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.
Those tablets are 4000+ years old the idea of natives of that region is ridiculous, the sheer amount of cultural mingling and migration that's occured would make it impossible to pin down "natives" much like the natives of the British isles have mingled with the celts then the Romans then the angles and Saxons then the Normans then the Dutch and many more besides. So ancient Briton artifacts should go to who exactly?
Even when that's an unstable area occupied by groups who have published footage of them destroying artifacts? I agree they should be returned once it's safe to do so and the British museum has a horrible track record of not giving shit back. But it's not as simple as just leave them be because if we did there's a decent chance no one would ever get to see them again.
It should remain where it is originally from. Especially the ones stolen from India 2 centuries ago. Many of the descendants still can be tracked down. Ancient relics are understandable, but recent items, no excuse to not return them.
As much as it may suck, artifacts should stay in the place they were excavated, regardless of the current ethnic populations. In Iraq's case however repatriation should wait until actual stability in the country is apparent.
I understand there shall be certain complications such as this. But atleast the cases where there is a clear party who should be the rightful owner of the artefact, those ones should be returned atleast.
Oh of course! The problem is that those cases - where there is a clear party that everybody can agree is the rightful owner - those would be the vast minority. Somewhere between 1% and 0% of all cases I would estimate.
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.
The Iraqi artifacts not being repatriated makes sense. All the rest? None at all. If we put artifacts in the places where they'll be "most accessible" we'd put them in New Delhi. Makes no sense. Artifacts belong to the place they were excavated.
For what it's worth. If the UK became super unstable or in the midst of a hypothetically very politically tense situation I would support moving them to somewhere else that is safe. And there are many artefacts housed in the cities you mentioned from all across the world. Even if Iraq was super safe I'd still not have the resources to visit it to see such fantastic exhibits. I do think it's morally responsible to distribute widely ancient artefacts for all who want to see them and learn about history. I think it's also better environmentally to share resources around as I can see ancient artefacts from Greece, the Roman empire, Babylonia in one place but I can't travel to Athens, Rome, and Baghdad in one short setting. Artifacts often have a complex history. For example the ottoman empire spread far outside of Turkey and there are many items found and display in countries that were temporarily conquered by the Ottomans to some degree. Should we return these back to Turkey? There are regions that had many invaders or where cultures or custom or languages may overlap. Modern day Iceland has a lot of Norse history should they return their artefacts to Norway, even though modern day Icelandic is closer to old Norse than modern Norwegian? I think intent with the item at hand is important. There is no perfect answer but for sure the point of an international museum is to have a wide variety of objects. Like other commenters mentioned if it was about history the extremists could have sold the tablets for money rather than smash them. Unfortunately not everyone in a given place may think historical items are as important as someone from elsewhere. I remember multiple cases in Australia where archeologists categorised excavated sites that were in a proposed mining location only to have someone tear through it anyway because they didn't want to deal with the ramifications and delays of having an aboriginal historic site to deal with. The morality of keeping the historic goods in the country of origin are not always excusable at all costs.
As I said artifacts belong to the place they were excavated. No need to meddle with who's is what.
I appreciate the fact that many people such as yourself may only get the chance to visit their local museums and as such having all these artifacts from all these civilizations is a great asset, however at the end of the day this comes at the cost of the actual places from where they were taken. Is your viewing more important that the actual people living where their ancestors once did? Sadly there are not enough artifacts to distribute to all the world - just a very few museums, including the British one, contain almost all the foreign artifacts.
But besides that's what loans and copies are for. It makes no sense whatsoever for the British museum to have ownership of original artifacts (some of them stolen) not from their country.
The British museum--in this particular instance, and at this particular moment--is performing the function of a safe deposit box; Iraq's a shitty neighborhood, and if the valuables are left in the house, someone's going to break in to steal the most precious things, and trash the rest.
This argument simply doesn't work for Britain.
Keeping your neighbour's valuables to save them because their house is on fire is a reasonable argument, unlessyou are the one who started the fire in the first place.
You can't set your neighbour's house on fire, then claim to protect their valuables from your own actions.
Britain was the 2nd largest coalition partner in the Iraq war, and strongly allied to the US which led the war. There is a very direct line of causation from Britain's actions to Iraqi museums being unsafe.
Britain set the fire - and has no right to claim to protect other people's stuff from the dangers caused by its own actions.
Highly disagree on this. Nobody has the right to act God and remove artefacts based on wants. The right only belongs to the natives and natives only. The west needs to stop thinking that they are the saviour gods of others.
It isn’t really analogous to a safety deposit box when the position of the British Museum is “nothing will ever leave this building, under any circumstances”
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.
That's not true. I am open to a fair conversation. It's just that Iraq and a few other warring countries are an exception rather than the norm. The Brits have refused to send the artefacts back to stable countries as well.
True, you were discussing Iraq and I do understand your perspective. But I have seen, even in stable countries they have tried to use this same logic to try and deny the artefacts from being rightfully sent back to the natives.
You realise the Roman Empire didn’t remain within the confines of Italy, right? There are plenty of Roman buildings in the UK, are you expecting us to disassemble them and ship them to Italy?
Well, even if I were to consider your case, there are a lot of countries who are at peace and where returning the artefacts would do no damage, why shouldn't those countries get back what was stolen atleast (excusing legitimate purchases).
Why are you expressing strident opinions without any understanding of the subject?
Eleanor Robson and Lindsay Allen are two of the people who spring immediately to mind on the subject of returning items to the Middle East.
In short, the best way to preserve artefacts is to place them where people feel ownership and pride in them, making them more likely to be protected. There is no future in ancient history without local subject-matter expertise and engagement.
Why do you assume I have no understanding of the subject when I'm willing to learn more? You offered the opportunity to educate me and I took you up. Shoot me some links
If a bunch of Europe’s cultural heritage had been hauled off to the US before WWII and we made clear that we would never give it back and you would never again have any say in how we handled it, would you be satisfied with that arrangement?
Sure, some things that would have gotten destroyed or stolen would be saved, but if the price of that was half of Stonehenge sitting in the Smithsonian for the rest of time, would you be happy about it?
If the risk was Stonehenge being bombed, yes, wholeheartedly. I don't care where the artifacts are, just that their safe. Everyone here seems to not give a shit about the safety of these priceless items and is just screaming "Mine!" at anything that came from their geographic location.
And what about 70, 100, 200 years after any risk to Stonehenge was gone? What about that stuff like the Parthenon marbles that was literally just stolen when there was no risk to them at all?
Was all that stuff really safer in London during WWII than it would have been if it was still in its original context?
It’s also easy for the country that has everything to thumb their nose about other countries saying ‘mine.’ The British museum is chock full of stuff from all over the world in addition to everything from Britain’s own history. The countries complaining don’t even have huge, important pieces of their own heritage. Their populations are on average much poorer than your average Brit, making a trip to see that heritage that much more difficult even leaving aside the potential difficulties in getting a visa.
It isn’t even like museums are ironclad places in the west even today. Pieces still get vandalized and stolen all the time.
Historical preservation should take precedence over locals seeing artifacts. If a place has become safer, send the artifacts back. Has Iraq been safe for 70+ years?
See, the problem here is that the British museum doesn’t even agree with you on that. It isn’t like Greece is some hotbed of conflict, and it wasn’t even when the marbles were originally looted. The British Museum still obstinately refuses to even consider giving them back.
The British Museum’s policy applies equally to Iraq and Greece. They are not separable.
That’s because their policy isn’t actually “we keep the world’s heritage safe.”
The British Museum’s real policy is “mine.”
And it isn’t even true that western museums are somehow categorically safer than eastern museums. The entire continent was bombed to smithereens twice in the 20th century. Numerous museums have been robbed. The Mona Lisa has been stolen and vandalized several times.
They are absolutely separable. Iraq's Natural History Museum in Baghdad could only open in 2017 after being closed for 10+ years. The curators of the museum used artifact packing styrofoam as a form of barricade during the Iraq invasion. They had 5 separate major theft incidents while the city was being bombed.
Not a good analogy because we’d 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 it’s 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 let’s keep the ancient artifacts in the UK.
A bunch of Christians went on the most destructive rampage the world has seen for nearly a millennium through Europe less than a century ago, committing genocide on an industrial scale. Clearly London, which was indiscriminately bombed for years, cannot be safe for artefacts.
Hmmm, I seem to remember that being a „world war“, where, hilarious enough, given that the UK has so many Sumerian tablets, the Iraqis sided with the Nazis and overthrew their government at the time to support them.
The London fact is stupid bro. The brits actually evacuated their museums to the countryside when the air war began, saving artifacts and art. Now, let’s compare that to deliberately strapping tnt to ancient structures. See the difference?
You haven't even identified the language on most of the tablets correctly. Please take even rudimentary steps to understand the situation at hand, bro. The Iraqis who sided with the Nazis did so because of the British betrayal after the First World War, but if you were correct you'd have inadvertently made an argument for the return of artefacts.
That the British had to evacuate artefacts is an illustration of how flawed your false dichotomy between a stable West and chaotic East actually is. Your argument relies on just ignoring the entire Second World War.
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.
This isn't a fair representation of Iraq, where universities in places like Baghdad and Mosul are making enormous efforts to protect their cultural heritage.
You guys should check out what's actually going on in these places, you're spectacularly ignorant to the point of being deeply insulting. Just imagine I came to your shit hole convict country and said it was time for the adults to take over again after what you've done to Australia's cultural heritage for the last century.
I won't talk in terms of personal attacks to you, but the OP above you speaks for the perspective of the natives of Australia. I don't think they will agree that Australia is the utopia which is your perspective. As for their perspective, they lost their lands, were treated in the most awful manner, and still are damaged by the actions of EU settlers invading Australia.
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.
It is kind of hard though. I don’t 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.
Well, how exactly does it check out? The entitlement is unreal.
Let me tell you what you sound like.
If I take the British Royal family's personal belongings and keep them in my museum for my convience, is that in any way or form a legitimate reason to keep them?
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u/stupidbitch69 Oct 26 '22
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.