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To be fair, the British Museum is literally full of looted artifacts. Here’s a highly abridged list: https://www.insider.com/british-empire-stole-cultural-arti

To be fair, the British Museum is literally full of looted artifacts. Here’s a highly abridged list: https://www.insider.com/british-empire-stole-cultural-artifacts-colonialism-repatriation-parthenon-benin-rosetta-2022-9?amp https://www.insider.com/british-empire-stole-cultural-artifa...

bee_rider 4y ago
Most of the British people who looted the planet are dead by now. As a result of tending to their ill-gotten gains, their descendants learned something about preserving priceless cultural artifacts. While it would be preferable that the looting had never occurred in the first place, hard to hate on the current museum keepers.
- AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  - blowski 4y ago
    I often feel uncomfortable walking around the British Museum, seeing important artefacts from other countries. That said, I’ll try playing devil’s advocate. 1. Some items are from areas now controlled by very different people to those for whom the item was originally important. Do modern descendants of the Spanish have any moral claim to Aztec or Inca artefacts, for example? 2. Some items have complex histories, where multiple competing countries could all claim it as part of their history. Where the item was found is not the end of the story. Items from Greece, Turkey, Cyprus for example. 3. By storing them in the British Museum, they are better maintained for future generations. Globally, more people have access to them right now. Perhaps for those where the answer to all three of these is obvious, it’s indefensible that the British Museum still has the items. But there is quite a lot of stuff there where it’s not so obvious when you look into the details, though we should be putting a lot of effort into trying anyway.
    - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
      1. Most Mexicans or Peruvians have indigenous ancestry, they are not exclusively (or even mostly) descendants of the Spanish. It would be better to return those artifacts to the descendants of those from whom it was stolen. 2. Who has an even weaker claim than all other claimants? The British Museum. 3. 2.5M people see the Crown Jewels in a year. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History in DC sees 4.1M visitors in a year. Should the Crown Jewels be moved to the Smithsonian? Surely we could take better care of them (they could go next to Dorothy's slippers) and more people would get to see them.
      - blowski 4y ago
        > Who has an even weaker claim than all other claimants? The British Museum. Why?
      - yelskcol 4y ago
        >2. Who has an even weaker claim than all other claimants? The British Museum. One of the laziest dismissals I've ever read on this forum. Yep, the world is this zero sum game where they should just dump it on whoever and then let all the competing entities argue amongst themselves
        AbrahamParangi 4y ago
        Imagine that someone has died, and there are three inheritors squabbling for the various elements of the state. They can’t agree who gets the home, who gets the car, who gets the jewlry, etc. There is also a fourth individual, a thief, who has broken in and stolen various family heirlooms of both sentimental and monetary value. The thief claims then that, because the inheritors are squabbling, the only fair thing to do is that he should hold on to the heirlooms, at least until they sort it out (or so he says). The response is short because the situation is simple. The British Museum contains the stolen heritage of people all over the world. Confusion or disagreement over the most rightful heirs is no defense of this crime.
      - x-complexity 4y ago
  - lexicality 4y ago
    It sounds easy, but the British Museum Act 1963 was brought in specifically to make it illegal to do - presumably because the original owners of the artefacts started to make an international fuss about the theft of their stuff.
- enviclash 4y ago
  How elegant for ultimately avoiding criticism to current policies.
  - rlpb 4y ago
    I see no criticism of current policies in this thread. Discussion seems to be about history, or states what the current policies are.
    - lostlogin 4y ago
      A parent comment states that museum is full of looted objects. The owners have asked for them back and been refused. I don’t see that as a historic issue, I see it as a current one.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  > hard to hate on the current museum keepers. When directly asked to return items they say no. https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/parthenon-sculptures https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/... What’s hard to hate about that?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
Rebelgecko 4y ago
Sure, but there's no indication that this will become one of them. If the Museum decides to steal it, definitely feel free to come back and say "I told you so!". But I think that is incredibly unlikely in this case.

bee_rider 4y ago

Most of the British people who looted the planet are dead by now. As a result of tending to their ill-gotten gains, their descendants learned something about preserving priceless cultural artifacts. While it would be preferable that the looting had never occurred in the first place, hard to hate on the current museum keepers.

AbrahamParangi 4y ago
- blowski 4y ago
  I often feel uncomfortable walking around the British Museum, seeing important artefacts from other countries. That said, I’ll try playing devil’s advocate. 1. Some items are from areas now controlled by very different people to those for whom the item was originally important. Do modern descendants of the Spanish have any moral claim to Aztec or Inca artefacts, for example? 2. Some items have complex histories, where multiple competing countries could all claim it as part of their history. Where the item was found is not the end of the story. Items from Greece, Turkey, Cyprus for example. 3. By storing them in the British Museum, they are better maintained for future generations. Globally, more people have access to them right now. Perhaps for those where the answer to all three of these is obvious, it’s indefensible that the British Museum still has the items. But there is quite a lot of stuff there where it’s not so obvious when you look into the details, though we should be putting a lot of effort into trying anyway.
  - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
    1. Most Mexicans or Peruvians have indigenous ancestry, they are not exclusively (or even mostly) descendants of the Spanish. It would be better to return those artifacts to the descendants of those from whom it was stolen. 2. Who has an even weaker claim than all other claimants? The British Museum. 3. 2.5M people see the Crown Jewels in a year. The Smithsonian National Museum of American History in DC sees 4.1M visitors in a year. Should the Crown Jewels be moved to the Smithsonian? Surely we could take better care of them (they could go next to Dorothy's slippers) and more people would get to see them.
    - blowski 4y ago
      > Who has an even weaker claim than all other claimants? The British Museum. Why?
    - yelskcol 4y ago
      >2. Who has an even weaker claim than all other claimants? The British Museum. One of the laziest dismissals I've ever read on this forum. Yep, the world is this zero sum game where they should just dump it on whoever and then let all the competing entities argue amongst themselves
      - AbrahamParangi 4y ago
        Imagine that someone has died, and there are three inheritors squabbling for the various elements of the state. They can’t agree who gets the home, who gets the car, who gets the jewlry, etc. There is also a fourth individual, a thief, who has broken in and stolen various family heirlooms of both sentimental and monetary value. The thief claims then that, because the inheritors are squabbling, the only fair thing to do is that he should hold on to the heirlooms, at least until they sort it out (or so he says). The response is short because the situation is simple. The British Museum contains the stolen heritage of people all over the world. Confusion or disagreement over the most rightful heirs is no defense of this crime.
    - x-complexity 4y ago
- lexicality 4y ago
  It sounds easy, but the British Museum Act 1963 was brought in specifically to make it illegal to do - presumably because the original owners of the artefacts started to make an international fuss about the theft of their stuff.
enviclash 4y ago
How elegant for ultimately avoiding criticism to current policies.
- rlpb 4y ago
  I see no criticism of current policies in this thread. Discussion seems to be about history, or states what the current policies are.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    A parent comment states that museum is full of looted objects. The owners have asked for them back and been refused. I don’t see that as a historic issue, I see it as a current one.
lostlogin 4y ago
> hard to hate on the current museum keepers. When directly asked to return items they say no. https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/parthenon-sculptures https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/... What’s hard to hate about that?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

Rebelgecko 4y ago

Sure, but there's no indication that this will become one of them. If the Museum decides to steal it, definitely feel free to come back and say "I told you so!". But I think that is incredibly unlikely in this case.