I want so badly for someone to steal shit from the British Museum only to give it to its country of origin. Like oh yeah we found the Benin Bronzes but they gave them back to Nigeria. What are they gonna do loot them again?
It’s funny because I came here wanting to make a comment about how that aspect of Indiana Jones didn’t really age well because it’s emblematic of the West thinking we are custodians of the world.
It’s even more funny because there’s so much stuff that really doesn’t belong in museums if you talk to curators. The average person thinks a Picasso would go for millions and be on display anywhere; there are sketches Picasso did that only have value because Picasso drew them not because they’re good Picassos or moving art. This piece has a good perspective. If we hoarded everything ever we’d get to the point where future generations couldn’t make any new art because there would be no space.
I will never be able to actually touch one of these gems because no museum would let me. At the end of the day there’s not much difference between me flying across the world and standing in line with a bunch of people taking shitty selfies in front of a ton of protective glass to catch a glimpse of one side of this gem and seeing a virtual scan I can move around. Digitize it, send it back where it came from, and look toward new art.
Not in YOUR museum though, unless it was loaned by the country it belongs to. And to say “oh it’s safer here in our nice white museums” is nothing short of the continued patriarchal attitude that the British have towards other countries and races. You think it’s safer with you? Too bad, it’s not your call to make.
In so many cases that exact sentiment just turned out to be true though. How many ancient artifacts have been destroyed by political/religions extremists? How many more were lost due to neglect or because people tore them apart to use them as building materials? It probably wasn’t right to take them at the time but man, am I glad they took them.
British people are also not good at preserving history. Almost every ruined castle was at one point torn down for building materials. It’s probably the most common theme I read about on the little information plaques on them
You’re just underscoring my argument. If the British were about to tear down Stonehenge for building a shopping mall and out of nowhere the Black Panther’s stealth jet materialized to take the entire thing to the Wakanda national museum, I’d be absolutely fine with it.
Items being left in their context > Items in a museum in the area they originate from > Items in a museum in a foreign area > Items in private possession
I don't know enough about any particular thing to say that being in the british museums is an improvement, but I don't think we should take it for granted that a museum is the ideal place for historical artifacts
> items decaying due to not being cared for > items being actively destroyed because people don’t care about them (Elgin Marbles moment, if they hadn’t been stolen they would’ve been pulverised to make building materials and yet now Greece are crying for them back) > items being actively destroyed for political reasons
There are huge amounts of things in Western museums that were looted, stolen, or otherwise illegitimately acquired (Koh I Noor among other things), but equally a lot of stuff was a case of “eh we don’t want it so if you’re going to pay for it in cash we’ll snap your hand off” - if you took something valued by the people then yeah you should give it back, but if you saved something unwanted from getting destroyed then I think the moral high ground is with the museum when they get a request for it to be returned
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