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?

That's not comparable at all. Most of the disputed artifacts were not acquired through legal or ethical means.

Also, as others have said it's other museums as well that have come under fire.

I hope you enjoyed your little rant but it's got very little to do with this discussion and I totally fail to understand why you think that so much of your identity is rooted in artifacts looted from other countries. I can't imagine that anyone cares about whether you feel proud of our country's past or not but i guess other countries just want the items back that actually are part of their heritage. I don't actually think it's so bad for the British museum to hold them as they obviously are good at looking after them (though it's arrogant to think that other museums couldn't) but it does mean that millions of people are denied the possibility to view items that are part of their heritage.

I think they should refuse to give the Bayeux Tapestry back.

The Elgin marbles were bought from the then British Ambassador to Greece (then part of the Ottoman Empire), who, for want of a better word, nicked them. He had them taken down on the pretext of wishing to take plaster casts of them, and then smuggled them out of the country.

It's a loan.

Well, we could just hang on to it to save it from the savagery of the French. Like we have with the Elgin marbles and Benin bronzes. And with slightly more justification - after all it was made here.

From whom did the British Museum buy the Rosetta Stone? Or the Elgin Marbles? Or the relief of the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal? Or Hoa Hakananai'a?

Visitors to Stonehenge used to be given chisels to chips piece off to bring home. Don't pretend that just because something is in Britain it will be a bastion of conservation compared to those terrible foreign countries! And many of the issues with African politics were caused by colonisers ripping anything valuable out of the continent in the first place. It's not rescuing valuables if you're both stealing them and creating the poverty that causes civil unrest in the first place.

The British Museum has just had 2000 priceless artifacts stolen by a curator, so they can't really argue they are keeping things safe.

Sorry I can't link now, but you can Google this.

?

Some countries were a lot more successful at killing off all of the indigenous people in the countries that they colonised so there are far fewer people left to complain.

Maybe Tiktok is the key part of your issue here.

The topic is debated on many levels, from different points of view. Tiktok is better suited for shorter and more polarising posts, and the algorithm will feed you more of the same once they noticed you watch that kind of content.

At the same time, it is easy to blame the British museum, because it holds many well known artefacts and some of them were acquired in objectively fishy way.

It doesn't say that noone else does, but maybe that discussion happens in other languages or in other social bubbles.

I think it's because it's a UK museum that Americans have kind of heard of. I live in the USA and have this said a fair bit to me, people look genuinely surprised when I ask about the MET.
It's just easier to poke holes at other countries and cultures.

We did steal quite a lot of it! Ditto France has plenty of looted stuff and American museums aren’t immune from criticism either. There is moves afoot for ownership of said items to revert to where they came from but be on permanent loan to the museum, happening in the USA currently

It’s trendy to generally hate on Britain at the moment, I’m sure something else will pop up soon.

I actually read an article, I’ll see if I can find it, along the lines of how a lot of countries destroyed their own cultural/historical artefacts, let them rot, or had them stolen by their own people and sold abroad e.g ancient Egyptian monuments dismantled for building materials and China’s Cultural Revolution saw huge amounts of historical and religious heritage deliberately destroyed.

It makes me wonder how much of what’s now in British museums (and others, Berlin is a great example, so much in here!) has actually survived precisely because it was removed from its country of origin. Obviously, there are absolutely examples of things being looted or taken improperly, and I don’t think that should be ignored, but the idea that every artefact in a British museum was simply “stolen by the British” is far too simplistic.

A lot of objects entered European collections through purchases, exchanges or local dealers rather than being physically stolen by British officials as a poster has said above and in some cases, the museums that now hold these objects may genuinely have preserved pieces of history that could otherwise have been destroyed, neglected or lost altogether.

You're in the UK, so you'll see a lot more people talking about the British Museum, than, for eg, the Louvre.

The British Museum is also unusual for having quite a lot less national/local stuff in it than any other national museum. The Louvre's collection is about 75% French/European. The British Museum is only 8% British stuff.

The history of the British Museum is also extremely tied to the British Empire in a way that, for example, the Louvre isn't. Sorry I keep comparing to the Louvre but it's the only other international museum I know much about.

The British Museum was explicitly set up to house the spoils of Empire, whereas the Louvre is a post-French Revolution invention. France did loot extensively also of course, but most of their stuff is housed in specialist museums rather than the big national headline museum. The way the British Museum is set up as the nation's greatest museum while almost exclusively being full of loot is quite jarring and attracts conversation.

The British Museum's culture itself is extremely conservative, especially compared to many others within the arts and heritage sectors. I mean, the chair is George Osborne... they don't discuss the pillaging and looting in any of their communications in the museum itself, which again is quite jarring. This also leads to other people having the conversation about them, rather than the institution being part of it, which is how a lot of other institutions are responding to this cultural shift.

The British Museum is forbidden by Parliament from giving away any of its objects, so it can't really have a woke awakening because it might get it into hot water legally. But it does mean that its sensibilities are not quite aligned with modern culture and people feel genuinely angry about not just the collections themselves but the way they are marketed and communicated.

The National Archaeological Museum in Athens has a huge number of Egyptian artefacts and exhibits . We had a tour of the Museum and the guide volunteered the opinion that Greece should give foreign artefacts back before demanding the Elgin Marbles back.

but if they were made with various agreement's in the past etc or even now ? thats what people seem to forget plus how many would be lost too eg wars etc

What agreements were you thinking of? Eg, one of The British Museum's prized exhibits is a Moai called Hoa Hakananai'a. What agreement covered its removal from Easter Island?

Or how about one of its other prized exhibits, the Rosetta Stone? Who agreed to that being removed from Egypt?

The Rosetta Stone was removed from Egypt under the 1801 Capitulation of Alexandria, a military surrender treaty signed by British, French, and Ottoman forces. Local Egyptians did not participate in or agree to the treaty, though the British Museum argues the Ottoman Empire nominally ruled Egypt at the time.

The Removal of the Stone

• Found in 1799: French soldiers discovered the stone in Rashid (Rosetta) during Napoleon's invasion.
• Seized in 1801: British and Ottoman forces defeated the French army in Egypt.
• The Treaty: Article 16 of the surrender terms transferred all collected antiquities to the victors, leading to the stone's transfer to British custody and eventual arrival at the British Museum in 1802.

The Modern Debate

• Egyptian Objections: Egyptian archaeologists and officials maintain that the transfer was an act of colonial plunder because native Egyptians had no voice in the agreement.
• Museum Stance: The British Museum defends its possession via the 1801 treaty and notes that multiple duplicate stelae with the same inscription remain in Egypt.

Tell me its wrong and why ?

this one, basically finders keepers

No formal treaty or legal agreement covered the removal of Hoa Hakananai'a from Easter Island (Rapa Nui). The 2.4-meter basalt statue was taken in November 1868 by the crew of the British ship HMS Topaze under the command of Commodore Richard Powell.

Context of Removal

Lack of Authorization: Contemporary research and indigenous Rapa Nui accounts indicate the statue was removed without formal permission or diplomatic consent from island leaders.

Naval Custom: Rather than operating under an intergovernmental agreement, the removal followed 19th-century Royal Navy practice where items acquired during surveying voyages were treated as informal acquisitions or gifts.

Transfer of Ownership: Commodore Powell presented the sculpture to Queen Victoria, who subsequently donated it to the British Museum in 1869, where it remains today

So it was taken from Egypt without the agreement of Egyptians. Thanks ChatGPT!

Isn't "informal acquisition" such a lovely euphemism for "stolen"? Thanks again ChatGPT!

would it be any different answer if i read 20 books and 50 essay papers ? the egyptions did not have the resources or control so how could they have any say in the matter when the ottermans had the main controls ?

why be a snob ? the facts are the facts and weather i quoted national geographic, or google actually was what i copyed it from, then the answer is still the same answer so whats the issue ?

Honestly - if it wasnt for us "stealing" it - half of it would be lost in some desert wasteland already.