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

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.