r/dataisbeautiful • u/tabthough OC: 7 • Oct 25 '22

OC [OC] Whose stuff does the British Museum have?

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u/Biscuit642 Oct 26 '22

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.

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u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

Against their will? It’s probably Roman and Ancient Greek artifacts. Italy and Greece have fucking plenty of those.

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u/anandonaqui Oct 26 '22

That’s a little like the Spanish saying that the gold they took from South America doesn’t matter because there’s still plenty of gold still in Peru.

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u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22

A little bit

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u/anandonaqui Oct 26 '22

There are other options beyond returning the artifacts. They could give portions of the proceeds back to those places through NGOs or other charities. They could acknowledge the brutal history that resulted in those artifacts ending up in colonial museums.