Elginism

Times change. So, too, do people. Human sensitivities evolve with age and self-education and understanding. Unlike some institutions like the British Museum, however, which seem to remain largely intransigent.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Ancient Acropolis Fragment Repatriated to Greece from Chile - iefimerida.gr A small marble fragment believed to be from a 6th-century B.C. temple on the Acropolis has been voluntarily returned to Greece by a family in Chile that had held it for nearly a century, the culture m...

A small marble fragment believed to be from a 6th-century B.C. temple on the Acropolis (before the Parthenon) has been voluntarily returned to Greece by a family in Chile that had held it for nearly a century, the Greek culture ministry announced.
www.iefimerida.gr/english/anci...

New Case: The Cleveland Bronze, contributed by Michela Herbert

Today the Cleveland Museum will take its iconic Roman bronze sculpture off display and return it to Türkiye after a failed attempt to deny its origins in the heavily looted site of Bubon.

mola.omeka.net/items/show/2...

good evening to everyone except the hard-right culture warriors and those who would appease them 🔥✨❤️

BBC World Service - The Documentary, The kidnapped dead: Germany’s stolen skulls Thousands of human remains are held in German museums. Why can’t they go back?

an important documentary about returning the dead from German museums, I am in there somewhere around minute 22
www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w...

Reuniting the Parthenon Sculptures event Andrew George MP, the chair of the British Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, hosted a reception in Portcullis House yesterday

Press release from yesterday's Reuniting the Parthenon Marbles event organised by Andrew George MP. I wasn't able to attend, but it was good to see a lot of familiar faces in the photos.
www.elginism.com/elgin-marble...

Relooted, one of the most anticipated video games of 2025, allows players to take stolen African artifacts from Western museums and return them to their home countries.

AJ+ talked to one of the creators...

www.instagram.com/reel/DMETOk6...

The looting of Iraq post fall of Saddam was more high profile - but we could be seeing a similar situation in slow motion, where large amounts of ancient heritage is illegally excavated and sold in plain sight.
Organisations that are facilitating sales of such artefacts need to do more to stop this.

Nigel Farage's support for keeping the Parthenon Marbles in the UK ought to help convince many who were on the fence (often through lack of in depth knowledge of the issue) that returning them is clearly the right side to take.

Screenshot of Guardian article: "Liz Truss and hard-right group accused of scaremongering over Parthenon marbles. Ex-PM among those saying they will take legal action over ‘covert’ plans to return sculptures to Greece,"

Here starts the campaign for Britain to repatriate the plundered acronym "PAC", in fact the whole concept. It belongs in the US of A.

"Great British Pac calls for an end to any negotiations to return the Parthenon sculptures or risk legal challenges."
www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

Syria’s treasure hunting fever - podcast What can be done to stop Syria’s unprecedented scramble for antiquities? William Christou reports

Worrying podcast from @theguardian.com about the rapid rise of metal detecting in Syria lost Assad - and what it means for the preservation of the country's heritage.
www.theguardian.com/world/audio/...

John Huntley went further, pointing out that there is no credible dispute over the legal ownership of the tapestry - only discussion of where it should best be displayed:
www.elginism.com/similar-case...

Now that I've previously written about how this case is nothing like that of the Parthenon Marbles (and indeed this loan is not in response to any sort of ownership valuation from Britain):
www.elginism.com/similar-case...

The Bayeux tapestry will return to the UK for the first time in more than 900 years as part of a landmark reciprocal loan agreement by Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron - a great example of cultural cooperation.
www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

The Debate: Should the British Museum return the Elgin Marbles? As rumours about talks to repatriate the Elgin Marbles to Greece resurface, we get two experts to make the case for and against their return.

I've written half of a piece in City AM today on the Parthenon Marbles and whether they should return to Greece - it won't surprise you that I'm the one arguing on the Yes side.
www.cityam.com/the-debate-s...

I'd assume that it was insured and that the payout was made on this - which would tend to mean that it would be the property of the insurers if recovered?

In terms of the outcome though, stuff is of limited value without provenance - there would need to be proof it was the same sculpture and not just a copy that got bashed up to make it look like it had been in a building collapse.

Feels like a fair bit of overlap with @marcfennell.bsky.social's Stuff the British Stole. Maybe there needs to be a Stuff the Americans Lost series.

Sorry

Oops. Thanks.

Howard Lutnick and The Gates of Hell - ABC listen When two planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers on September 11 2001 Howard Lutnick lost 658 of his colleagues. It was a tragedy of unthinkable proportions which we covered in last week’s e...

Interesting story just cropped up on @mattbevan.bsky.social's ever fascinating ABC - If You're Listening podcast.

What happened to the original bronze cast of Rodin's The Thinker from Cantor Fitzgerald's World Trade Center offices after 9-11?
www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

Drinking from skulls is a noble tradition Accusations of a tasteless custom by Oxford dons overlook a rite that has been going on in Britain since the Stone Age

I can’t believe this isn’t a spoof article. It seems to be supporting a very questionable approach to human remains. @babao2025meeting.bsky.social
www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

HT: the inimitable @danhicks.bsky.social for raising this story.

Oxford academics drank from cup made from human skull until 2015, book reveals Decades-long use of chalice at Worcester College highlights violent colonial history of looted human remains, says Prof Dan Hicks

It's isn't just museums who normalise colonial era acquired human remains:
Oxford academics drank from a chalice made from a human skull for decades, a book that explores the violent colonial history of looted human remains has revealed.
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

It's kind of nice that they had to put this in explicit form I guess, but this has been the argument since the election - if the electorate elected Trump to do it, Trump is therefore allowed to do it. It ignores that the electorate didn't explicitly say what it wanted and that the mandate is small

"In the end, one is at a loss at whom to fault more: Jenkins for her views, or Oxford University Press for allowing such a book [...] to bear its name. Jenkins’s right to free expression of her views should certainly be protected, but that does not mean that OUP must be the one to disseminate them."

On the other hand, is someone who receives this sort of bad reviews from academic publications for their anti-repatriation works really a good choice to be a trustee of a major public institution anyway?
bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2016/2016.12...

British Museum is right to keep Parthenon marbles, says new trustee Historian Dr Tiffany Jenkins is one of the lineup of new appointees that has raised cultural and historical hackles

At a time when the British Museum is catching up with international museum practices on return of cultural property, appointing someone who made writing about not returning stuff her shtick seems a deliberately disruptive move by those involved in the decision.
www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

The Prime Minister has appointed 5 Trustees to the British Museum The Prime Minister has appointed Lord Daniel Finkelstein OBE, Tom Holland, Dr. Tiffany Jenkins, Martha Kearney and Claudia Winkleman as trustees of the British Museum; their four year terms started o...

Not that wowed by one of the new British Museum Trustee choices TBH.
It seems an odd time to be appointing to the board people who are decidedly non-neutral on matters relating to the restitution of cultural artefacts.
www.gov.uk/government/n...