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From the article:
"The repatriated artifacts are not as well known as the Benin Bronzes, for example, plundered from West Africa by British colonists, or the Parthenon marbles, removed by Lord Elgin in the early 1800s and now on display at the British Museum. They are not symbols of empire, nor are they the spoils of war."
A note, that Parthenon marbles were also plundered, and destructively so, rather than just "removed" and, contrary to what is implied in the latter sentence, they were not spoils of war. They were spoils of spoiled aristocrats.
Parthenon marbles were taken by lord Elgin with authorisation from the Muslim Ottoman invaders that were holding Greece at the time. The Ottoman's purpose was to destroy any marker of civilization in the land they had invaded.
At the same time some other brits, notably lord Byron, were fighting the war for Greece's independence against the Ottomans.
>The Ottoman's purpose was to destroy any marker of civilization in the land they had invaded.
They did a very bad job at it then. It's the British and Elgin who did the real huge damage to the Parthenon (plus some damage by Venetians, but at least that was accidental). And then the Bavarians, who destoyed hundreds of byzantine churches in the Athens area, and even had plans of building a new palace atop the Acropolis.
So, after 4 centuries of Ottoman occupation, with ocassional brutal incidents, and still most of the damage to the Parthenon happened by "englightened" westerners (who didn't have the decency to return the spoils after 2 centuries of independent Greece).
Return to who? The city state of Athens? Or are you suggesting that whoever governs the land at the time is the owner? If that's the case then their sale by the ottomans to Elgin was legitimate, and therefore the rightful owner is the UK.
>If that's the case then their sale by the ottomans to Elgin was legitimate, and therefore the rightful owner is the UK.
I'm suggesting that no such destruction of an archaelogical site and sale of historical artifacts to another country (even less so an individual buyer) is legitimate or ethical, regardless of whether it was approved by the occupying force at the time.
Regardless of the matter of "continuity of the state" and the legitimacy of the state of the time (or lack thereof), there's the matter of where those artifacts belong to, and where the claim lies, and this is not just about the technical legality of the sale. A great many scholars, archeologists, and public intellectuals from Britain have addressed those issue.
Especially when the population of the land they've been plundered from has gained its freedom and has been asking to have them returned for over a century.
Even worse when part of Greece was shamefully under British colonial rule at the time of the sale.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2...
> I'm suggesting that no such destruction of an archaelogical site and sale of historical artifacts to another country (even less so an individual buyer) is legitimate or ethical, regardless of whether it was approved by the occupying force at the time.
But you are saying that they are legitimate just by your reference to "another country". The borders of today and their respective governments take precedence. You would be fine with artifacts from Sparta being sold to a museum in Athens, even though they were separate states at the time, and the Spartans would have not been happy about that. But if Roman artifacts were sold by Italy to a museum in London, this is illegitimate because it's "another country" even though at the time it was all part of the same empire.
>You would be fine with artifacts from Sparta being sold to a museum in Athens, even though they were separate states at the time, and the Spartans would have not been happy about that.
We can ask the modern Spartans if you wish. Defending colonial-era archeological plundering gets close to racism fast, and what's said here, (to the tune of: what right do they have to their ancient culture, it's changed from the past anyway) is already heavy on racism and colonial entitlement.
The next step would be to invoke the "white man's burden" to protect those artifacts and have them in a nicer museum than the natives ever could.
All the while ascribing nationalism to the people's connection to their culture (because arbitrary removal of artifacts from their original land and keeping them for display on an colonial power's capital, full of other stolen artifacts from all over the world, is cosmopolitan).
You're intentionally making other positions look ridiculous, I think. Why not put them back in athens? The entity with the strongest claim to continuity with ancient athens is modern athens. It's not an absurd proposition.
Using the simple framework of sale of goods for ancient artifacts of deep cultural and historical significance, is, quite literally, colonizer shit. I imagine you would have a very difficult time establishing broad consensus about what "rightful ownership" and "legitimate sale" mean or if they are even possible for objects of this kind. Acting like that's a settled moral and legal framework that we're scandalously disagreeing with is twisted.
Deep cultural significance to who? Modern Greek culture has next to nothing in common with ancient Greek culture. The religion of the temple they came from no longer even exists, so what special meaning is there to modern Greeks (whose current religion is actually responsible for the destruction of many ancient Greek archeological sites anyway)?
I don't recognize claims of continuity here, and to me it sounds more like "it's valuable and I want it" with modern nationalism sprinkled on top. The arguments seem to be really "they're really emotional about it, so give them what they want," and I am not at all sympathetic to that.
>I don't recognize claims of continuity here
Yes, you only recognize a thief briding his way, while a country was under occupation, to break archeological artifacts from the temple structure, and take them away from their original site and land.
>so what special meaning is there to modern Greeks
Maybe ask modern Greeks then?
This is some next level colonial entitlement.
I'm really sorry to be rude but, who the hell are you, and who the hell cares what you recognise, or don't recognise, or what you're sympathetic to? Where do you find the knowledge to say what has cultural significance to modern Greeks, whom you clearly know next to nothing about? Where do you get the authority to say that our culture -I'm Greek- has "next to nothing in common with ancient Greek culture"?? According to what, and to whom?
Get off your high horse! Your opinions have no basis in anything else than the stubborn arrogance of internet randos. You know nothing of the things you're talking about.
> Return to who?
To the original location of the site.
If someone stole the torch of Statue of Liberty, you’ll return it to the Liberty Island, right?
The low trust society they left behind damages greece to this day. https://youtu.be/404IeUzGNZ4?t=179
It’s interesting that a lot of people in Turkey wish that Ottomans had done what you say their purpose was, thinking that Turkification of these lands would have made Turkey better off, with more lands perhaps. Luckily, it’s not true.
The idea expressed in your comment is quite popular in many circles, though. I had a Greek classmate in our intro Ancient Greek class confidently stating that the sound shift of the letter beta (roughly from a /b/ sound to /v/) happened because Ottomans didn’t let them speak their language! This shift actually occurred in Byzantine period (I think around 1100AD). Edit: Oops, I was way off, actually the change happened in the Koine Period, around 200BC (https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta#:~:text=Beta%20(upp....)
> The Ottoman's purpose was to destroy any marker of civilization in the land they had invaded.
This demonstratably isn't true. They were destroying cultural artefacts, but occasionally so and often as an act of retribution.
So no, the British have no business and no excuse that they are still keeping the Parthenon Marbles.
https://archive.ph/78CUc
This article argues that the British should keep the Parthenon marbles. The logic is that if you steal enough stuff from enough places around the world you can then make the argument that you should not have to give them back because it provides people the opportunity to appreciate them all together "in context". As if Athens is out of context!
Imagine if Egyptian law enforcement had the wherewithal to go after every nation and organization that's plundered their funereal monuments. It could end up as a Kohi-Noor-level tug-of-war.
Except unlike the stone matrikas, many Egyptian artifacts were friable, like mummies and their wrappings.
In other news, the Holy See has donated fragments of the True Cross to England for use in the coronation of King Charles III. Imagine how many True Crosses you could assemble if you gathered all their fragments together.
This reminds me of the saying, "you could build a cathedral with all the pieces of the 'True' Cross," which I believe originated in Medieval Christendom. Even back then it was widely known that many, if not most, religious relics were probably fake.
..if not all. And they certainly knew it then too.
Maybe they didn't really care, and had a similar view to us about the matter. I don't think anyone believes the Vatican is sending actual true cross relics for the coronation. Still, the fact that the artefact has been a fake relic for 1000 years, has a history, is being sent by the pope... those are enough for it to function as a symbol.
I think it's always ironically hard, with history, to know if the mindset was different or similar to ours. Ancient economies sometimes seem to work in ways that ours wouldn't for mindset reasons. Other times things are more similar to our times than we suppose.
I think we're bad at recognising which parts of our own culture are unique and novel, and which are relatively trivial, common, or even inherent.
Indeed. As the line goes: the past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.
Equally human, equally logical, but with different priors, different axioms, different base truths to reason from.
> Maybe they didn't really care, and had a similar view to us about the matter.
My impression is that this is probably not the case however. Another line following from the above is that ancient people believed their religions, with the same unexamined priors as we believe in our own modern Truths.
But since they were human, too, there is always room for charlatanism, fraud, and delusions of grandeur. And humor as a defensive mechanism against all of that.
While I’m skeptical of the origins of holy relics, that’s just a saying. Most fragments are small slivers and it’s been estimated that they add up to a small fraction of the weight of a complete cross.
>Imagine if Egyptian law enforcement had the wherewithal to go after every nation and organization that's plundered their funereal monuments
That would be pretty unjust considering that the funeral monuments don't belong to modern Egypt, as they were constructed by a radically different people some thousands of years ago. And at the time they were taken by British colonists, Egypt as a nation wasn't a thing either.
So we have three separate entities: Ancient Egypt, whatever Egypt was when the British took some ancient artifacts, and then the modern nation of Egypt.
Maybe the most just thing to do would be to find the descendants of those who were buried with the artifacts and return them their family heirlooms? Or no, perhaps those descended from the artisans and slaves who created the artifacts?
But what of the invaders of Egypt seeking to destroy the artifacts? Should we give them the artifacts? Destruction is perhaps undesirable, so maybe we can place them somewhere in the world with the best steward?
Does this mean my family can be repatriated our ancestral lands in northern Cumbria? If we get to play that game, you may not like how it works out for you.
Or maybe we can stop looking at history with a modern, nationlistic lens. Stop looking at it with our modern sense of values. Stop trying to apply our modern sense of justice and misbeliefs about what did and didn't happen hundreds, thousands of years ago.
We're not trying to adapt history to our modern values. We're trying to answer a modern question. What to do with ancient artifacts. Continuity with the ancient past is muddled or impossible, but there is still a place they come from, and the possibility they belong there. Continuity is muddled or impossible, but it's true that some people and places have stronger claims to that continuity than others. It's also true that these were taken during a period of european plundering of resources of all kinds, and that we're heirs and beneficiaries to that plundering in other ways, as well as this one.
It's a complicated question, involving history certainly. But in no was is this us trying to graft modern morals onto the past. But it is a moral question regarding the past, and modern morals are the only ones we have to guide our decisions.
Wasn't a fragment of the True Cross rumoured to have gone down with the Moskva last year?
Almost as many as you could assemble saints by gathering the corresponding body parts now kept as relics around the world. “So this guy was truly a miracle, he had 7 arms and 2 heads”
On an ancient temple near Bangalaru, I saw a small metal sign nailed on that warned of a 500 rupee fine for defacement.
I wondered if the worker who had affixed the rusty plaque had paid the fine.
relevant last week tonight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJPLiT1kCSM
Plugging away on a PDF to GPT interaction project for Github. Printed the page and ran it through.
> What is this about?
> This text is about a complicated history of the Tanesar sculptures, particularly a sculpture of the goddess Matrika, and how it became part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It details how the sculptures were illegally trafficked and acquired by the Wiener family and how the District Attorney's office uncovered the smuggling rings. It also discusses the idea of restitution and repatriation of the sculptures and the need for open dialogue about what is best for the sculptures.
So much was looted from India
Unfortunately economic incentives are still the driving force -- not some high moral sense. The pieces now have value for the origin countries, ironically, BECAUSE THEY WERE STOLEN. So they are using litigation to get them back. The lawyers are getting paid well and eventually, I suspect, most are just resold.
I think India at least will eventually get everything back, that's been identified at least, due to political circumstances.
Museums, as a concept, rest on a supply chain of plunder and pillage in the past and now increasingly, on theft, dubious commercial transactions etc.. No one can deny that local people and shady businessmen have been hand in glove with art collectors, dubious art historians and international smugglers, for thefts to happen on such a large scale.
The situation can improve if ordinary people feel within their hearts that museums by and large house stolen art from, usually, poorer countries. People should really stop visiting museums like the Met and LACMA. Otherwise they would just be encouraging past patterns of behavior.
Some civilizations actually did produce art that can be displayed in a museum locally (if the british forgot to steal it)
Poor western mind can not understand that instead of stealing stuff you can just learn how to do it properly and produce those in thousands to fill all the museums, collections, buildings streets and everything you wish.
I had visited India for a little bit and it was enough to be amazed by the level of craftsmanship that exists today despite all of the automation tools etc. From statues, architecture to clothes, foods, all sorts of items and objects. There is lots and lots to learn here.
The mindset that leads an empire to pilfer its territories and conquests is a bit more complicated than some lack of artisanship or productive culture back home, to meet some perceived economic demand.
I think it's much more closer (though still aggressively reductionist) to model it in your head as base exoticism trophy-taking. Look at the strange works of these lesser beings, and remember that we defeated them.