AIBU to wonder why the British Museum gets singled out?

[BluesandClues]

I am forever seeing posts on social media about how the British Museum stole everything, and they should give things back. It always someone just ranting at the camera as well, with lots of bad guy/good guy vibes. There’s never a discussion of the various facts of the matter.

I never see posts about other museums, why is it always the British museum?

With you on this. Personally I think some of the discourse can be exaggerated but I'd support the Elgin Marbles and Benin Bronzes going back. We've still got a wonderful collection of relics, statues, paintings etc etc

Respectfully, @Dappy777 — that’s ridiculous. If you can’t see the difference between the violent looting by British forces of the Benin bronzes and Arthur Bell Nichols and his widow selling Brontë memorabilia of which they were the legal owners to Clement Shorter, or Turner selling paintings to Americans, then I worry.

I love the naivety that these artifacts wouldn't have been destroyed, by the religions that overtook regions, or sold to pay for war, or just in some private collection somewhere. Does anyone on here take any notice of African politics? Syria was destroyed and looted. Read up on what Afghanistan has lost, or rather has, again been stolen or blown up. Ghana is modernising, but there are fractions that don't want the change, so the loaning of items is a good compromise.

That applies to many things - and does not apply to many others.

I agree with accessibility, but not necessarily this. Items in eg American museums are often well researched, digitised, on display, lent out, so many people can see them.

Every day on Mumsnet is an education. Apparently Greece is in Africa and the contents of the British Museum are "on loan". I wonder what I'll learn tomorrow!

Nazi looted art wasn't appropriately purchased. Either stolen or forcible sales.

Yes i think it is a good compromise and develops strong working relationships.

There are many, many books on this subject.

The British are too good at self flagellation. I say, tongue in cheek that we won the artifacts fair and square ;-)
The British (pillage) Museum is an amazing place to visit, and such controversies are one of the reasons people from around the world join massive queues to visit.

I mentioned the V&A earlier in this short thread. Their lending project with 19th C looted African art is a good model. V&A bound by same law as BM. Keep up.

Most people from the countries pillaged- right word- can't afford to visit or will be denied even tourist visas.

Funny how you are allowed to say it about a load of dusty old crap but not about Palestinian human beings 😆

Artefacts.

Artifacts is American.

Oh gosh, the Nova Music Festival. People would argue that it wasn't the Palestinians though, it was Hamas.

I dont care. It was one thing once.

The stuff in the British museum was bought and saved for posterity . Just because the people who sold it only value it now because we've preserved and exhibited it doesn't mean they have automatic rights to it . The Elgin marbles were bought snd saved from disaster

On the Parthenon marbles, winged victory and other statuary, if anyone has been.to the Spanish Gallery in Bishop Auckland, they have a whole gallery of 3d printed carvings. Experts say they are 100%faithful and you can touch them without damage. I could see this useful as a replacement for the originals and also a way of allowing people in other places to see them. So return the originals and display the copies.

Some indigenous people feel quite differently though about the geographical location of their ancestors and sacred objects.

After the colonisation of Australia, anthropologists, doctors, scientists and others took both ancestors and sacred objects from communities to put in museums or to be traded, sold, experimented on, displayed as “curiosities”, and sometimes stored or forgotten.

Their descendants want them back.

On the good new front, more than 1,660 ancestors have been returned to Australia since 1990, including more than 1,280 from the UK. I believe the British museum have returned all the remains it held already.

Well if the Stonehenge stones weren't there, the traffic on the A303 would flow a lot better.

And quite a few artifacts have survived because they are in the UK or US. Otherwise they might have been destroyed by earthquakes, war, ISIS, the Taliban, take your pick. And a lot of them were bought - even if it was on the cheap, they weren't just stolen.

It was only the safety of the British Museum that saved a lot of these items from destruction in various Civil and International wars.. but

I reckon it could do with renaming, something like The Museum of the World or The Museum of Humanity.

I was there recently and it was odd. It's difficult to balance the circumstances in which many artifacts were taken, however in some/many instances who it would go back too is not as clear cut. Some had already been taken by others, some are from places that are still disputed, some the place no longer exists in the same way.

However, items that have spiritual significance or are human remains should all be returned.

There's been no civil or international wars in Australia yet the British museum holds more than 6,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultural items, including sacred objects, bark paintings, and the Gweagal shield from Botany Bay.
Most of these are dumped somewhere in the basement despite repeated requests for repatriation to Indigenous Australian communities.

And people quite rightly object to it!