the objects were truly stolen, I don't feel any need to return something to someone in some country who suddenly finds an interest in getting something back. What does ownership mean to you?

Let's say you come to my country and buy a souvenir. Can I decide, hundreds of years later, that you must be forced to give it back?

And why do borders matter? The argument seems to be that housing an object on one side of an arbitrary political line is morally superior to putting it on display on the other side of some invisible line. Somehow someone born to the right parents is a morally superior curator compared to someone born into the wrong parents.

> Funny line-- but I think it's important to highlight how the Brits were able to find value and unlock a history in objects that other cultures stopped caring about.

Do you really think they stopped caring about? Bold claim to say this applies for every culture and artifact over there.

Or is it maybe that pillaging, which destroys what's left behind, and then having no good way to take things back other than defeating the British Naval Empire makes maintaining your own history hard?

Louvre's content was mostly acquired fairly at market prices?

GP is likely referring to the British Museum, which is famous for having stolen goods.

Go back far enough and everything was stolen from someone

thats so wrong

I know, hence my question

France was a colonial power and an attempted empire too...

If conquest was easy, or "free", everyone would do it. But it is actually a skill issue.

Maybe the skill issue is not being a savage and instead desiring a more civil way of restoring things.

Looting doesn't require conquest. Most famously the Elgin marbles were sneakily taken from the ottoman empire

Pretty sure the same is true of the Louvre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Egyptian_Antiqui...

I paid to see the rosetta stone ...

The permanent exhibition is free, special exhibitions often have an entry charge.

The Rosetta Stone has always been in the permanent exhibition, was it moved?

In January 2024, I saw it for free at the British Museum and all indications are it is still in the same spot free to view

They had to do the work of looting them

You probably understand museum business model wrong.

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