British Museum: “what’s a country of origin?”
British Museum gets a lot of hate but there are plenty of museums that’s have walked off with others countries treasure. The Pergamon museum in Berlin took literal chunks of ancient cities
How about we make them all give it back or make reforms to show them in host countries while the origin country retains ancestral ownership? Kinda like loaning art out.
Germany is returning stolen artifacts, and even getting criticism for it when it backfires like it happened with the Benin Bronzes (which the Nigerian government gave to the former royal family and are not available to the general public in any country now).
It’s fun to say this, but at least BM is really able to do their main job and preserve the artifacts.
There’s dozens of cases where the original sites have been looted or destroyed by the origin country’s own leaders.
Storing the artifacts outside of the influence of an area’s internal issues is actually really wise. The BM’s real wrongdoing is not paying anything for the artifacts they’ve took. I argue they’ve done enough good to offset that a little. They’re bad but not the worst.
That’s a lot of words to make the exact same excuses used not only to steal the art in the first place, but to colonise the countries it came from too - that us “civilised” people need to take care of their things because they are too “savage” to do it themselves.
Spoken like a true coloniser.
British museum is truly terrible, but tbh the only reason people know about it and know to tag on it is because they try to reckon with their existence. Just over the channel in France is Musée du Quai Branly, which was originally going to be called “museum of the primitive arts”, that first of all costs money (BM is free) but also does a terrible job of explaining what the items are and who stole them from whom. BM tries to contextualiza what they stole and when and from whom, Quai Branly is a straight up colonial museum (there are other worse museums in Europe)
Yes, actually. It is very much in line with my values as a left wing pacifist from Scandinavia 😁
Imagine all these country’s have trash that is worthless.
Some British guy comes along and says I “hey see that over there can I buy it?” “What that trash?” “Yes” “Sure thing dipshit”
Then instead of being destroyed like everything else it gains value and then they want it back.
Yea sure I also want my dads apple shares he sold in 1985 because I didn’t realise they would be valuable in the future when he sold them.
Most of the stuff was bought.
But even the conquest shit. People have been conquesting each other for ever. Suddenly you want to take stuff back of one country that just happened to be good at it in the days when everyone agreed that was how the world worked.
The country of origin wouldn’t appreciate it in a museum.
“MY MUSEUM”
What is the country of origin? Please point out to me where the Aztec country is. Do you mean Mexico? Are they entitled to all the relics of the past civilizations theirs crushed? And yes, I know the idol in Indiana Jones isn’t really Aztec, but the overall point stands.
With the exception of the very few cases where a country can actually trace its culture and history all the way back to when those artifacts were made, ancient culture and artifacts belong to humanity as a whole, not whatever geopolitical entity happens to control the land they’re on at the time of discovery. It’s not a natural resource, it’s human history.
While we may debate wether the Aztecs descendants are now the Mexicans, they’re clearly not the English. The fact that it’s human history is exactly why it can’t be all stored in mostly one museum in one country
It should be as close to the origin as possible. Sure Mexico isnt fully “Aztec’” but it’s the closest option, certainly closer than anyone else
Uh yikes. Mexico has issues but they also have real institutions too. Further, who are you or I to say? Even if such issues exist, it’s already a system in failure-state. Returning to the host country is the first step towards a success-state, even if internal theft happens afterwards.
Put this way: as long as the home nation has an appropriate facility, the artifact should be returned promptly.
Mexico has the federal department INAH (National Institute of Anthropology and History), which preserves and cares for ancient artifacts and historical sites from the Maya, Aztec, Izapa, Teotihuacan, and more. They operate over 100 museums and handle over 139,000 archeological sites, with 150 open to the public. I think Mexico would be able to handle any artifacts found in Mexico.
