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E-PrinceIn his column last Tuesday, Aaron Applbaum argued for keeping antiquities in European and American museums regardless of how they got there. Looting should be eliminated, he wrote, but “the returning of already acquired artifacts should not be expected.” That ...(back to the article)
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"It should be noted that when a monument or artifact has been broken into fragments and sold, as in the case of the wall paintings in TT15 or the Parthenon, restoring the fragments to their original context and wholeness only increases our appreciation of them."
These fragments will never be returned to their "original context and wholeness." The Parthenon marbles will never be returned to the Parthenon itself, which, likewise, will never be restored to its original state. If returned to Greece, these marbles would be displayed in a museum nearby the Parthenon. Does this proximity really add to the experience of the cultural artifact? According to such logic, it would be better to move the marbles partway from Britain to Greece (for instance, to northern Italy) than to leave them in their current context, as this would increase their proximity to their original location. However, neither side of the debate would argue that such an absurd action would be a fair compromise.
As any visitor to the British Museum can tell you, the current exhibit surrounding the Parthenon marbles does a great deal to explain their original context and appearance, while at the same time providing the visitor with an up-close view of the marbles themselves. (In their original context, in fact, the marbles were far above the ground; current viewers can see them at eye-level instead.)
The original context of the marbles would properly include not only their location within an architectural structure that is no longer complete, but also their surfaces being covered in paint. No one seems to suggest that we ought to repaint the marbles, which would in fact return them to their original state. Instead, we use posters and computer imagery to demonstrate what they once looked like, just as we use videos and three-dimensional models to convey their original context within the Parthenon.
In short, the argument for artifacts' "original context" is disingenuous. For most Egyptian artifacts, the original context is underground - in burial chambers or inside pyramids. In arguing for repatriation, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities is dealing purely with a question of ownership, as the original cultural context of the artifacts will never be fully restored regardless of what country they are in. The questions surrounding private property - and whether a modern nation can claim ownership of items belonging to the rulers of a civilization to which has merely tenuous cultural ties - is another matter.
Some good points made in response to Applbaum's poorly written piece from last week which no doubt stemmed from a freshmen seminar of some kind.
The above commenter does have it right, though, in saying that any argument based on "original context" can no longer be taken seriously for all the reasons stated. Were the Parthenon, for example, still wholly standing and not in danger from the poor air quality, then maybe one could see it that way. But we're not painting Greek statues with their original colours again either, so clearly "original context" is hardly on everyone's mind.
While the description of countries seeking restitution as "geographical and cultural ghettos" is a gross oversimplification, it is naive to assume that we can simply transport and translate modernized security practices to these countries and then feel confident that the returned cultural artifacts will be in safe hands. What was witnessed in the looting of the Baghdad Museum in 2003 was echoed in the Cairo Museum lootings: the museums were staffed with untrained, unarmed, and underpaid security guards; bribery is an accepted practice in such countries and is therefore priced into the low salaries. In the 8 years between the two devastating events, measures were not taken to ensure that culturally rich but less politically stable regions were adequately protected. In the wake of the most recent riots, we will now have to live with the fact that hundreds of priceless artifacts have been pushed underground, and what will result in the international market over the next several years is an abundance of forgeries trafficked internationally.
The larger issue ignored here is what the end results of such looting are: the continued funding of drug and arms trafficking and the support of international terrorist organizations. The only way to stop this is for dealers to refuse to purchase looted works outright; indeed, the art world has made strides in this area as the cache of owning looted works has long since deteriorated. Owning a work that can only be exhibited privately is no longer acceptable dealer practice (and even previously, it was not done consciously by many dealers).
Ultimately, it is a question of due diligence - checking the Art Loss Register is not enough in this day and age. Nevertheless, there may never be a way to fully know a work's provenance, and museums will continue to shy away from riskier acquisitions in fear of tarnishing their reputation. However, acquisitions can still be made if a museum respects the terms of the 1970 UNESCO Convention if and when details come to light on the true ownership of a piece. Until that time, museums need to continue to uphold their responsibility to collect, preserve, exhibit, and educate.
lily yu is the absolute worst.
@ yufan!
No, sir, you are the absolute worst. Lily Yu is one righteous gal.
Yay Lily!
Was pretty surprised to see you in the Prince. But nice work.
Lily has a temper. Suck on that.
How can anybody to-day make such a declaration?
“Essentially, returning these artifacts would be doubly detrimental: it would set a precedent that could lead to the liquidation of the collections of museums, and, by decentralizing these important artifacts, would leave the world culturally poorer. Returning artifacts would place them in geographical and cultural ghettos, whereby Greek sculptures could only be viewed in Greece or Egyptian mummies in Egypt”.
Are all the museum collections of doubtful legality and legitimacy? And how does the world become “culturally poorer” because an Egyptian artefact has been returned to Egypt? It is intellectually dishonest to pretend that if Greece asks for one Greek object to be returned to Athens, then this implies that all Greek objects are to be centralized in Athens. Have we not passed this stage in the debate on restitution? Attempts should not be made to create the impression that these issues are being debated for the first time. Western retentionists should present better arguments and stop creating the impression that one Benin mask taken out of the British Museum will set in motion a trend that would lead to emptying the museum of all its 8 million objects.
Kwame Opoku.
well once one artifact is returned under a certain standard, many other artifacts can be returned under the same standard