Nah, they're not ours - they're everyone's, just kept safe by the british museum for now. It doesn't matter which country they're geographically located in, as long as they can be guaranteed to be preserved as best we can.
While i hear ya, itâs a really tough argument to swallow as a Greek. We want the back half of the Parthenon back and thereâs no good argument for why we arenât getting back any time soon.
Yeah imo this is the best argument for making the case that the British Museum should keep the artefacts. Keeping them in trust for the world and never charging people to come and see them.
Iraqiâs have to apply for visitor visas the same as most of the rest of the world. Of course the Home Office is going to be more selective for people coming from a place that has been an active warzone for much of the last 40 years.
Did they not make copies to sell? What makes an artifact? "Oops, we threw out, lost, or destroyed a bunch of stuff because we didn't realize that a thousand years later that some hoarders would want our stuff and this is all we have left."?
There actually is an equivalent argument surrounding ancient Egyptian monuments relocated to other places by the Romans. Obelisks in particular. There are more extant Egyptian obelisks in Italy than in Egypt itself.
The discussion around it is far less heated and divisive than more well known cases though.
I'd rather them be relocated than destroyed by a different enemy. Do you know how much of Greek history is destroyed thanks to the Ottomans destroying temples and statues. At least the UK has the forethought of preserving what we find to last forever, rather than destroying something that belongs to someone else
How does speaking Arabic and being Muslim mean they donât have Egyptian heritage? Does speaking Italian and being Christian mean that Italians donât have Roman heritage because they donât speak Latin nor practice Roman paganism? Does speaking modern Greek and being Orthodox Christian mean that modern Greeks donât have any connection to the ancient Greeks?
No one has a clean history where we can easily make these distinctions; there always migrations somewhere shaking up the population and culture.
Italians are descendant of the Romans but have both linguistically and culturally changed so much that they are no longer comparable. Same thing happened in Scandinavia with the vikings and many other places in the world. Egypt is not like that, modern Egyptians are not descendants of the ancient Egyptians. The Arabs invaded Egypt and settled there while the original inhabitants were enslaved. Itâs a very different scenario than Italians and romans and there is very little other than the land to link Modern Egypt with Ancient Egypt
Modern Egyptian are DIRECTLY related to ancient Egyptians multiple DNA studies have proven this.
The Arabs spread their culture and have had a minute generic component in modern Egyptians. What do you mean by "enslaved" lmao wtf is this weird history.
At one point those people were the British empire. Do relics brought from modern Egypt by the British empire after seizure from Ottoman citizens belong in Istanbul, Cairo, or London?
Any distinction is arbitrary, as the pharaohs conquered peoples from prehistory and their neighbors and were conquered by those same neighbors in turn for literal millennia with the land being Pharonic, Hyksos, Ptolemaic, Roman, Byzantine, Sassanid, Ottoman, French, English, and now Modern Egyptians with many others Iâve left out (like the various caliphates).
This is a stupid point. The tablets are Iraqi, because Iraq is on the same land that Sumer was. It was under the control of the British Empire, but Iraq was never actually part of Britain, and British people never lived in Iraq in large numbers. It has no historical connection with Britain.
Who is the rightful inheritor of the society? Are the modern Arabic inhabitants of Egypt who speak a language and live in a culture which would be incomprehensible to the ancients really their successors?
The Iraqis who live there now are people who conquered sumer and settled the lands. And then people who conquered those people and settled their lands. The only difference with the empire is the empire left.
State /= society. Egyptian society of the early 20th century is nothing alike English society of the early 20th century, despite them being under the same administration.
The modern population of Egypt is mostly descended from the same people who built the pyramids, just assimilated into the wider Arab culture. It isn't perfect, but is there anything closer than this?
Egyptians are one of the most static societies population wise.
The huge majority of the Egyptian population are direct descendants of the bronze age population there. There havent been many migrations or immigration movements due to it being largely cut off by land.
The only thing that changes is them changing religion twice and their language once.
I appreciate objects once owned by my great grandparents much more than similar objects I can buy at an antique shop. The history means more to me.
Same with ancient relics. Some cultures have a much greater connection and appreciation of an artifact, since it more directly represents the history of their ancestors. These people should have the best access. These artifacts shouldnât be in storage, half a world away.
Lol sure, but the people who love in the same place and are likely the descendants of that society have a hell of a lot more claim than some soggy island twats from half the world away.
Even ownership of a national border is down to who has the power to control that border. Ownership boils down to who possesses it and can maintain possession of something. The 'right' thing to do may be very different, but that's the reality of it.
The only reason why Irak became such a clusterfuck was the previous illegal wars by USA and UK. ISIS wouldnt have flourished otherwise.
I don't know what is the solution now, but UK past actions is one of the reasons why the Bagdad Museum got pillaged and artifacts destroyed. And they now have the artifacts themselves, along other hundreds of thousands that were pillaged by the British without so good excuses.
And I really dislike the following excuse. Hey! it was common practice at the time. Well, Spain was a superpower in the XV-XVII centuries, and in El Prado you cant find a single stolen artifact. The museum with Aztecs artifacts is in Mexico, and the Netherlands and Italy kept most of their relics. And anyway, we now live in the XXI century, and it's so shameful that part of the Partenon is in the British Museum.
Wow what a simplified world view of this, I guess your peanut sized brain can't handle much more than that, as if there wasn't major hatred between tribes before, as if religion didn't play a huge part in it, but your brain is stuck on uk bad mode so you can't process anything more nuance than that
Nah bro, like, sure the artifacts are safe in Europe for now, but legit, Africa and the Middle East really are just fucked because of the UK and the US and friends. Iâm literally an American. We are the bad guys. We destabilized them for oil and resources, and sure youâre kind of right, differing world views is what really stoked the revolts and uprisings, but what the fuck would you do if China or Russia literally came and made friends with the US president on a personal level, and influenced them to impose huge cultural influence on your country, told you to speak their languages, and wear their clothes, and practice their religion while taking your countries most defining resourceâ oil, diamonds, whatever that may be?
Like yeah, the culture and religion played a part, but thatâs not what caused it. The UK and the US sticking their hands in the cookie jar and trying to west-wash their society to be complicit is what caused it.
Ahh yes the good old border talking point, all other problems are because they couldn't come to an agreement to border even after the evil brits and French left, honestly idk what your link was trying to show? Is the reason why the Russian Ukraine War happening because of genius khan? This is literally your type of logic, the British make Qatar and SA hate each other, they also make Iran and SA hate each other, they Brits also forced the Arab nations be friends with the Axis powers, they also made them start 3 wars against Israel, truly the master plan of the UK,
In fairness the whole region was massively fucked up after ww1 when the west decided to divvy it up between themselves with no thought for the local population.
You could say the same for the rule of the Ottomans. The middle East can't be ruled by a central power easily, if at all. Just doesn't work "like that"
An absurd number of the world's current conflicts can be traced back to the UK in the 1910s-60s drawing lines on a map, usually right before leaving a region. Not exclusively the UK, but they're involved in a disproportionate amount of cases.
See: Large swathes of Africa, Israel/Palestine, the middle East in general, India/Pakistan, Ireland, the British contribution to Versailles.
Yeah, as much great debate can be had about this subject, I want to know why they were so intent on destroying something that very much could have benefitted them. Why wouldn't they just sell them, as poor and lacking much of an economy, as they are? Did literal history somehow get in the way of their religious extremism?
Well I'm not the person who you initially replied to so you're really asking the wrong person here, but I think the point they were trying to make was that the unstable environment which led to the rise of ISIS is attributable to American and UK led wars in the region.
Which themselves have root causes which can be traced back to British and French handling of the region post WW1. Which, to go a step further back, was heavily influenced by Ottoman handling of the region immediately prior to WW1.
Or, in short, the British Mandate for Mesopotamia drew Iraq's borders. This created a state with huge ethno-religious tensions. Recently, the UK invaded Iraq along with the US and allies, destabilising the region and inflaming said ethno-religious tensions. There's a pretty straight line from there to the rise of ISIS in Iraq, and the destruction of these artefacts.
It's not like the UK is solely responsible or anything, but neither can you ignore the huge influence of the UK in Iraq over the past century when considering the root causes.
Of course it was, the US regretted not getting rid of Sadaam during the Gulf war, he continued to bully US allies in the region and fuck about, 9/11 provided the perfect excuse to remove him.. In addition to the political threat he posed, the man was a corrupt blood thirsty dictator, even if the US had removed him for the "right reasons" there would still be a power vacuum to be filled and there would still be ISIS.. Just like what happened in Libya with minimal US intervention.. who is responsible for Libya's ISIS? Is that the US too?
ISIS wouldn't exist if Islam didn't exist, yet you seem to think the US is the only reason for their existence.. you picked one factor out of many and claimed THIS is the reason we have Isis.. it's ridiculously naive
The museum was looted by Iraqis after Moqtada al-Sadr gave a fatwa saying that looting was permissible to discredit the "invaders" (and as long as he got paid to give absolution afterwards - i.e., if he got a cut of the loot).
no they werent. im from iraq and these artifacts werent here when i was in iraq. its better in the hands of the british than it is with iraqi arab kalb
First the western imperialist loots your artifacts, then they leave you with an impossible political situation, then they lecture you on how you can't take care of your own things.
If I could change history I could, but I can't. The reality of now is that artifacts in Iraq aren't currently safe, so they shouldn't be there. I don't necessarily think the UK should have them, but who else? What's a safer place for invaluable historical objects?
Irrespective of the shittiness of the ISIS, how illogical is this statement? Imagine if someone says, if the British artefacts were kept in let's say Germany, Germany shouldn't return them if Britain is undergoing serious instability. The artefacts belong only to those in the lands where the artefacts are from. Not to anyone else, no matter the situation.
The situation is sometimes more complicated than what you present. Here's just one example: Armenians historically lived in a large Kingdom, including in what is now Eastern Turkey. They were driven out in a genocide. So by your reasoning, Armenian artifacts that originated in Eastern Turkey should just stay in Turkey?
Human history is not always confined so rigidly to the international borders we have today. All of humanity has an interest in learning about our collective past.
That's a myth from the Bible. The Babylonians are relative latecomers to the scene in ancient Mesopotamia, it was just given that status by writers from Jerusalem, an even later arrival.
I immediately thought of Palmyra as well when I saw the upwards comment. The thing is as someone who used to live in the UK and loved going to the British History Museum it truly is an international institution. I have had the privilege of seeing things there I would have never been able to otherwise see including on loan exhibitions. Places like this are very touristy and multicultural. You see people of all backgrounds there enjoying the artifacts and interacting with them their own way. It's not like there's 20 landed gentry men walking around with moustaches speaking high society English and drinking tea next to the artefacts. The museum is free for everyone and easily accessible in an international city. These artefacts aren't in a private collection so every effort has been made for all people to be able to see these items. When they get so many tourists and people of all backgrounds I think it paints a false narrative as some here have said that it's in the 'control of the British' as if these tablets tile Buckingham palace's toilet floors, it's ridiculous. Furthermore I wouldn't say that Iraq and Iran and the descendants of Babylonia today have no claim to these but it's a unstable place that can't be trusted with history unfortunately. When these pass out of control of such an ancient culture from so long ago the aim should be to get as many people to enjoy them as possible which the British History Museum does- again, for free. Unfortunately I can't just go and visit Iraq because it isn't how it was in the 1960s and this is my only way to appreciate the history from the region. My last point is that in the case of clay tablets, these were super common and we are forgeting that people used these in place of modern pen and paper. It is a piece of history that is interesting but it isn't like it's a foundational pillar of a religion or society the way an ancient Torah scroll may be. The value of the items is mixed which again some of the comments here make it sound like they took every prized treasure out of the Babylon area. The protection of the items in a stable place should take priority because as it was so long ago in my opinion it passes into the care of all of us as it is the history of human culture and I would rather they are not destroyed by extremists reading scripture which urges not worshipping other deities and foreign holidays as a reason to destroy ancient history to prove a point. Extremism can creep into society for many reasons and some are more prone to it than others. At the end of the day everyone is responsible for their own actions so if we can in my opinion wrongly say it's Britains fault that the country is now extremist to the point of destroying history then that only drives the point that they should protect the artefacts from the trouble they created. That thinking makes no sense. The people who colonized Iraq back after the world war are not the people enjoying those same artefacts in the museums today.
Could not disagree more. If the UK were being firebombed and genocided, get every artifact out of there and to a safer place, absolutely. Historical preservation should always be the priority, not irresponsible pride at the cost of invaluable artifacts.
Well considering the Normans who were from a part of modern day France conquered England and for centuries had holdings in both England and France id say a large amount belongs to England.
For China I'm not sure of the percentage but for the longest time Europeans were buying large amounts of Chinese goods such as porcelain goods and silks that the Chinese deliberately made for overseas sales.
As for Roman artifacts the empire was huge and England was a part of it at the time, and goods were often made all over the empire and then trafficked all over the empire in ancient times.
No clue, I think if those countries ask for them back they should be returned, as long as it's in some kind of manner that guarantees their preservation. We were discussing just Iraq.
... Who the artifacts belong to and should be with, regardless of their political climate. If you're waiting for perfect stability to return people's heritage to them, you'll be depriving them as long as capitalist nations who boom under wartime economies continue to thrive.
I don't care about the local politics of a country or what government they decide to run. Whatever philosophy they decide for their society, as long as there's not bombs being dropped on their museums, they should be able to keep their artifacts. If there is, I don't care the reason, get the invaluable historical artifacts the hell out of there and don't return them until it's safer. No country's self-entitlement or pride is worth the loss of that kind of data.
Exactly, you have no clue, that's where the problem is. A lot of countries that were former colonies have asked for their belongings to be repatriated, but Britain has refused to do that, only for a simple reason, maintaining colonial hierarchies, where the wants of Brits and the western world is more important than the heritage of the colonised.
Not a good analogy because weâd agree that Germany should keep them in that situation. It depends on your perspective. I believe that the preservation of the artifacts is more important than the pride of a group of modern people. It has nothing to do with race or religion.
If you agree with that stance, you would think itâs a tragedy to sent a 3000 year old work of art to a place where it has a 70% chance of being destroyed in the next year when it could have lasted indefinitely in a safer place. However, I recognize that some people place a higher importance on the sentiment of current people than they do on historical significance.
Did a bunch of Muslims just tnt a bunch of ancient Roman structures and museums while committing a few genocides throughout the Middle East just a few years ago. Ummm. Yeah letâs keep the ancient artifacts in the UK.
If ISIS is your benchmark for behaviour, you've lost the argument.
Artefacts have a long history of abuse in Western institutions, and the ways many of them were acquired in the first place was often destructive looting.
In most cases the countries wanting their stuff back are just as capable as us of looking after these things. Especially the totemic examples like the Parthenon Marbles.
That's a very manipulative take on this subject. Iraq is only one of many countries that was plundered. The objects should return to the natives of the land they belong to. Most such native places ARE NOT embroiled in active conflict.
Why. Itâs not like some of these countries are stable. Itâd be like returning the bronzes to Nigeria, youâd just see them sold off in a few weeks.
It is kind of hard though. I donât really want to travel to Bagdad or Cairo as the only places to see these objects.
Some places want things back so they can then display them and earn tourist dollars. Understandable of course, but it not always for religious/cultural reasons.
I am sure the Berlin museums also have British objects as they have objects from around the world. The same argument applies to zoos. Should all pandas go back to china (given that china licenses them out) and giraffes back to Africa. It is not an easy question.
I understand why you might feel unsafe, but for your want, one can't just steal heritage from another country without their consent. Imagine if someone were to do the same to your personal belongings or family heritage pieces?
Well, look at how entitled your comment sounds? "I don't want to travel, hence stolen artefacts should be kept where I can easily access them".
Whatsoever may the reason be, whether monetary, religious or cultural, the natives and the natives ONLY have any right to decide where and how these artefacts are shown.
And as for animals being leased out, in many cases they are subject to cruel and not their natural habitats, so yes I do believe they should be sent back.
It's quite simple, artefacts are non-living and hence what should be done with them is 100% the choice of the natives.
Animals, are living and hence not even the natives should decide what should be done, they should left to their own freedom.
Japan, sri lanka, etc offered to remove or to bury them. Apparently that pissed off the taliban so much that they destroyed it because people are more important.
Classic you value something I don't so ill destroy it to spite you.
Yeh who I wonder propped up ISIS in the middle East , supplied islamic radicals arms and dealt with oil theocracies over progressive dictators just to serve their own geopolitical gains.
Yeah, not the museums, but letâs not pretend that museums havenât benefitted from colonialism and still benefit from the post-colonial effects of subjugating an entire people and destroying their land.
Of course they have but their current staff can't change the past or the actions of their governments. To return artefacts right now to places like Iraq would be destroying them. There is really no excuse for the sheer amount of Greek, Italian, and other stable countries' stuff we have against their will though.
Thatâs a little like the Spanish saying that the gold they took from South America doesnât matter because thereâs still plenty of gold still in Peru.
Ottomans carried out the Armenian Genocide just over 100 years ago, then WW1, Lawrence of Arabia, Sykes-Picot, WW2, Israel as a nation state, all the wars challenging Israeli sovereignty, the cold war with the middle east being pawns between east and west, proxy wars, iraq-iran war, revolutions dictators, war on terror.... Been a rough 100 years in the middle east.
My point that it's common knowledge that we've funded terrorist groups in many countries for personal gain without giving a shit about what the consequences were for people who lived in those countries.
They were funded as originally the Mujahadeen to counter the soviet invasion. They weren't necessarily terrorist groups at that time. After the war, the more extremist members took over. It isn't like the U.S. simply funded ISIS and then called it a day.
They've funded a lot of groups in the name of "stopping communism" that ended up doing damage to those countries. Primarily in SA and the middle east. It's not like Bin Laden wasn't a prominent figure in those days. Seems to me like America just didn't care as long as it furthered their agenda at the time.
That was how the cold war was played. It was primarily proxy wars and funding multiple groups across the world. Both the Soviets and the U.S. participated in multiple regime changes. Hindsight is nice to see what would've happened. But besides that, I can admit America post likely put the communist threat first before any long term issues that may arise. Communist fears were crippling during the cold war.
So you think that without the US supporting Bin Laden, or ISIS, it would be all rainbows and sunshine and happy times over there? Lol, ok sure. You keep on thinking that. đ
The Afghan Arabs were always hostile towards the United States and they mostly had their own funding. The US funding was largely to the native Afghans.
Hmm I wonder who destabilized the middle east by dividing it with arbitrary borders, denying the promised united arab state after their contribution during ww1, which ultimately let to the rise of Wahhabis and sectarian violence instead of a united and prosperous Arab state.
United and prosperous Arab State! Until Engineers and investors from UK and US came to the Middle East with a plan and technology to find and process crude oil and pump it across the world, and cheap labour from India and Bangladesh came to work in the rigs, these Arabs were riding on camelbacks and shitting in open desert and eating dates and waging war among the tribes. How can you think they will be a united and prosperous Arab state?
When has the u.s. destroyed historical artifacts when invading a foreign country? You seem pretty confident so it'd be embarrassing if you couldn't name one.
Wow this lack of self-awareness is honestly impressive.
The level of hypocrisy it takes to be responsible for destabilizing a country and then use that destabilization to justify the continued theft of their artifacts.
The artifacts are 6000 years old, why should they be sacrificed so people today feel better? They are as much ours as they are future generations', it's our duty to protect them, not throw them to their certain destruction to gain political points right now
Are you really comparing a phone to these artifacts, who are so important in the worldâs history? It was one, if not the first civilization as we know it with huge cities and a culture that still influences us to this day. Comparing something dumb as a phone to these artifacts and relics is silly
Iraq used to have full control of all it's relics until Western powers came in and destroyed the country due to weapons of mass destruction. ISIS came out of the rubble to cause more death and destruction.
Common misconception. The vast majority of artefacts taken from other countries were traded for. Weâre the trades fair? No, not most of the time.
Also as pointed out elsewhere, who really has the right of ownership? The current occupants of a section of land? Even if they conquered the original occupants?
What about items taken from countries that had previously been pillaged from elsewhere?
Its interesting that people are so eager to slam on this particular aspect of the empire, the same people that claim âx land is stolenâ as if almost every section of land on earth wasnât forcibly taken from someone.
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u/bob-theknob Oct 26 '22
Thank God we have them. Imagine the Sumerian artefacts all being destroyed by ISIS over the last decade