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Just like a lot of land in the United States was purchased from some Native American chief who may have been bought off, or under duress to save his tribe.

adastra22 4y ago
So can we reverse any trade because X centuries down the road we don’t like the outcome? I said it was controversial, not wrong. There are two sides to the argument.
- Thrymr 4y ago
  Specifically, the Rosetta stone was looted by the French during Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, and then carted away by the British after they defeated the French. There are two sides to this, but none of them are Egyptian.
  - ourmandave 4y ago
    No, the Egyptians want their shit back.
    - gherkinnn 4y ago
      Who are the Egyptians? The Arabs got there in 700AD, long after the Rosetta Stone had been engraved. Remnants of the Copts perhaps? Maybe the Greeks want a piece of it too. And it was Napoleon who found it, so surely Corsica has a claim as well. You have to tie yourself in to all sorts of knots to untangle this Ship of Theseus. And while where at it, all filth of Roman, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman descent better fuck out of GB. It belongs to the Celts and I want my Gaelic back.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - KoftaBob 4y ago
        As somewhat of an aside from the debate on giving back artifacts, I have a fun fact: The Coptic Christians of Egypt and the Muslims of Egypt are largely the same ethnic/genetic group. Modern day Muslim Egyptians are descendants of Coptic Egyptians who converted to Islam at some point after the Arabs conquered Egypt. One of the (many) interesting things about Egypt is that despite being conquered by several foreign empires, their genetic/ethnic makeup has stayed largely consistent, with only minor intermixing from those foreign groups.
      - krapp 4y ago
        So "Egyptians" don't even really exist, but "the British" absolutely, unequivocally, 100% do, and the latter claim to the Rosetta stone is ironclad and irrefutable, whereas the former is basically fantasy. Shit like this is the reason half the world danced when the Queen died, you know.
    - jl6 4y ago
      It really is an oversimplification to apply modern standards of property ownership to this situation. Egyptian history, like most history, is the story of might-makes-right usurpation. It’s easy to paint the French rediscoverers as looters, but the Ottoman administration they took the stone from were not exactly what we would call the rightful rulers either. Is it part of the cultural heritage of the Egyptian peoples? Yes, sort of, and that’s what makes it complicated. I say sort of because the cultural continuity from the stone’s origin to 1799 is somewhat suspect - the stone was being used as building material, with no recognized historic value. Hieroglyphics had been utterly forgotten. So yes, it is part of Egyptian history, but it’s also part of French and British history. It’s complicated.
      - poulpy123 4y ago
        Especially the Rosetta stone was just a stone used for a wall when the French found it
        adastra22 4y ago
        To take another example, Greece wants the Parthenon marbles back. On the surface that seems fair--can you think of a more prominent symbol of Greece than images of the Parthenon? It's their national heritage and the want it back. But the parthenon marbles where lying all over the ground after being literally blown up in the 17th century when it was used as an ammunition storage depot. Nobody cared and it was not a recognized cultural artifact of note. Not until the British earl who bought them, legally, used them to help revive interest in Ancient Greece, and Athens specifically, and donated them to the British museum where they have been on prominent display since. "But they were bought from the Ottomans, not Greece!" Yeah, because Greece didn't exist, and hadn't existed as a nation or anything comparable since before the Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire was the greek-speaking Roman Empire, and the Ottomans were the successors to Byzantine. But guess what? The 19th century revival in interest in greek origins was an essential part of gathering foreign support for greek nationalism, which would be achieved--with the support of British nationals--a few decades after the Parthenon marbles first went on display at the British Museum. The Parthenon became the symbol of Greece because it was on display at the British Museum for all to see. In an alternate history where the Parthenon marbles were not purchased from the Ottomans but instead were pilfered and reused for various building projects in 19th century Athens, no one but some academics would have cared about the relief sculptures, and greek nationalism might have been set back a few decades, or more. They only have widespread cultural value because of a British PR investment. Maybe they should be given back to Greece anyway. There's something to be said about having artifacts displayed in their original context. But the issue is hardly as clear-cut as it is made out to be.
- suzzer99 4y ago
  The point is just because someone in some position of authority (who may have been motivated by greed or fear) at one time agreed to sell off land or precious artifacts, that may not make it right to keep them.
  - MomoXenosaga 4y ago
    Greed and fear are part of the human condition. Every piece of land on this planet exchanged hands a hundred times under those terms so I wonder how far you want to go back. The native Americans also had their tribal wars although that seems to be memory holed by liberals.
    - suzzer99 4y ago
      Sure. That still doesn't make it right, or mean that we can't even acknowledge the theft. There are plenty of cases where the US just flat out broke treaties, or bribed one chief to sell off his whole tribe's land when it wasn't even clear he had that authority. Even if he did, there's a moral issue about taking the land that way. And if none of those strategies worked, sometimes the settlers would just kill everyone in the indigenous village: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnadenhutten_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnadenhutten_massacre Manhattan Beach, CA stole a piece of land from a black family through eminent domain in the early 20th Century. They just recently made things right and came to a settlement with the family. Better late than never.

adastra22 4y ago

So can we reverse any trade because X centuries down the road we don’t like the outcome? I said it was controversial, not wrong. There are two sides to the argument.

Thrymr 4y ago
Specifically, the Rosetta stone was looted by the French during Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, and then carted away by the British after they defeated the French. There are two sides to this, but none of them are Egyptian.
- ourmandave 4y ago
  No, the Egyptians want their shit back.
  - gherkinnn 4y ago
    Who are the Egyptians? The Arabs got there in 700AD, long after the Rosetta Stone had been engraved. Remnants of the Copts perhaps? Maybe the Greeks want a piece of it too. And it was Napoleon who found it, so surely Corsica has a claim as well. You have to tie yourself in to all sorts of knots to untangle this Ship of Theseus. And while where at it, all filth of Roman, Norse, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman descent better fuck out of GB. It belongs to the Celts and I want my Gaelic back.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - KoftaBob 4y ago
      As somewhat of an aside from the debate on giving back artifacts, I have a fun fact: The Coptic Christians of Egypt and the Muslims of Egypt are largely the same ethnic/genetic group. Modern day Muslim Egyptians are descendants of Coptic Egyptians who converted to Islam at some point after the Arabs conquered Egypt. One of the (many) interesting things about Egypt is that despite being conquered by several foreign empires, their genetic/ethnic makeup has stayed largely consistent, with only minor intermixing from those foreign groups.
    - krapp 4y ago
      So "Egyptians" don't even really exist, but "the British" absolutely, unequivocally, 100% do, and the latter claim to the Rosetta stone is ironclad and irrefutable, whereas the former is basically fantasy. Shit like this is the reason half the world danced when the Queen died, you know.
  - jl6 4y ago
    It really is an oversimplification to apply modern standards of property ownership to this situation. Egyptian history, like most history, is the story of might-makes-right usurpation. It’s easy to paint the French rediscoverers as looters, but the Ottoman administration they took the stone from were not exactly what we would call the rightful rulers either. Is it part of the cultural heritage of the Egyptian peoples? Yes, sort of, and that’s what makes it complicated. I say sort of because the cultural continuity from the stone’s origin to 1799 is somewhat suspect - the stone was being used as building material, with no recognized historic value. Hieroglyphics had been utterly forgotten. So yes, it is part of Egyptian history, but it’s also part of French and British history. It’s complicated.
    - poulpy123 4y ago
      Especially the Rosetta stone was just a stone used for a wall when the French found it
      - adastra22 4y ago
        To take another example, Greece wants the Parthenon marbles back. On the surface that seems fair--can you think of a more prominent symbol of Greece than images of the Parthenon? It's their national heritage and the want it back. But the parthenon marbles where lying all over the ground after being literally blown up in the 17th century when it was used as an ammunition storage depot. Nobody cared and it was not a recognized cultural artifact of note. Not until the British earl who bought them, legally, used them to help revive interest in Ancient Greece, and Athens specifically, and donated them to the British museum where they have been on prominent display since. "But they were bought from the Ottomans, not Greece!" Yeah, because Greece didn't exist, and hadn't existed as a nation or anything comparable since before the Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire was the greek-speaking Roman Empire, and the Ottomans were the successors to Byzantine. But guess what? The 19th century revival in interest in greek origins was an essential part of gathering foreign support for greek nationalism, which would be achieved--with the support of British nationals--a few decades after the Parthenon marbles first went on display at the British Museum. The Parthenon became the symbol of Greece because it was on display at the British Museum for all to see. In an alternate history where the Parthenon marbles were not purchased from the Ottomans but instead were pilfered and reused for various building projects in 19th century Athens, no one but some academics would have cared about the relief sculptures, and greek nationalism might have been set back a few decades, or more. They only have widespread cultural value because of a British PR investment. Maybe they should be given back to Greece anyway. There's something to be said about having artifacts displayed in their original context. But the issue is hardly as clear-cut as it is made out to be.
suzzer99 4y ago
The point is just because someone in some position of authority (who may have been motivated by greed or fear) at one time agreed to sell off land or precious artifacts, that may not make it right to keep them.
- MomoXenosaga 4y ago
  Greed and fear are part of the human condition. Every piece of land on this planet exchanged hands a hundred times under those terms so I wonder how far you want to go back. The native Americans also had their tribal wars although that seems to be memory holed by liberals.
  - suzzer99 4y ago
    Sure. That still doesn't make it right, or mean that we can't even acknowledge the theft. There are plenty of cases where the US just flat out broke treaties, or bribed one chief to sell off his whole tribe's land when it wasn't even clear he had that authority. Even if he did, there's a moral issue about taking the land that way. And if none of those strategies worked, sometimes the settlers would just kill everyone in the indigenous village: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnadenhutten_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnadenhutten_massacre Manhattan Beach, CA stole a piece of land from a black family through eminent domain in the early 20th Century. They just recently made things right and came to a settlement with the family. Better late than never.