> ownership was transferred legally (gifted or sold rather than plundered) A legal transfer between equals is one thing. I agree that should be permanently b

> ownership was transferred legally (gifted or sold rather than plundered) A legal transfer between equals is one thing. I agree that should be permanently binding. Even if the depreciation of the funds used to purchase the asset and the appreciation of the asset itself make the transaction seem one-sided. But this headdress belonged at one time to the emperor who reigned between 1502 and 1520...in 1521 Cortes conquered the Azteks. Whether it was 'gifted' or 'purchased', it doesn't seem possible to have a particularly legitimate transaction in whatever exchange took place. Perhaps a fair transaction would involve comparing the cost of the actual purchase of the item (which may have involved a one-sided transfer) to a later transaction of a similar item between equals. If a settler purchased a hundred acres of land from a native for a string of beads valued at 9 cents, but settlers sold each other land for $1.25 an acre, and those hundred acres are now worth $300k then perhaps a court could agree that the original sale was invalid and offer to allow the land to be repurchased for somewhere between 300k and the equivalent transaction of 300,0000 x 9 / 1250 = $2,160. Or, in the case of this headdress, they could do a little reenactment. Give the Mexicans some canons, black-powder muskets, and chemical weapons, and the Austrians some flint knives, and set them on opposing sides of a remote rain forest. See what sort of price they can come to agree upon.