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This is spot on. Why should a “mosern country” be the owner of an artifact? I wonder honestly, I am not just whining.
by pfortuny 2y ago
This is spot on. Why should a “mosern country” be the owner of an artifact? I wonder honestly, I am not just whining.
- ajsnigrutin 2y agoYou steal a mummy from egipt, take it to london, put it in a museum. Who has more claim on the item... someone who stole it and kept it for 100, 150, 200 years? Or people of egypt represented by their government,living in an area where the mummy was stolen from?
- umvi 2y agoYeah but it gets absurd if enough time passes. "Your ancestors wronged my ancestors 1000 years ago, so now modern you owes modern me"
- soco 2y agoYes, and repay it by giving back said object. Egypt or those countries didn't ask for rent or back payments so let's stop imagining strawmen.
- TeaBrain 2y agoRepay what? The people of modern Egypt have no connection or inheritance claim to the ancient artifacts, other than their having been created in a similar place where the modern Egyptians are currently living. They don't even share a remotely similar culture. The same is true of many other places that had their artifacts collected, in that the people have no legal claim to the artifacts other than their having existed in a place in time nor do they often have any shared culture with the people who created the artifacts.
- satvikpendem 2y agoIndeed, it is even arguable whether they are even genetically similar to the ancient Egyptians, due to the migration of the Arabs from the peninsula when spreading Islam over time.
- TeaBrain 2y agoFrom what I've read, the Egyptian genetics are still relatively similar to Egyptians from several thousand years ago, due to the relatively small number of Arabs involved in the Arab conquest of Egypt. However, the only kinds of inheritance that I believe are strong are familial or cultural. I don't believe in broad umbrella genetic inheritance claims without any establishable familial connection. Beyond this, I think the idea of geographic artifact ownership claims, based solely on the geographic origin of artifacts, have little to no merit.
- aguaviva 2y agoBeyond this, I think the idea of geographic artifact ownership claims, based solely on the geographic origin of artifacts, have little to no merit. That's fine, but the world disagrees with you, by and large. And it needs to have some way of adjudicating these claims. Granted, fine-grained aspects of "familial" vs. "genetic" inheritance (throwing in migrations and multiple waves of forced assimilation) might muddy the waters a bit. But the vastly bigger point is -- to a first-order approximation, the criterion of "proximate geographic origin" provides at least some form of an objective basis of ownership, and a reasonably workable and intuitive one at that. Meanwhile, as of the 21st century, the consensus view is that the ownership "claims" of recent colonial powers who extracted these artifacts coercively have no merit or basis whatsoever. Per what the world at large seems to think about these matters. You can disagree of course, and go stand in front of your local museum and hold up a sign stating so, if you like. (And nevermind the "solely" part please. Yes, there are corner cases like Anatolia where one group comes in and basically genocides the groups living there, so why should the current population get ownership of everything buried underground? Interesting questions, but again corner cases -- and the current population of Egypt seems to be the very opposite of such a case, for the very reasons you stated).
- roughly 2y agoThis is I think a thing that is difficult for Americans to understand, because the only Americans who have a thousand years of family history in the place they currently live are also asking museums for their stuff back.
- jahewson 2y agoThere’s a big difference between a culture that mostly ceased to exist in the past 200 years, because of the USA, and one that ceased to exist 3500 years ago.
- yieldcrv 2y agofalse dilemma, there are more options the "most right" answer doesn't mean its the right answer. compromise results in wrong answers when there is a right answer. this isn't a standardized test.
- moi2388 2y agoDepending on the time period, anyone between the Egyptians, Hyksos, Nubians, Libyans, Persians, Assyrians and the Romans, and indeed the British, since they all at one point were the official rulers of Egypt. I have no idea why citizens of modern Egypt, which didn’t get formed until 1953, would be more entitled to up to 3500 year old artifacts more than the then actual owners (agree with the means or not)
- rightbyte 2y agoMummies are maybe a bad example, as one could argue, that bodies should be by their grave.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bell-cot 2y agoOr a perfect example - because there are extremely few cultures and circumstances in which very old human graves are moved when the government or rulers changed?
- nickff 2y agoGraves generally aren't permanent; most plots are leased for a fixed term. What is done with the caskets and contents thereafter varies widely.
- cuteboy19 2y agoIs that really how pyramids worked? King Tut in the pyramid for 60 years then to the Nile his bones?
- bloak 2y agoIt sort of worked like that, though that wasn't the intention? By which I mean, as I understand it, all the pyramids were robbed a very long time ago, but Tutankhamun's tomb survived undisturbed until the 20th century because it wasn't in a pyramid.
- graemep 2y ago> Or people of egypt represented by their government,living in an area where the mummy was stolen from? Whose culture and polity have no continuity with that of the people who made the mummy, but rather with that of later invaders.
- pfortuny 2y agoWhat do you mean “stole”? From whom? They were literally abandoned.
- ksec 2y ago>They were literally abandoned. Interesting take. If they were abandoned then I dont see how anyone could claim ownership of it.
- shiroiushi 2y agoAbandoned property generally belongs to whoever finds it and claims it.
- Log_out_ 2y agoThe act of stealing was buying it from a local trader who considered it part of the heathen past.
- noworriesnate 2y agoBecause they are more secure there. These are irreplaceable items. Pick your favorite cultural artifact, would you help move it to a more secure location if there was a lot of instability that could lead to it being destroyed? Even if that more secure location was a different country? I personally would.
- pfortuny 2y agoSorry: I must have explained myself badly. We agree (I preder the artifacts in, say, London rather than in modern “Egypt”).
- Covenant0028 2y agoI would recommend reading "Africa is Not a Country" that delves into this exact question. It is the pinnacle of self-serving arguments for European countries to first spend centuries colonising Africa, stolen its wealth and cultural artifacts, enriching themselves in the bargain, and dividing the continent in a way that would guarantee political instability, to then use that same instability as an excuse for not returning those cultural artifacts. Of course this article is about Indonesia - that's not a country that screams instability in any case
- gwervc 2y agoHaving been multiple times at the Chirac Quai Branly museums, it's pretty clear the argument is valid: most pieces seem totally forgettable and would likely have been discarded by their owners. Heck, even the "royal door of XXX king palace" is a 1-meter wooden door with carvings that aren't particularly fine. Those artifacts still exist and have value because they are exposed in a museum in Paris, otherwise nobody would care.
- Neonlicht 2y agoThe Netherlands has accumulated so much art and antiques in the last 200 years that most of it never sees the light of day. It sits in giant secured vaults.
- 2y ago
- Metacelsus 2y agoespecially when you consider the British Museum hasn't been great about preventing theft recently