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this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2024
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I'm conflicted with this one.
If we return it to a country of origin that has no protections for priceless artefacts, we lose an irreplaceable part of our heritage as humans if the piece is lost/sold/stolen or worse destroyed. Granted it may be that country's right to decide what it does with its history, but its unfair to the rest of us when we lose our shared history because of incompetence.
Like the Buddha statues that were destroyed by the Taliban,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhas_of_Bamiyan
As impractical as it would have been, I would much have preferred they were excavated and shipped to a safe museum or city somewhere, than being destroyed by ideological bigots. We lost an important piece of history, architecture and craftsmanship that day.
I think there is the rare case where you could be right but it's also important to note that the UK has been using that excuse to avoid returning artifacts to Greece (where they would obviously not be in danger).
And who is more likely to value historical artefacts than the culture they originated from? Truth is, the British have frequently lost or damaged priceless artefacts, and thousands of them are locked away in vaults where no one can enjoy them. How is that better than simply giving them back?
And that's exactly why it depends. It's just not black and white.
The Buddhas of Bamiyan are the extreme case, where the local rulers destroyed cultural heritage. There are also some items that can not reasonably been repatriated. But there are hundereds of items from Greece, Turkey, Egypt or reltively stable former colonies in museums in Western Europe. And then even famous institutions like the British museum manage to loose precious items.
I'm also conflicted on that one, and to further compound yours, I can give you the destruction of the Egyptian museum of Berlin in ww2 as an example of a case where stuff would better have been left in the country of origin, or even in the sand.
what's the library in Africa that's being eaten by sand?
I think that's an episode of Avatar.
it is but there are real libraries in Mauritania being eaten by the desert.
it was on the most recent episode of The Grand Tour.
That's in Mali. Old Timbuktu manuscripts from one of the oldest universities in the Islamic world
I'm referring to libraries in Mauritania.
This kind of loses sight of the whole part of why these artefacts are actually important: their situ. In-situ (in the original location it was found in the position and orientation it was in when found) can tell us everything from its purpose, the culture of origin, etc. But outside of situ many of these artefacts become useless.
Yes, these objects being in unstable countries can mean much risk to those objects. This instability is often directly caused by the policies of the more politically powerful countries, though. For instance, the Afghanistan example you give is arguably directly due to Ally foreign policy destabilizing the region for our own self interest.
Rather than accepting the current political climate's default stance of leaving the middle east a wartorn region in the world - and having to choose between either leaving artefacts to potentially be destroyed or destroying the situ of the artefacts and robbing the native descendants of their ancestral objects - we should probably instead push for foreign policy which lifts unstable regions into developed States where they are better able to preserve their heritage.
That's a really nice thought and I agree, but it doesn't answer any of the practical questions the current of many countries often poses. Imo a, maybe temporary, solution that protects these artifacts is necessary.
Sadly FP will not change for these kinds of reasons, which is not saying we shouldn't push for it nevertheless. In the meantime I fear not much good will come from an idealistic stance but rather practical solutions that at least preserve the hope we can at some point in time marvel at artifacts in their proper context. Just my opinion though
Both Greece and Egypt have excellent museums, quite good enough to display and protect the objects and human remains liberated from their countries