tag:theconversation.com,2011:/uk/topics/british-museum-16358/articles
British Museum – The Conversation
2024-03-12T17:51:17Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/224422
2024-03-12T17:51:17Z
2024-03-12T17:51:17Z
Rediscovering Gems: British Museum exhibition exposes hypocrisy of new loan agreements for looted objects
<p>The British Museum’s latest exhibition, <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/rediscovering-gems">Rediscovering Gems</a>, displays a range of prized ancient Roman and Greek artefacts. The exhibition stemmed from an <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2023-08/Announcement_regarding_missing_stolen_and_damaged_items.pdf">announcement</a> last year that numerous pieces from the museum’s collection were missing, stolen or damaged. Some of the gems exhibited are among those previously classified as missing.</p>
<p>Hartwig Fischer, the former director of the British Museum <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/25/british-museum-director-hartwig-fischer-steps-down-after-suspected-thefts">who resigned</a> days after the announcement, <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-66527422">stated that</a> the museum had tightened its security arrangements and begun working alongside “outside experts” in order to “throw our efforts into the recovery of objects”.</p>
<p>The museum’s <a href="https://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/news/2023/09/british-museum-announces-operation-to-recover-missing-objects/">uncompromising programme of recovery</a>, begun in August 2023, has involved the Metropolitan Police, international experts, taking legal action and dismissing staff. </p>
<p>On hearing about the stolen artefacts, and subsequent recovery programme, I sensed a whiff of irony that was echoed by others on <a href="https://twitter.com/KGMcGuigan/status/1691876678241300625">social media</a>. While the British Museum celebrates recovered items in its new exhibition, it has continuously refused to return historically looted items in its own collection back to countries of origin. </p>
<h2>From irony to hypocrisy</h2>
<p>Over the past year the British Museum, under increasing pressure, has ratified <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2024-01/Asante_regalia_to_be_displayed_in_Ghana_for_first_time_in_150_years.pdf">a new loan agreement</a> which essentially functions as “short-term” restitution. </p>
<p>The first new case of this short-term restitution agreement was announced in January – 15 historical Asante objects are due to be <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/asante-gold-regalia">returned to the Asante Kingdom</a> in Ghana in May. The objects will remain with the Asante for three to six years before having to be legally returned to the British Museum. Since then, discussions surrounding another loan agreement have circulated relating to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-parthenon-marbles-george-osborne-wants-to-return-the-statues-to-athens-but-can-he-a-legal-expert-explains-197364">long-contested Parthenon marbles</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/vandas-decision-to-loan-looted-asante-gold-back-to-ghana-has-implications-for-other-british-museums-222312">V&A's decision to loan looted Asante gold back to Ghana has implications for other British museums</a>
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<p>And herein lies the hypocrisy of Rediscovering gems. Since August 2023, the British Museum has been relentless in its efforts to permanently recover and then exhibit stolen artefacts from its collection. But when it comes to historically looted items in its collection, the museum has only agreed to “loans”. The opening of Rediscovering gems displays an open embrace of institutional hypocrisy.</p>
<p>British Museum trustees tend to fall back on two arguments when interrogated about looted artefacts. First, that the museum’s collection is <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/british-museum-story/contested-objects-collection/parthenon-sculptures/parthenon">safely and uniquely placed</a> to tell the story of humanity. Or second, that <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-parthenon-marbles-george-osborne-wants-to-return-the-statues-to-athens-but-can-he-a-legal-expert-explains-197364">UK law prohibits</a> the return of artefacts to countries of origin. </p>
<p>The first argument has fallen to pieces in the past year, as the stolen artefacts question the museum’s supposedly “safe” environment. The latter legal question seemingly presents a more robust barrier, yet in 2009 UK laws were altered to give previously prohibited museums the power to return cultural objects relating to <a href="https://lootedart.com/NQ2TYV515471">Nazi-era looting</a>. There is no legal barrier preventing the amendment of laws enabling the permanent restitution of historically looted objects.</p>
<h2>Beyond the British Museum</h2>
<p>So where to go from here? As well as continuing to pile pressure on the British Museum and UK lawmakers, I would argue that community stakeholders and national leaders should look beyond most national museums which are prohibited by law from returning objects to countries of origin. This includes the Science Museum Group, Kew Gardens and Wallace Collection. </p>
<p>These museums make up a very small percentage of the roughly 2,500 museums found across UK. Not all 2,500 hold looted material, but many certainly do. </p>
<p>As well as striking the loan agreement with the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum, Asante representatives <a href="https://www.artnews.com/gallery/art-news/news/uclas-fowler-museum-returns-gold-objects-asante-king-ghana-1234695329/">also struck a deal</a> with the Fowler Museum at the University of California in Los Angeles. This resulted in the permanent restitution of seven objects in February. This is precisely how I think community stakeholders and national leaders should proceed with negotiating object returns – pressurising more prominent law-bound institutions while also working with less prominent alternatives.</p>
<p>In November 2022 the Horniman Museum <a href="https://www.horniman.ac.uk/story/six-objects-to-return-to-nigeria-as-horniman-formally-transfers-ownership-of-benin-bronzes/">permanently returned</a> six objects to Nigeria. A year later the Manchester Museum permanently <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/sep/05/manchester-museum-hands-back-objects-to-indigenous-australian-anindilyakwa">returned 174 items</a> to the Aboriginal Anindilyakwa community. </p>
<p>The Wellcome Trust currently holds historical Asante objects in its collection. I have been working alongside Asante and Wellcome representatives since last year to facilitate discussions regarding the future of these objects. </p>
<p>These examples indicate that there remains a large untapped selection of museums which may be more willing to engage in conversations about permanent returns.</p>
<p><em>The British Museum declined a request from The Conversation to comment on this story.</em> </p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nathan Bossoh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The British Museum is celebrating recovered items in its new exhibition, but it continues to refuse to return historically looted items in its own collection to countries of origin.
Nathan Bossoh, Research Fellow in History, University of Southampton
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222933
2024-02-23T15:22:21Z
2024-02-23T15:22:21Z
Legion: Life in the Roman Army exhibition delivers exciting finds but fails to go beyond stories of men and weapons of war enough
<p>The life of a Roman soldier was full of risk, danger and camraderie, but it could also be beset with loneliness. Many soldiers joined in order to build a better future for themselves. We know this was the case for Claudius Terentianus.</p>
<p>Terentianus was a marine who was later transferred onto a legion, a more prestigious unit consisting of Roman citizens. He went on to serve in Syria and Alexandria before finally retiring in the village of Karanis, Egypt.</p>
<p>Terentianus was one of hundreds of thousand of men who served in Roman armies but we know a lot about his experiences thanks to <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24518619">papyrus letters</a> written early in the second century to his father Claudius Tiberianus. Terentianus’s experiences are at the centre of the exhibition Legion: Life in the Roman Army at London’s British Museum. </p>
<p>The British Museum’s first <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/legion-life-roman-army">major exhibition devoted to Rome’s armies</a> explores the experience of military service, from enlistment to retirement. The exhibition features collections of military equipment, inscriptions on stone and unique finds from across the Roman Empire.</p>
<p>The structure draws on a fairly traditional research approach focused on tracing careers of military men, and on study of military equipment. It was through work on military equipment that stories of individual men started emerging. These stories were told through personalised items, name tags and hand-made repairs. Legion: Life in the Roman Army reflects these approaches, if imperfectly. </p>
<h2>A ‘greatest hits’ selection of Roman military finds</h2>
<p>The opening panel sets the tone of the exhibition by focusing on the imagery of military might on Trajan’s column, a landmark of ancient Rome, and introducing the exhibition’s protagonist. The exhibition’s prominent theme is the story of Rome’s legions as the first professional army and of Rome as a highly militarised society. </p>
<p>The exhibition’s narrative starts with the tale of young men taking risk, pinning hopes of improving their livelihoods and gaining citizenship on military service. The exhibition doesn’t shy away from exploring the violence of frontiers, showing from the beginning stories of lives cut short through conflict. </p>
<p>Some highlights of the artefacts on show including items from the musuem’s own collection, such as a crocodile leather scale armour, a selection of Oxrynhous papyri and an eye catching single red wool sock. It also features loans of some of the most spectacular Roman military finds from Northern England and Scotland, tombstones from Mains and Bonn (Germany) and military equipment from the battlefield at Kalkriese (Germany). </p>
<p>Most striking, however, due to their totally unique nature and extraordinary preservation are loans of material from Dura Europos, Syria. On loan from Yale University Art Gallery, these include the only surviving example of a painted shield and a full horse armour, among other objects.</p>
<h2>Rich in finds, but poor in diversity</h2>
<p>The exhibition is rich in finds, but fails in its representation of the social diversity on the frontiers and a distinction between life on campaign and life on a settled frontier.</p>
<p>It would have been good to see more context behind how military communities functioned within local societies. For example, curators could have further explored the lives of people not directly in the army, but associated with it such as suppliers, enslaved people and civilians living near military sites.</p>
<p>Enslavement is alluded to in personal stories, including that of Abbas, a boy whose purchase by a legionary is attested on a papyrus and the story of an enslaved concubine, turned freed woman and wife, Regina. However, this could have been pushed further. Some estimates of the numbers of the extended communities easily match or surpass the number of actual soldiers.</p>
<p>Throughout the three panels on fort life, women are featured only in relation to the men in their lives. They are deceased daughters of soldiers, wives, or concubines. It would have been interesting to juxtapose these with evidence of economically independent women such as <a href="https://intarch.ac.uk/journal/issue17/4/2.3.html">Belica</a>, an innkeeper, or women who asserted their agency, such as <a href="https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0078%3Abook%3D4%3Achapter%3D19">Sosia Galla</a>, wife of a legionary legate tried for treason.</p>
<p>Sex work and gender-based violence are not addressed explicitly either. A panel above the fort life section mentions Terenatius’ wish to purchase a concubine, but nothing of the accompanying text puts this in context. Instead, the visitor is shown a birthday invitation from Sulpicia Lepidina, who was a wife of a military commander from Vindolanda, a Roman fort near Hadrian’s Wall in Northern England, offering a more comfortable vision of women’s lives on frontiers. </p>
<p>As an expert in Roman frontiers, it was incredible to see so many world famous artefacts I have researched in real life, but I worry the narrative they have woven includes too many blindspots that perpetuate ideas around the might of Rome’s legions. It preserves a horrified fascination with the “boy’s toys” of warfare, while obscuring the issues of inequality and social and gender diversity.</p>
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<p><em>Looking for something good? Cut through the noise with a carefully curated selection of the latest releases, live events and exhibitions, straight to your inbox every fortnight, on Fridays. <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/newsletters/something-good-156">Sign up here</a>.</em></p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Anna Walas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
There are some incredible rare finds on show at this exhibition but it fails to depict a more diverse life in and around Rome’s armies.
Anna Walas, Honorary Research Fellow and Community Archaeology Liaison Officer, University of Nottingham
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/222025
2024-01-30T09:51:37Z
2024-01-30T09:51:37Z
Ghana’s looted Asante gold comes home (for now) – Asante ruler’s advisor tells us about the deal
<p><em>After 150 years, 39 artefacts that form part of Asante’s royal regalia are due to return to the <a href="https://manhyiapalace.org/">Asantehene</a> (ruler of the Asante people) in Kumasi, Ghana, in February and April this year. The Asante empire was the largest and most powerful in the region in the 18th century and controlled an area that was rich in gold. Many of the gold royal artefacts were looted by British troops during the third Anglo-Asante war of 1874 (<a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2018/2/5/0z9u3mtcn3ra21uwolkj7rgpr8jai7">Sagrenti War</a>).</em></p>
<p><em>The first collection of seven objects is expected from the Fowler Museum at the University of California in Los Angeles. The second collection of 32 will arrive from the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in the UK. These artefacts are being loaned to the Asante people for six years. Archaeologist and <a href="https://www.theafricainstitute.org/institute-team/rachel-ama-asaa-engmann/">Ghana heritage specialist</a> Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann spoke to the Asantehene’s technical advisor for the project, historian and museum economist Ivor Agyeman-Duah, about the journey to return the items and its implications for cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums.</em></p>
<h2>What are these objects and how did they leave Asante?</h2>
<p>They were royal regalia that was looted in 1874 from the palace in Kumasi after the sacking of the city by British colonial military troops. There was another a punitive expedition in 1896 which led to further looting. They included ceremonial swords and ceremonial cups, some of them very important in terms of a palace’s measurement of royalty. For instance, the Mponponsuo sword, created 300 years ago, dates back to the legendary Okomfo (spiritual leader) linked with the founding of the empire, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Okomfo-Anokye">Okomfo Anokye</a>. This sword is what the Asantehene used to swear the oath of allegiance to his people. Chiefs used the same sword to swear their oaths to the Asantehene. </p>
<p>Some of the items were sold at auction on the open market in London; art collectors bought them and eventually donated some of them to museums (some were kept in private collections). The British Museum and the <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/">Victoria & Albert Museum</a> also <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/10/12/stealing-africa-how-britain-looted-the-continents-art">bought</a> some of them.</p>
<p>However, not every item you see at the British Museum was looted. For instance, there were cultural exchanges between the <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG205733">Asantehene Osei Bonsu</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Thomas-Edward-Bowdich">T.E. Bowdich</a>, an emissary of the African Company of Merchants who travelled to Kumasi in 1817 to negotiate trade. Some gifts were given to Bowdich, who deposited them at the British Museum later on. There were 14 of these items.</p>
<h2>How was the agreement reached?</h2>
<p>The issue has been on the drawing board for <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-65614490">half a century</a>. It’s not just an immediate concern of the current Asantehene. It has been a concern of the last three occupants of the stool (throne). But this year is critical because it marks 150 years since the Sagrenti War. It also marks 100 years since the return of the <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2017/11/11/9q292hoy7x0uyv4ibm38vghy7mmax1">Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh</a> after his <a href="https://www.eaumf.org/ejm-blog/2017/11/11/9q292hoy7x0uyv4ibm38vghy7mmax1">exile in Seychelles</a> and 25 years since the <a href="https://manhyiapalace.org/profile-of-otumfuo-osei-tutu-ii-asantehene/">current Asantehene</a>, Oseu Tutu II, ascended the stool. </p>
<p>So, while in London in May 2023, after having official discussions with directors of these museums, he reopened discussions and negotiations. He asked me and <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Asante-M-D-McLeod/dp/0714115630">Malcolm McLeod</a>, former curator and scholar at the British Museum
and <a href="https://www.myjoyonline.com/asantehene-leads-discussions-with-british-museum-over-regalia-taken-from-ashantis/">vice-principal</a> at the University of Glasgow, to help in the technical decisions that would be made. We’ve been working on this for the past nine months.</p>
<h2>Why is it a six year loan and not an outright return?</h2>
<p>The moral right to ownership does exist. But there are also the laws of antiquity in the UK. The Victoria & Albert and the British Museum are national museums. They are governed by very <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2024/01/25/british-museum-lends-ghana-looted-gold-artifacts-heres-why-it-wont-fully-return-them/?sh=60ccee735c7c">strict laws</a> which do not permit <a href="https://www.uaf.edu/museum/collections/ethno/policies/deaccessioning/">de-accessioning</a> or permanently removing a work of art or other object from a museum’s collection to sell it or otherwise dispose of it.</p>
<p>That had always been the constraining factor over the last 50 years. But there was also a way that we could have these items for a maximum of six years. Not all the objects are being exhibited at the British Museum. Many have never been exhibited and lie in storage in a warehouse.</p>
<p>Based on the circumstances and the trinity of anniversaries, we came to an agreement. Discussions will however continue between us and these museums to find a lasting agreement.</p>
<p>Of course, the Ghana experience will be important for restitution claims from other countries in Africa.</p>
<h2>What does this mean to the Asante people – and Ghana?</h2>
<p>The fact that over the last couple of months we were able to reach some form of agreement for this to happen is testimony of the interest in multicultural agreements.</p>
<p>Any set of objects that is 150 years old (or older) will be of interest to many people. Such artefacts help us to connect the past with the present. They are significant for how our people were, in terms of creativity and technology, how they were able to use gold and other artistic properties. They are also something that will inspire those who are in the craft of gold production today. </p>
<p>Manhiya Palace Museum reopens this year in April. The exhibition of these objects is going to increase visitor attendance at the <a href="https://ashantiobjects.commons.gc.cuny.edu/the-new-manhyia-palace-museum/">museum</a>. It receives about 80,000 visitors a year and we estimate that it could rise to 200,000 a year with the return of these objects. This will generate revenue and allow us to expand and develop our own museums.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A loan deal for the Asante artefacts offers an opportunity for these objects to return home.
Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann, Director of Christiansborg Archaeological Heritage Project, Associate Professor at Africa Institute Sharjah & Associate Graduate Faculty, Rutgers University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/212755
2023-09-06T15:08:00Z
2023-09-06T15:08:00Z
Missing objects leave British Museum facing historic crisis of custodianship – but case is far from unique
<p>Since mid-August, the British Museum has been mired in a controversy over the theft of up to 2,000 objects from its collections. The theft is suspected to be an inside job that took place over a period of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/25/artefacts-stolen-from-british-museum-may-be-untraceable-due-to-poor-records">20 years</a>. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66582935">Alerted</a> to the sale of alleged stolen items in 2021, the museum did not take action until earlier this year. </p>
<p>This is not the first time the Museum has come under fire and its custodianship has been <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-the-british-museum-thefts-stolen-goods-vf7tf2wt6">questioned</a> (paywall). This article turns its attention to some notorious incidents involving the curation of its collection. </p>
<h2>The Duveen scouring</h2>
<p>There can be little doubt that the most notorious of them is the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-26357-6_6">Duveen scouring scandal</a>, so-named after Joseph Duveen, an ultra-rich art dealer of dubious ethics and benefactor of the British Museum. For a long time, museum officials had argued that the Parthenon marbles had better remain in Bloomsbury, because the Greeks were unable to care for them. That argument was abandoned sometime after it was revealed that back in the late 1930s the museum had scraped the marbles with abrasive tools, destroying their historic surface, its pigments and traces of toolmarks. </p>
<p>Ancient Greek temples were richly painted but remnants of colour were not to Duveen’s liking. A trustee of the British Museum <a href="https://books.google.fr/books/about/The_Crawford_Papers.html?id=55RnAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=y">described</a> Duveen’s attitude at the time:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>‘Duveen lectured and harangued us, and talked the most hopeless nonsense about cleaning old works of art. I suppose he has destroyed more old masters by overcleaning than anybody else in the world, and now he told us that all old marbles should be thoroughly cleaned – so thoroughly that he would dip them into acid. Fancy – we listened patiently to these boastful follies …’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Duveen’s men were given free access to the museum and were even allowed to give orders to staff. Soon, in a misjudged attempt to whiten what remained of the originally polychrome decoration, they started to scrub the marbles. The ‘cleaning’ lasted for fifteen months before it was stopped in September 1938. An internal board of enquiry convened at the time came to the conclusion that the resulting damage <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-26357-6_6">‘is obvious and cannot be exaggerated’</a>. </p>
<p>Tactical considerations prevailed: it was important to avoid a blow to the museum’s reputation, so it kept quiet and denied that anything untoward had occurred. Documents related to the affair became, to all intends and purposes, classified. The marbles were later placed in the Duveen Gallery, named in honour of the man responsible for the damage to their historic surface.</p>
<p>The cleaning was kept a secret for 60 years until it was <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/lord-elgin-and-the-marbles-9780192880536?cc=fr&lang=en&">exposed</a> by the British historian William St. Clair in 1998. Previously in favour of the retention of the marbles in the British Museum, St. Clair became one of the most vocal proponents of their repatriation.</p>
<p>The Duveen scouring was not the only modification of the marbles to cause consternation. A series of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-26357-6_6">letters</a> published in <em>The Times</em> as early as 1858 expressed concern about ‘scrubbing’ of the marbles and blamed the museum for ‘vandalism’. It is probable that, if these early warnings had been headed, the Duveen scandal could have been avoided.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/546662/original/file-20230906-18-82zip7.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The painting ‘Pheidias showing the Frieze of the Parthenon to his friends’ by Lawrence Alma-Tadema gives an idea of what the decorative scheme of the original frieze may have looked like. For instance, it is thought that the background of the frieze was probably blue, as imagined by the artist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1868_Lawrence_Alma-Tadema_-_Phidias_Showing_the_Frieze_of_the_Parthenon_to_his_Friends.jpg">Creative Commons/Wikimedia</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Other controversies</h2>
<p>Other incidents have tarnished the British Museum’s reputation. Documents released under freedom of information legislation show that in the 1960s and 1980s members of the public and a work accident <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1490023/Revealed-how-rowdy-schoolboys-knocked-a-leg-off-one-of-the-Elgin-Marbles.html">permanently damaged</a> figures from the Parthenon’s pediments. </p>
<p>During a 1999 conference in the museum, a sandwich lunch was served in the Duveen Gallery, and the delegates were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk/1999/dec/01/maevkennedy">encouraged to touch</a> the ancient sculptures. Many among those present found the gesture so inconsiderate that they walked out of the gallery. A journalist writing for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/12/02/world/london-journal-on-seeing-the-elgin-marbles-with-sandwiches.html"><em>The New York Times</em></a> commented: ‘On Seeing the Elgin Marbles, With Sandwiches’.</p>
<p>Another controversial incident was the 2014 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/world/europe/elgin-marbles-lent-to-hermitage-museum.html">secret loan</a> of the pedimental statue of the river god Ilissos to the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, at a time when Europe had imposed sanctions on Russia for its annexation of Crimea. The loan was not announced until the statue had been transferred to Russia.</p>
<p>A controversy of a different kind concerns contested objects in the museum’s collection that are the object of repatriation requests. In contrast with other institutions, such as the V&A, the British Museum has been facing a chorus of restitution claims concerning very specific objects in its collection. The Museum has staunchly refused to engage in the debate, although since the beginning of the year it has been attempting to convince Greece to accept a <a href="https://theconversation.com/debate-sorry-british-museum-a-loan-of-the-parthenon-marbles-is-not-a-repatriation-199468">‘loan’</a> of the Parthenon marbles, apparently considering this to count as entering the repatriation debate. </p>
<p>Of course, the Museum is bound by the 1963 <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/24">British Museum Act</a>, which prevents the museum from deaccessioning (disposing of) objects in its collections except on limited grounds, but that is a discussion for a different article. </p>
<h2>The museum’s current troubles</h2>
<p>Now the British Museum is trying to repair the <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-the-british-museum-thefts-stolen-goods-vf7tf2wt6">dent to its reputation</a>, which comes at an inconvenient time when the museum is hoping to <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-british-museum-interim-boss-revealed-and-what-he-really-thinks-about-the-elgin-marbles-9s6zvgxnq">raise £1 billion</a> for much-needed renovation work. </p>
<p>About half of the museum’s <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/fact_sheet_bm_collection.pdf">8 million</a> items are <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection">uncatalogued</a> and this lack of an inventory has certainly facilitated the thefts. The fact that it took so long to discover the thefts also raises the question of what else might have gone missing without a trace. </p>
<p>Yet one can’t help but wonder: Do the museum’s current woes have other museum directors fretting with anxiety? How many museums have uncatalogued items in their storerooms? When a museum such as the Louvre explains that its database has entries for <a href="https://collections.louvre.fr/en/page/apropos">almost 500,000 works of art</a>, is that its entire collection or just a percentage of its collection? In a great number of cases, we simply don’t know. </p>
<p>The British Museum has yet to announce the exact number of stolen objects. But how does one know the exact number of what has gone missing without an inventory? More challenging still, how does one identify the objects, let alone <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/25/artefacts-stolen-from-british-museum-may-be-untraceable-due-to-poor-records">prove ownership</a>? </p>
<p>The secrecy is highly unusual. Sharing information about stolen objects helps identify and recover these objects. Interpol maintains an accessible database of stolen artworks precisely for that reason. But in order to enter an object in the database, it has to be <a href="https://www.interpol.int/en/How-we-work/Databases/Stolen-Works-of-Art-Database">‘fully identifiable’</a>. And the issue here is that the museum is probably still trying to identify what has gone missing. How do you fully identify an uncatalogued unphotographed object?</p>
<p>The secrecy could be attributed to another cause too. What if some of the identified stolen items are contested items that have been the object of restitution requests? For the time being, we can only speculate. </p>
<h2>Crisis as an opportunity</h2>
<p>Every crisis is an opportunity, and here too there is an opportunity. After the resignation of the director Hartwig Fischer, an interim director, Mark Jones, has been appointed. The permanent post is up for grabs. Among those <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/new-british-museum-interim-boss-revealed-and-what-he-really-thinks-about-the-elgin-marbles-9s6zvgxnq">mooted</a> for the museum’s top job is Tristram Hunt, the Director of the V&A, who appears to have been behind the initiative to revise museum deaccessioning laws. The selection of the next Museum Director is a crucial step in moving towards a modern British Museum that not only renovates its galleries but rebuilds its image in accordance with the new values of the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catharine Titi ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
From ill-thought renovation schemes to the latest row over the repatriation of the Parthenon marbles, this is not the first time the British Museum reckons with a custodianship crisis.
Catharine Titi, Research Associate Professor (tenured), French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/209263
2023-07-13T06:35:03Z
2023-07-13T06:35:03Z
How the British Museum’s new exhibition reveals China’s Hidden Century through everyday lives
<p>The face of the British Museum’s big summer show, <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/chinas-hidden-century?gclid=Cj0KCQjw756lBhDMARIsAEI0AgnOpBdyubWlx8hKW_irCAximJYvd7EgVlRXC81w74nvqC8w65wgNssaAmKxEALw_wcB">China’s Hidden Century</a>, is that of an elderly woman wearing jade earrings, dressed in a blue robe with ornate gold embroidery decorating its collar.</p>
<p>It is an image painted, we discover in the exhibition, by an unidentified artist in the Guangzhou area around 1876, as one of a pair. Lady Li is her name. Her husband, Lu Xifu, appears in the other image. All the information about them is contained in the script above the portraits. She managed the family household. He was a businessmen. That’s pretty much all that is known.</p>
<p>Making the vast sweep of Chinese history human and accessible has never been easy, particularly for non-Chinese audiences. The approach of China’s Hidden Century is to focus on details – on ornaments, clothes and artefacts – the sorts of things that figured in daily life in the 19th century.</p>
<h2>A country in flux</h2>
<p>The China of that century was undergoing the painful, often violent and tragic convulsions of change. The golden era of the <a href="https://asia-archive.si.edu/learn/for-educators/teaching-china-with-the-smithsonian/explore-by-dynasty/qing-dynasty/">three great Qing emperors</a> – Kangxi, Yongzheng and Qianlong – which lasted almost a century and a half, was over. Under increasingly weak figures, (prominently portrayed at the start of the exhibition), China’s domestic and international situation deteriorated.</p>
<p>It experienced the horrific <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Taiping-Rebellion">Taiping</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Nian-Rebellion">Nian</a> rebellions mid-century, <a href="https://disasterhistory.org/north-china-famine-1876-79">starvation in the 1870s</a> and violent encroachments by first the British and then other European and Asian countries. This period is not, therefore, remotely “hidden” in the consciousness of modern China, but figures as a crucible of pain, humiliation and victimhood. Despite all of this, life very much went on.</p>
<p>Ironically, plenty of the exhibits bear witness to the fact that the 19th century, far from a period of obscurity, was the time when China finally became accessible to the outside world. Up to the 1840s, international trade was mostly restricted to the southern port of Guangzhou.</p>
<p>The rest of the county was closed off, forbidden to travellers. There is a splendid painting of the various factories along the Pearl River in the city, the busy waterway teeming with vessels. The sheer density of water traffic was something that British commented on when they first caught sight of this place in the 17th century. </p>
<p>But through the first and second <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Opium-Wars">Anglo-Chinese War</a>, China, facing huge international coercion, reluctantly opened up. That gave birth to the modern discipline of sinology – the study of Chinese language and culture. </p>
<p>At that time many observers were intrigued by how less than half a million of the <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/who-are-the-manchu-195370">Manchu</a> ethnic group (from Manchuria in north-east China) were able to dominate the 400 million-plus population of <a href="https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/who-are-the-han-chinese-people.html">Han</a> people, the country’s largest enthnic group. This fact remains an anomaly to this day – for a quarter of the last millennium, China was under minority control, a form of subjugation that gets glossed over in history textbooks within the country, but stands out starkly in the very different language, social habits, clothing and customs of the dominating Manchu minority.</p>
<h2>From imperial to global China</h2>
<p>Wandering through the various display rooms, visitors get to appreciate the logic of the framework with which the curators have tried to assemble the rich holdings of the British Museum and the other exhibits borrowed from more than 30 institutions. </p>
<p>First, there is an indication of the sheer size of Qing China (1644-1912) – expanded to embrace today’s Mongolia and the annexed territories of Xinjiang and Tibet, through a map at the entrance.</p>
<p>After this comes coverage of the political culture – the grafting onto Chinese imperial power structures of Manchu habits and customs. The figure of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cixi">Empress Dowager Cixi</a> looms large here, the true power behind the throne, dominant from soon after 1861 to her death 50 years later. But she was a woman caricatured and wilfully misunderstood both by contemporaries and those who came afterwards.</p>
<p>At the centre of the display rooms is a large space devoted to normal everyday life. This attempts to address what life was like over this period for the 90% of people who lived in rural areas, and whose lives consisted of subsistence farming, and were mostly confined to the places they had been born.</p>
<p>Finally, there is coverage of global China, and a small final room on its sudden, but not unexpected demise. This was the result of what was initially a military uprising in Wuhan in late 1911 that became a full insurrection by early 1912.</p>
<p>When so much history is covered, it is unsurprising that it is very specific, individual elements that have the most impact, because they, at least, are immediate and accessible.</p>
<p>Footage of French-trained <a href="http://en.chinaculture.org/library/2008-01/21/content_38234.htm">Yu Rongling</a> doing a Chinese-style dance in front of some ancient buildings in Beijing in 1926 is elegant and haunting. So too is the <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/36184">Eight Leaves of Insects and Flowers</a> by Ju Lian from the latter part of the century. Delicate and understated, it is the sort of aesthetic statement that intrigued outsiders trying to familiarise themselves with Chinese culture.</p>
<p>The costumes throughout are splendid, dramatic and colourful. Just how much this level of detail makes China’s hidden century more knowable is a moot question. It takes a huge effort of imagination to try to feel what this culture was like to an outsider, and even more to think about what it might have looked like from within.</p>
<p>But this is a bold, ambitious and imaginative effort for which the British Museum should be applauded. The Qing dynasty and its demise has become a little clearer and a little less concealed; that is no easy thing to have achieved.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/209263/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerry Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Curators have concentrated on the small and everyday to communicate a sense of life in 19th century China.
Kerry Brown, Professor of Chinese Politics; Director, Lau China Institute, King's College London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/208781
2023-06-30T14:15:44Z
2023-06-30T14:15:44Z
Controversy over poems at British Museum shows urgent need for more recognition for translators
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534799/original/file-20230629-23-ebdusz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C4%2C3210%2C2269&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Interior of the British Museum.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-february-8-2014-interior-256886218">MarkLG/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The British Museum has had to apologise after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jun/22/british-museum-offers-to-pay-translator-after-plagiarism-row">a translator’s words</a> were used without permission. Writer and translator <a href="https://yilinwang.com">Yilin Wang</a> shared on Twitter that their translations of work by the Chinese feminist poet Qiu Jin appeared in the museum’s exhibition, <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/chinas-hidden-century">China’s Hidden Century</a>, without consent.</p>
<p>The museum’s subsequent press release <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2023-06/Public%20statement%20on%20copyright%20issue%20linked%20to%20the%20exhibition%20China%27s%20hidden%20century.pdf">cited</a> “unintentional human error”. It explained that it had corresponded privately with Wang and had now offered a fee for the use of the translations. Along with the Chinese poems, these were then removed from the exhibition. But the removal of the texts has also fuelled criticism of the museum, and sparked a debate about the role of translators. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1670305203206385665"}"></div></p>
<h2>Translation and copyright</h2>
<p>Literary translation is <a href="https://www.societyofauthors.org/SOA/MediaLibrary/SOAWebsite/Guides/Guide-to-Copyright-and-Permissions.pdf">legally recognised</a> as an act of original artistic production. This means that translated literary texts enjoy their own copyright status, independent of the source texts. While Qiu’s work is now out of copyright because she died in 1907, <a href="https://yilinwang.com/qiu-jin-translation-larb/">Wang’s translations</a> are not.</p>
<p>The role of original creativity in translation practices is <a href="https://www.societyofauthors.org/Where-We-Stand/Credit/Name-the-Translator#:%7E:text=Name%20the%20Translator%20is%20an,the%20name%20of%20the%20translator.">frequently ignored or underestimated</a>. It’s common to talk about reading “author X” rather than “translator Y’s translation of author X”. Even the Nobel Prize conveniently sidesteps <a href="http://mulosige.soas.ac.uk/nobel-prize-non-european-languages/">the role of translators</a> and their creative work when it confers its annual literary honour.</p>
<p>Recently, however, literary publishing has increasingly recognised the role of translators. In 2016, the <a href="https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/international/2016">International Man Booker Prize announced</a> it would now split winnings evenly between the author and the translator. Translators are gaining visibility and it is becoming more and more difficult to pretend they don’t exist.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/international-booker-prize-2023-our-experts-review-the-six-shortlisted-books-204578">International Booker Prize 2023: our experts review the six shortlisted books</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p>Translations are creative acts that take place in specific cultural contexts. They transform source texts into new, original literary works, and they can advocate for the source text and writer by introducing them to new readers.</p>
<p>Wang <a href="https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2021-06/june-2021-queer-barriers-privileges-and-invisible-labor-yilin-wang/">has written</a> about the power dynamics of literary translation, including the barriers to access and participation faced by translators who are “outsiders” and translators of colour. In their essay writing, they draw specifically on their experience of systemic prejudice while translating Qiu Jin’s poetry. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="black and white photography of Qiu Jin in a large robe." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=795&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/534803/original/file-20230629-21-4yk1k7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=998&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A photograph of Qiu Jin from circa 1908.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Qiu_Jin2.jpg">Wiki Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They describe translation as an act of “<a href="https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2021-06/june-2021-queer-barriers-privileges-and-invisible-labor-yilin-wang/">reclamation and resistance</a>” – and talk of the barriers they and others face finding a career in translation.</p>
<p>Like a translation, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCkteVR2ktU">a museum is not neutral or objective</a>. The objects and texts on display have been deliberately selected and positioned together. Just like the objects they frame, the words in a museum belong to someone and they have been chosen to tell a particular story. </p>
<p>Museums <a href="https://www.theexhibitionist.org/">increasingly face pressure</a> to reflect on their processes of acquisition and their contested ownership of items. This latest mistake – and handling of the fallout – shows that they also need to be transparent about the origins of the words they use to build the stories they tell.</p>
<h2>From a “hidden century” to hidden texts</h2>
<p>Removing items from display is not standard practice for the museum. The museum made a <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-54325905">public statement in 2020</a> that it would not remove “controversial objects” from display. A section of the website dedicated to “contested objects” explicitly engages with the provenance of some of its most famous pieces, such as the Parthenon marbles. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1673339737099186178"}"></div></p>
<p>But now Wang <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/830282/translator-yiling-wang-calls-out-british-museums-erasure-of-her-work/">has described the museum’s response</a> as “erasure”, and Wang argues, it has troubling implications, both for the museum’s critical engagement with its own curatorship and for the power dynamics of its relationships with non-white contributors.</p>
<p>The British Museum said in a statement: “In response to a request from Yilin Wang, we have taken down their translations in the exhibition. We have also offered financial payment for the period the translations appeared in the exhibition as well as for the continued use of quotations from their translations in the exhibition catalogue. The catalogue includes an acknowledgement of their work.” <a href="https://twitter.com/yilinwriter/status/1673686891928129543">Wang contests this</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the story has not gone away. It has been reported in the <a href="https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/FUNCqqhE5LgmiCYr8tdlJA">Chinese</a> and <a href="https://actualitte.com/article/112357/auteurs/le-british-museum-vole-le-travail-d-une-traductrice">French</a> media, and <a href="https://twitter.com/yilinwriter/status/1670305203206385665?s=20">Wang’s still developing Twitter thread</a> about the discovery has been shared over 15,000 times. </p>
<p>As momentum grows behind the criticism of the museum, it is a good time for all of us to consider how we value and engage with the work of translators, whose creative labour allows us to access worlds and imaginations far beyond our own.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208781/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Caroline Summers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Translators work has historically received little acknowledgement.
Caroline Summers, Assistant Professor of Translation & Transcultural Studies, University of Warwick
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/199468
2023-02-15T17:18:52Z
2023-02-15T17:18:52Z
Debate: Sorry, British Museum, a loan of the Parthenon Marbles is not a repatriation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508669/original/file-20230207-27-ph3gcf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2048%2C833&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Increasingly, the mood in the UK is leaning towards repatriating the Parthenon Marbles.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/consciousvision/3388915151">Justin Norris/Creative Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the last few weeks, we have been regularly reminded that secret talks have been taking place between the Greek government and the British Museum over the <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/aad9827f-a552-49d4-a462-06425b9f86e3">return of the Parthenon marbles to Greece</a>. As soon the discussions became public knowledge, a wave of optimism swept the media, culminating in <em>The London Times</em> congratulating the former British chancellor and chair of the British Museum, George Osborne, on <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-times-view-on-an-elgin-marbles-deal-homeward-bound-6zzgvb9c2">brokering the deal</a>. But as accolades were prematurely showered on the British Museum, I watched in astonishment and bit my lip.</p>
<p>As an international legal expert who spent the past two years working on the merits of the repatriation claim for my book <a href="https://catharinetiti.com/The-Parthenon-Marbles-and-International-Law/"><em>The Parthenon Marbles and International Law</em></a>, I had a sneaking suspicion that this was not <em>it</em> yet. Or was I missing something? The general euphoria must have been triggered by something grander than Osborne’s modest concession that <a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/britain-and-greece-could-strike-deal-to-share-elgin-marbles-george-osborne-tells/">“there’s a deal to be done”</a> and his apparent willingness to <em>loan</em> the marbles to Greece? Surely by now we know better than to place our hopes in silky rhetoric of this kind that seems to make promises it has not made?</p>
<p>Apparently, we don’t. The need to make-believe is so strong that we grasp at the slightest opportunity and imagine that at last the marbles will be going home. The British journalist Andrew Marr recently captured this mood of exasperation in <em>The New Statesman</em>, when he <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2023/01/andrew-marr-elgin-marbles-greece-british-museum">called on the museum to return the marbles</a>: “Give them back. For goodness’ sake, just give them back.”</p>
<h2>Possession vs. ownership</h2>
<p>If a loan is what’s on offer, then Greece cannot accept it. A loan would mean that the British Museum does not only possess the marbles but it also owns them – a beautiful illustration of the legal slogan “Possession is nine tenths of the law”, if you possess them, you own them. But Greece does not recognise what the museum does not have: ownership. The museum has nine tenths of the law. It has possession. And the museum knows that. An offer of a loan is a bait with consequences for the Greek claim under international law and the Greeks are right to beware of the British Museum bearing gifts. A loan is not repatriation and does not deal with the underlying matter of ownership.</p>
<p>Let’s stop hiding behind our thumbs. The dispute about the Parthenon marbles is not just about where they should best be located. It is also <em>primarily</em> a dispute about ownership. It is a dispute about rights and wrongs, and the need to redress a past wrong.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2006/02/01/germanys-heidelberg-university-returns-parthenon-fragment-to-greece">Heidelberg University</a> and the <a href="https://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/en/exhibition-programs/first-return-parthenon-sculpture-abroad-new-acropolis-museum">Antonino Salinas Museum</a> in Palermo have already handed to Athens the Parthenon fragments previously kept in their collections. In December last year, Pope Francis announced that the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/19/world/europe/vatican-parthenon-marbles-greece.html">Vatican will be returning its fragments</a>. The British Museum, which holds about half the surviving sculpture from the Parthenon, will have to follow their example. Does anyone imagine that 200 years from now, the Greeks will still have to clamour for the marbles’ return? I don’t. It is inevitable that the marbles will go home soon, although I don’t believe that the museum knows that yet.</p>
<h2>Shifting attitudes</h2>
<p>Both the museum and the current government continue to resist repatriation. But how long can they hold out against mounting opposition? Something has been fundamentally changing and it will become impossible for the British Museum and the government to cling on to the marbles for much longer. Attitudes internationally toward the return of cultural heritage have been evolving. Changing attitudes matter. They show that what was acceptable in the past, no longer is. Changing attitudes also shape international law. Societies evolve. The law changes in consequence.</p>
<p>Now is the time for the noble grand gesture, and it has the support of the British public. Ed Vaizey said it: returning the marbles would be <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ed-vaizey-stunning-treasures-await-if-british-museum-returns-the-elgin-marbles-77n5zn8lv">“the big thing to do”</a>. It would be the magnanimous thing to do.</p>
<p>Alternatives do exist. Remember what happened to <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/H_1756-0619-1">Hans Sloane’s bust</a> in the British Museum? Hans Sloane was the museum’s founding father, and his bust was once proudly displayed. But he was also a slave-owner. A scandal erupted a couple of years ago about the display of his bust in the British Museum. Oliver Dowden, then British culture secretary, warned national museums against <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/letter-from-culture-secretary-on-hm-government-position-on-contested-heritage">removing contested cultural objects from their collections</a>. And the British Museum responded: <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-54325905">we will not</a>.</p>
<p>Sure, technically, Sloane’s bust was not removed. But where is it now? It was quietly transferred to a <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/british-museum-moves-bust-founder-who-profited-enslavement-180975680/">glass cabinet, and Sloane was described as a slave owner</a>. For two years, I lived on a London street named after Sloane, and for close to ten in a neighbourhood strewn with streets and buildings named after him or members of his family. I never gave it a second thought. I honestly had no idea who Sloane was. But now I know. The museum’s initial resistance to the removal of Sloane’s bust did more harm to it than swiftly taking responsibility and acting accordingly would have done. Welcome to changing times.</p>
<h2>The future of <em>deaccessioning</em> under debate</h2>
<p>A practical detail remains, a thorny issue of possible conflict between the government and the museum. How should the marbles be repatriated? Should national museums have the right to “deaccession” items in their collections on legal or moral grounds? In October last year, the government decided to delay the entry into force of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/charities-act-2022-implementation-plan">two provisions of the Charities Act 2022</a> that would allow national museums subject to statutory bans on deaccessioning (the British Museum is one of them) to remove items from their collections on moral grounds.</p>
<p>Should the museum return them or should parliament pass an act transferring them to Athens? From a legal viewpoint, I’d much rather the UK government passed an act transferring the marbles to Greece. <a href="https://statutes.org.uk/site/the-statutes/nineteenth-century/1816-56-george-3-c-99-the-elgin-marbles-act/">An act vested their curation in the British Museum</a>. An act can send them back home. Better while it is still the magnanimous thing to do. With pomp. History will remember.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199468/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catharine Titi ne travaille pas, ne conseille pas, ne possède pas de parts, ne reçoit pas de fonds d'une organisation qui pourrait tirer profit de cet article, et n'a déclaré aucune autre affiliation que son organisme de recherche.</span></em></p>
An international legal expert explains why the Greeks are right to be wary of the British Museum’s offer to loan them the Parthenon marbles.
Catharine Titi, Research Associate Professor, National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/197364
2023-01-09T16:52:16Z
2023-01-09T16:52:16Z
The Parthenon marbles: George Osborne wants to return the statues to Athens, but can he? A legal expert explains
<p>George Osborne – former UK chancellor and now chair of trustees at the British Museum – <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/03/elgin-marbles-could-soon-returned-greece-landmark-deal/">is reported</a> to have negotiated the repatriation of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon marbles to Athens. </p>
<p>The deal, struck with the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is not yet finalised. But it is thought that the sculptures will leave London “sooner rather than later” and it is planned that the British Museum will receive some <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/04/british-museum-panthenon-deal-elgin-marbles-loan/">ancient artefacts</a> in return.</p>
<p>Early in the 19th century, the marbles were removed from the Parthenon by employees of Lord Elgin, then the British ambassador to the Ottoman empire. <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-hellenic-studies/article/abs/lord-elgin-and-his-collection/04D46BCF7613E12C142DAC8FBA56B3E3">There is evidence</a> that he wanted them to decorate <a href="https://www.broomhallhouse.com/">Broomhall House</a>, his estate in Scotland.</p>
<p>But Lord Elgin ran short of cash. After extended bartering, he eventually sold the sculptures, images of both gods and mythic battle, to the British government for £36,000 – much less than the costs he incurred in removing them from the Acropolis.</p>
<p>The sculptures were deposited in the British Museum, under the care of its trustees. From that point on, they have attracted controversy. Greek politicians have made <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Medelhavsmuseet/NzFoAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Greek+requests+for+return+of+Parthenon+marbles+world+war+II&pg=PA148&printsec=frontcover">repeated requests</a> for <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-wellcome-closed-its-medicine-man-exhibition-and-others-should-follow-suit-196171">repatriation</a>.</p>
<h2>What would the return of the Parthenon marbles signify?</h2>
<p>The return of <a href="https://theconversation.com/britain-has-kept-the-elgin-marbles-for-200-years-now-its-time-to-pass-them-on-55912">the Parthenon marbles</a> would be a historic moment. In bringing it about, Osborne is not acting alone. As chair of trustees, he shares decision-making powers with a high-profile museum board, which includes historian Mary Beard and artist <a href="https://theconversation.com/graysons-art-club-reminds-us-that-creativity-is-an-essential-part-of-being-human-137331">Grayson Perry</a>.</p>
<p>Behind the scenes, there are also politics at play. Most of the museum trustees are <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/24/contents">appointed</a> by the British prime minister. They then elect their chair. </p>
<p>Last year, around the same time that Osborne’s negotiations started, the Greek prime minister had tabled repatriation as an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/nov/15/greek-pm-kyriakos-mitsotakis-parthenon-marbles-boris-johnson">item for discussion</a> at a Downing Street meeting with Boris Johnson.</p>
<p>Whatever the backroom role of the British government, repatriation would not be possible without Osborne’s positive support. This is true, even while the former chancellor’s motivation might not be entirely selfless. He now – like Lord Elgin – has the chance to associate his name with the artworks in perpetuity.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503437/original/file-20230106-18-6gfe4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin in a red jacket and white trousers. He leans on a sword and wears a powdered grey wig." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503437/original/file-20230106-18-6gfe4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503437/original/file-20230106-18-6gfe4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503437/original/file-20230106-18-6gfe4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503437/original/file-20230106-18-6gfe4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503437/original/file-20230106-18-6gfe4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503437/original/file-20230106-18-6gfe4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503437/original/file-20230106-18-6gfe4d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, who originally removed the marbles from Greece.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Broomhall House</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This potential personal ambition is not legally straightforward. The British Museum is formally a charity and Osborne must put the <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3913521">best interests</a> of the organisation before all else. He must account for any negative consequences flowing from repatriation.</p>
<p>The issue is not clear cut. Although the museum will lose its prize exhibit,
and may have less visitors, the return of the marbles will generate intense press publicity – and perhaps some goodwill – around the world.</p>
<p>The ethical – and perhaps <a href="https://www.bailii.org/uk/other/journals/WebJCLI/1997/issue2/stamatoudi2.html">legal</a> – basis of the original British purchase is certainly doubtful. Lord Elgin received legal permission from local Ottoman authorities but the <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/308-the-parthenon-marbles">most likely view</a> is that, in removing a very large number of sculptures over a sustained period, Lord Elgin went further than the original document allowed. </p>
<p>Lord Elgin then sought a new legal permission from the Sultan, sanctioning removal “after the fact”. </p>
<h2>Can George Osborne legally return the Parthenon marbles?</h2>
<p>Even accepting all this, Osborne still cannot lawfully “deaccession” the Parthenon marbles. Under the British Museum Act 1963, such action is permitted only if objects are “<a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/24/section/5">unfit to be retained</a>”. The legislation is primarily intended to cover extreme circumstances, such as human remains found in store.</p>
<p>Osborne’s plan, <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11597017/Elgin-Marbles-soon-returned-Greece-long-term-loan-deal.html">as it is reported</a>, has found a way around this legal problem. His scheme is for the marbles to be loaned.</p>
<p>Ownership would be kept by the British Museum, even while the marbles will be rehoused in Athens. As a matter of law, it will be possible to claim that the sculptures have not, strictly speaking, been deaccessioned.</p>
<p>Once the marbles are rehoused in the specially built <a href="https://www.npr.org/2009/10/19/113889188/greece-unveils-museum-meant-for-stolen-sculptures">Acropolis Museum</a>, it is unlikely that they will ever return to London. Any request from future museum trustees would be met with a cold shoulder.</p>
<p>And so the “loan” would permanently restore the sculptures to Athens, while leaving the British Museum Act 1963 and its general bar on deaccession intact.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A large ceiling and well-lit room house walls lined with marble statues." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503438/original/file-20230106-25-ofvytb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/503438/original/file-20230106-25-ofvytb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503438/original/file-20230106-25-ofvytb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503438/original/file-20230106-25-ofvytb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503438/original/file-20230106-25-ofvytb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503438/original/file-20230106-25-ofvytb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/503438/original/file-20230106-25-ofvytb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The ‘Elgin Marbles’ exhibit room inside the British Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-august-19-2022-elgin-2195895905">Jeff Whyte</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is a carefully constructed legal plan, but it could also be a missed opportunity. Over the coming decades, pressure on the British Museum to repatriate other objects, such as the <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745341767/the-brutish-museums/">Benin bronzes</a>, and the Rosetta Stone will probably grow.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/rosetta-stone-a-new-museum-is-reviving-calls-to-return-the-artefact-to-egypt-195037">Rosetta Stone: a new museum is reviving calls to return the artefact to Egypt</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>If the scheme marks any type of precedent, the British Museum will respond to other requests through similar backroom negotiations. The British government will keep the nature of its involvement both ambiguous and at arm’s length.</p>
<p>It would be better to move forward in a spirit of transparency. It is still widely thought that deaccession is politically unpopular. But in changing times, that view might now be out of date.</p>
<p>A bold government which, through special legislation, took direct responsibility for repatriation, might find popular support.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197364/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Picton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The British Museum appears close to a decision on returning the Elgin marbles – here’s how it might navigate the legal challenges.
John Picton, Senior Lecturer in Charity Law, University of Liverpool
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/150642
2020-11-26T19:01:22Z
2020-11-26T19:01:22Z
Friday essay: 5 museum objects that tell a story of colonialism and its legacy
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371228/original/file-20201125-20-n7w9r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C505%2C5987%2C2615&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">This wooden dish from Broome, pre-1892, was made by Yawuru people, collected by police and later presented by the Commissioner of Police, Colonel Phillips, to the WA Museum.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the WA museum</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Two new Australian museums are emerging from old ones as the year draws to a close. </p>
<p>The new <a href="https://www.sydney.edu.au/museum/">Chau Chak Wing Museum</a> at the University of Sydney assembles rich collections from across the campus, and the <a href="https://visit.museum.wa.gov.au/boolabardip/">WA Museum Boola Bardip</a> (Noongar for “Many Stories”) has opened in Perth. Museums remain relevant in a globalised world where stories of objects and collecting connect people, institutions, places and ideas.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.collectingthewest.org">Collecting the West Project</a>, in collaboration with the Western Australian Museum, the State Library of WA, the Art Gallery of WA and the British Museum, explores the history of collecting in WA since the late 1600s. </p>
<p>We are tracing the role of collecting in histories of empire, exploration and colonisation; the relations between natural history and ethnographic collecting; the role of state instrumentalities and private individuals; and the networks between them.</p>
<p>Here, we highlight five objects, some displayed in Boola Bardip’s Treasures Gallery, to reveal how they can provide us with insights into history, values, emotions and power.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371229/original/file-20201125-23-1uxhaqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371229/original/file-20201125-23-1uxhaqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371229/original/file-20201125-23-1uxhaqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371229/original/file-20201125-23-1uxhaqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371229/original/file-20201125-23-1uxhaqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371229/original/file-20201125-23-1uxhaqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371229/original/file-20201125-23-1uxhaqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371229/original/file-20201125-23-1uxhaqg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">One of the new exhibition spaces, the Ngalang Koort Boodja Wirn gallery at Boola Bardip.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">c Michael Haluwana Aeroture</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>1. Everything was contemporary once — Corona Smoking Bucket, 2020</h2>
<p>On March 26 2020, the WA government suspended tourist operations on Rottnest Island (Wadjemup) to support the government response to the pandemic. Australian citizens aboard the Vasco de Gama cruise ship were directed to be quarantined on the island from Monday March 30. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.noongarculture.org.au/whadjuk/">Whadjuk</a> monitors Ben Ugle and Brendan Moore were on the island to support conservation works at the heritage site — a prison that once held Aboriginal people from all over WA, where many died. </p>
<p>The two Whadjuk men chose to perform a smoking ceremony for the island’s transition to pandemic quarantine facility. Smoking ceremonies are often conducted to cleanse a place spiritually, such as after a death, to welcome people, and as a sign of respect to people including past elders.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370718/original/file-20201123-15-12g1nrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370718/original/file-20201123-15-12g1nrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370718/original/file-20201123-15-12g1nrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370718/original/file-20201123-15-12g1nrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370718/original/file-20201123-15-12g1nrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370718/original/file-20201123-15-12g1nrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370718/original/file-20201123-15-12g1nrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370718/original/file-20201123-15-12g1nrv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Corona Smoking Bucket: a metal beer bucket used for a smoking ceremony.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Wadjemup Museum Collection.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A metal tin was found for the smoking ceremony — given the unplanned nature of the event, the only suitable vessel they could find was a Corona beer bucket. Seeing the irony in the serendipitous use of this object, the “Corona Smoking Bucket” was collected for <a href="https://www.rottnestisland.com">The Wadjemup Museum</a> on Rottnest Island in March 2020.</p>
<p>Like many objects, this bucket symbolises several histories: the fact of its collection, the impact of a global pandemic at a local level, growing recognition of Indigenous cultural practices and the connection between an Indigenous smoking ceremony and the island’s dark history of Aboriginal incarceration (circa 1838-1931). </p>
<p>These histories compete also with the island’s later use — as the site of decades of annual school leavers’ celebrations, reflected in the presence of the Corona bucket. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/indigenous-medicine-a-fusion-of-ritual-and-remedy-33142">Indigenous medicine – a fusion of ritual and remedy</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>2. Collections carry emotions — Shell, Shark Bay, 1820</h2>
<p>This watercolour and ink drawing of a beautiful shell — the <em>Volute ethiopienne</em> — was drawn from a specimen brought back from <a href="https://www.sharkbay.org/">Shark Bay </a> in 1820 as part of the French <a href="http://museum.wa.gov.au/exhibitions/journeys/The_Explorers/de_Freycinet.html">Freycinet expedition</a>. It can now be found in the State Library of Western Australia.</p>
<p>Shells from WA were prized for their beauty, part of the Enlightenment’s love affair with discovering the diversity of the natural world.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370725/original/file-20201123-21-im44d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370725/original/file-20201123-21-im44d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370725/original/file-20201123-21-im44d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370725/original/file-20201123-21-im44d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370725/original/file-20201123-21-im44d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=831&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370725/original/file-20201123-21-im44d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1045&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370725/original/file-20201123-21-im44d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1045&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370725/original/file-20201123-21-im44d8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1045&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Drawing of Volute ethioienne specimen, Shark Bay, 1820. A. Provist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Freycinet collections, State Library of Western Australia, ACC 5907A/12.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Aboriginal people have long valued shells for ornamentation and exchange. Shells were also attractive items for some of the earliest European explorers of the WA coast.</p>
<p>In 1697, for instance, <a href="https://www.sharkbay.org/culture-history/maritime-history/1697-willem-de-vlamingh/">Willem de Vlamingh</a>, a Dutch sea captain working for the Dutch East India Company, collected a number of shells from Shark Bay, including a nautilus and a conch. He failed to find the shipwreck he was searching for, but helped to chart the coast. The English explorer William Dampier arrived in 1699 and some of the shells he collected in Shark Bay ended up in Oxford’s <a href="https://www.ashmolean.org/">Ashmolean Museum</a>. </p>
<p>French explorers followed. Nicolas Baudin’s expedition took a considerable number of shells back to Paris, where they can now be seen at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle.</p>
<p>In his journal of the Baudin expedition, the naturalist <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/peron-francois-2545">François Peron</a> described a mussel he found on the shore:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Of all the species of mussels known so far, the one that I discovered [in Shark Bay] is incontestably the most beautiful. Stripped of its marine coating, it shines with the most vivid colours of the prism and precious stones; it is dazzling, if I may say so. </p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-the-voyage-of-nicolas-baudin-and-art-in-the-service-of-science-62038">Friday essay: the voyage of Nicolas Baudin and 'art in the service of science'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>3. Mokare’s place — Spear-thrower, King George Sound, (Albany), c.1831</h2>
<p>This spear-thrower was collected by <a href="https://uwap.uwa.edu.au/products/alexander-collie-colonial-surgeon-naturalist-explorer">Alexander Collie</a>, the government resident at King George Sound between 1831-33, who formed a close friendship with Menang Noongar man <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mokare-13106">Mokare</a>. </p>
<p>Such historic objects remind us that many collections of plants and objects were formed with the expert assistance of Aboriginal people who knew the land intimately.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370719/original/file-20201123-13-1lvahbf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370719/original/file-20201123-13-1lvahbf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370719/original/file-20201123-13-1lvahbf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=143&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370719/original/file-20201123-13-1lvahbf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=143&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370719/original/file-20201123-13-1lvahbf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=143&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370719/original/file-20201123-13-1lvahbf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=180&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370719/original/file-20201123-13-1lvahbf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=180&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370719/original/file-20201123-13-1lvahbf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=180&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spear-thrower, Albany.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Museum, 1613225872</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The spear-thrower also highlights how objects can embody moments of unexpected friendships, such as the close relationship that developed between Collie and Mokare. Mokare lived with Collie in his hut in the settlement of Albany in 1831, and when near death, Collie asked to be buried beside his friend.</p>
<p>Collie had worked as a naval surgeon and sent objects he collected back to the Royal Navy’s Haslar Hospital Naval Museum at Portsmouth, to assist in naval education. In 1855 the admiralty disbanded the museum, depositing the spear-thrower and other objects in the British Museum.</p>
<p>In 2016-2017, the spear-thrower, along with other objects collected by Collie, returned to Albany to be displayed in the <a href="http://museum.wa.gov.au/museums/albany/yurlmun-mokare-mia-boodja">Yurlmun exhibition</a>, which focused on the meaning of these collections to Menang Noongar people today. Despite these objects being only a temporary loan from the British Museum (where they are now in storage), the Menang people viewed their arrival as a “return home to country”. </p>
<p>The objects collected by Collie point to the role of the Royal Navy as a key network of colonisation; the agency of individual Aboriginal people in processes of colonial collection and the potential of these collections to highlight not only the role played by Indigenous people such as Mokare but also the cultural knowledge contained in the objects themselves.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370977/original/file-20201124-15-247c5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370977/original/file-20201124-15-247c5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370977/original/file-20201124-15-247c5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370977/original/file-20201124-15-247c5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370977/original/file-20201124-15-247c5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370977/original/file-20201124-15-247c5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370977/original/file-20201124-15-247c5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370977/original/file-20201124-15-247c5m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A portrait of Mokare by Louis de Sainson (1833).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A much earlier collection of weapons, also from Albany, hints at the complexity of collecting practices undertaken within colonial contexts. A Royal Navy surveying expedition, captained by Phillip Parker King, visited King George Sound in December 1821. The crew were engaged with the Menang people in a prolonged and intimate trading exchange for two weeks. In exchange for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardtack">ships’ biscuit</a>, the crew collected:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>one hundred spears, thirty throwing sticks, forty hammers, one hundred and fifty knives and a few hand-clubs.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>By contrast, at Hanover Bay on today’s Kimberley coast, a few months earlier, a cache of Worrorra weapons and artefacts were taken as a retaliatory theft for the spearing of the crew’s surgeon.</p>
<p>The crew members related this theft in their journals with the language of revenge: “taking possession of”, “riches”, “spoil”, “prize” and “treasure”, where they took pleasure in “capturing” an Aboriginal “depot”.</p>
<p>These collecting moments reveal different kinds of intimacies — of friendships and violence, trade and exchange — that occurred during early coastal encounters. They also explain why there is no early material from WA in Western Australian collections — most went to Britain as a result of these imperial networks.</p>
<h2>4. Colonialism never dies — Wooden dish, Broome, pre 1892</h2>
<p>This small wooden bowl carries a history that hints at the role of colonial state instrumentalities in collecting. It is part of a large collection at the WA Museum known as the Phillips Collection.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371228/original/file-20201125-20-n7w9r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C505%2C5987%2C2615&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371228/original/file-20201125-20-n7w9r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=27%2C505%2C5987%2C2615&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371228/original/file-20201125-20-n7w9r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371228/original/file-20201125-20-n7w9r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371228/original/file-20201125-20-n7w9r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371228/original/file-20201125-20-n7w9r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371228/original/file-20201125-20-n7w9r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371228/original/file-20201125-20-n7w9r9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wooden dish from Broome, pre-1892, made by Yawuru people, presented by the Commissioner of Police to the WA Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the WA museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>George Braithwaite Phillips was the commissioner of police between 1887-1890. His family was amongst the first colonists to emigrate to the Swan River Colony (now Perth), coming from Barbados, where they owned sugar plantations. </p>
<p>Phillips had been a high profile civil servant and the commandant of the Western Australian Military Forces. From those positions he was able to commandeer a large network of policemen throughout the colony to collect both Aboriginal material culture and human remains.</p>
<p>Many of the Aboriginal objects collected by police, though not the ancestral human remains, were displayed at International Exhibitions in Paris, Glasgow and Melbourne.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-violent-collectors-who-gathered-indigenous-artefacts-for-the-queensland-museum-96119">The violent collectors who gathered Indigenous artefacts for the Queensland Museum</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The collection, which included this bowl from Broome, made by Yawuru people, helped form the new Western Australian Museum and Art Gallery in 1894. (The bowl can now be seen at WA Museum Boola Bardip.)</p>
<p>Bernard Woodward, the museum’s first director, continued to ask Phillips for help in sourcing both ethnographic objects and human remains, many of them destined to be exchanged for natural history specimens and ethnographic material from other parts of the world.</p>
<p>So, this bowl is a powerful object. It speaks to Aboriginal cultural practices, the police as active agents of colonisation, and the complex terrain of colonial encounters and their aftermath that form part of the museum’s own inheritance — now slowly being addressed in consultation with relevant communities.</p>
<h2>5. Collections are commodities — Red figure hydria, 350-320BC</h2>
<p>This red figure vase (circa 350-320BC), probably from Bari
— then a Greek colony — was, according to the museum’s first art and craft register, given by Professor E H Giglioli in 1902. Giglioli (1845-1909) was the Director of the Museo Zoologico in Florence — a zoologist and anthropologist remembered as the father of Italian science.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370743/original/file-20201123-19-evzw4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370743/original/file-20201123-19-evzw4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370743/original/file-20201123-19-evzw4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370743/original/file-20201123-19-evzw4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370743/original/file-20201123-19-evzw4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370743/original/file-20201123-19-evzw4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370743/original/file-20201123-19-evzw4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370743/original/file-20201123-19-evzw4x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Red figure hydria (water jar), Bari, Apulia, southern Italy.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of the WA Museum.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>He visited Australia in 1867, <a href="https://www.sba.unifi.it/upload/scienze/imgdarwin09/Giglioli_1876/Giglioli_Viaggiointornoalglobo_1876.pdf">writing a book on Australian Aboriginal people</a>. Giglioli understood the uniqueness of WA’s flora and fauna, seeking valuable specimens with which to build his own collection and to trade for other specimens from elsewhere in the world.</p>
<p>Giglioli sent Roman and Etruscan antiquities he acquired in Italy to Perth in exchange for natural history specimens, human remains and ethnographic material.</p>
<p>Collections circulated through collecting institutions, often exchanged or bartered. Giglioli exchanged the WA material with the Smithsonian Museum.</p>
<p>In Australia, antiquities from Europe had their own rarity value. Widely understood as the foundation of Western culture and aesthetics, antiquities were hard to come by in colonial society. </p>
<p>In 1904, Woodward wrote:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>it is of paramount importance that the local craftsmen should have good examples to study, in order that they may successfully compete with their fellows in the older centres of civilisation. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The notion of civilisation was especially important in a young nation. Colonial societies, wanting to demonstrate their rightful place amongst civilised societies, often purchased copies of originals. </p>
<p>So it is not surprising Woodward wanted to exchange Western Australian natural history and ethnographic specimens for objects representing the high end of European artistic production or material representing the birth of European civilisation.</p>
<p>This was part of his effort to educate Western Australians into what they thought was the best that Western civilisation offered.</p>
<p>While this was a way for museums around the world to build their collections, it also involved practices that are totally discredited today and which many find deeply distressing. It is important to know about this history and address its legacies. </p>
<p>The collections made by early explorers and settlers, sometimes in collaboration with Indigenous peoples, are important for their role in the development of knowledge about WA, opening up areas of scientific discovery and knowledge about First Peoples, the richness of the state’s flora and fauna and our shared historical experiences.</p>
<p>They are also tangible symbols of colonialism and its legacy today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150642/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alistair Paterson receives funding from the Australian Research Council, the Federal Government, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrea Witcomb receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gaye Sculthorpe receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shino Konishi receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tiffany Shellam receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>
A spear-thrower, a shell, a bowl, a vase, a bucket. Five very different items tell us much about the history of collecting, the role of Indigenous experts and the shadow of colonial violence.
Alistair Paterson, ARC Future Fellow, The University of Western Australia
Andrea Witcomb, Professor, Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies, Deakin University
Gaye Sculthorpe, Curator & Section Head, Oceania, The British Museum
Shino Konishi, ARC Research Fellow, The University of Western Australia
Tiffany Shellam, Senior Lecturer in History, Deakin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/141819
2020-07-01T13:28:34Z
2020-07-01T13:28:34Z
A more guided visit – how to reopen museums and galleries safely
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345035/original/file-20200701-159815-167lkv6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-united-kingdom-october-24-interiors-1599144610">Takashi Images/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Museums and galleries in the UK will be able to <a href="https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/arts/london-museums-galleries-reopen-lockdown-lifted-a4477111.html">open their doors to the public</a> in July. But reopening will be conditional on their ability to implement safety measures. Social distancing is obviously vital in these institutions, which <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/dec/02/caught-in-the-crush-are-our-galleries-now-hopelessly-overcrowded">were often described as overcrowded</a> when life was more normal.</p>
<p>To be able to apply social distancing measures we need to know how many people will be there, what they want to see and how they will navigate from one room to another. </p>
<p>These questions were important to the curators and museum owners even before this period of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/arts/design/how-do-you-close-a-museum.html">financial uncertainty for the life of many museums</a>. So much so that, in the summer of 2018, our friends at the British Museum approached us with a very simple question: “can you tell us how our visitors move around the museum and can you do it in an easy and cheap way, without collecting any personal or demographic data from them?” In response to that, we launched a project at the Alan Turing Institute called: <a href="https://www.turing.ac.uk/listening-crowd-data-science-understand-british-museums-visitors">Listening to the crowd: Data science to understand the British Museum’s visitors</a>.</p>
<h2>Following the audio guides</h2>
<p>In this project, we relied on data generated by the British Museum’s audio guides – little gadgets that about 5% of visitors rent for £7 if they wish to listen to descriptions of different objects in the museum. To play the relevant audio track, visitors need to dial in a code that is unique to each object. The device not only plays the right track for them but also records the object number and the exact time of the request in its memory. It does this mostly for research and service improvement but also it will email a list of all the visited objects to the visitors at the end of the day, as a nice souvenir.</p>
<p>This digital record also tells us about vistors’ physical location in the museum as we can assume they are most likely to listen to the description of an object while standing close to it.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345039/original/file-20200701-159824-k0yt6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345039/original/file-20200701-159824-k0yt6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345039/original/file-20200701-159824-k0yt6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345039/original/file-20200701-159824-k0yt6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345039/original/file-20200701-159824-k0yt6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345039/original/file-20200701-159824-k0yt6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345039/original/file-20200701-159824-k0yt6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Rosetta Stone at the British Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-uk-circa-june-2017-tourists-694046560">Claudio Divizia/Shuttertsock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Studying the data of some 40,000 visits, we found the following: most of the visitors spend around 1.5 to three hours visiting the museum. During this time they usually visit between 20 to 45 objects (this only accounts for objects with audio descriptions). Our most important finding was that most of the visitors wander around – they do not necessarily visit all the objects in the same theme nor follow predefined paths (called “tours” – lists of objects that are bundled together by the curators, such as “ancient Egypt” or “highlights”).</p>
<h2>Navigating by structures</h2>
<p>What actually determines the visitor’s navigation paths more firmly is the physical structure of the museum rather than the thematic distribution of objects, according to our analyses. For instance, the distance of a room from the museum entrance and the number of steps that one needs to climb to get to a room. As such, the siting of the cafe and restrooms can be equally or even more important than the location of the Rosetta Stone. </p>
<p>You are reading this, so there’s a good chance that you’re a museum enthusiast (or a data science enthusiast, or maybe even both), and if so, you might be a bit offended by the last paragraph. You might think that such navigation of museums might be true for the general tourist or “casual” museum-goer, but “seasoned” visitors operate with purpose, knowing what they want to see and usually wanting to see it all.</p>
<p>And you’d be right. Apart from studying the general behaviour, we also tried to categorise visitors based on their navigation patterns. Here are the four types of visitors we found:</p>
<ol>
<li><p><strong>Committed trekkers (22% of visitors):</strong> usually solo visitors who spent a lot of time in their visit and see many objects with few or no breaks in between.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Leisurely explorers (34% of visitors):</strong> often in a group, spending a good amount of time in the museum seeing fewer objects.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Targeted visitors (31% of visitors):</strong> shorter visits, see fewer objects, spend more time walking across rooms.</p></li>
<li><p><strong>Speedy samplers (12% of visitors):</strong> most likely to be part of a group, spend a lot of time walking between rooms and see very few objects.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Remember though, all the visitors we studied were enthusiastic enough to spend £7 for the audio guide. If we could somehow study all the visitors (with and without audio guide), I’m sure the percentages would be different – heavier towards speedy samplers and lighter on committed trekkers.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345066/original/file-20200701-159799-hxl41s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345066/original/file-20200701-159799-hxl41s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345066/original/file-20200701-159799-hxl41s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345066/original/file-20200701-159799-hxl41s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345066/original/file-20200701-159799-hxl41s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345066/original/file-20200701-159799-hxl41s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345066/original/file-20200701-159799-hxl41s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345066/original/file-20200701-159799-hxl41s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From left to right: The number of objects of which listened to the description during the visit, average time spent between two stops (minutes), and total visit time (minutes) for the four types of visitor.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Muggleton, Monteath, and Yasseri (2020)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Safer museum visits</h2>
<p>A restricted and controlled visit – the only viable option at the moment – will be better suited to those who fall into the category of committed trekkers. While those who like to explore, take breaks, and have a more leisurely visit, might need to wait a few more weeks. The new nature of visiting could be emphasised in public communications regarding reopening. This is so that those who would normally be leisurely explorers, targeted visitors or speedy samplers know they will, for the time being, have to adopt different viewing behaviours. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345031/original/file-20200701-159789-1uwgu2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C17%2C5656%2C3765&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/345031/original/file-20200701-159789-1uwgu2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345031/original/file-20200701-159789-1uwgu2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345031/original/file-20200701-159789-1uwgu2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345031/original/file-20200701-159789-1uwgu2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345031/original/file-20200701-159789-1uwgu2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/345031/original/file-20200701-159789-1uwgu2g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The British Museum’s entrace.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/british-museum-london-england-on-may-299277995">Anna Levan/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Considering that the distance from the entrance and upward staircases play such an important role, one idea in reopening could be to have multiple entrances and visits limited to single floors.</p>
<p>Finally, considering that many people see a very tiny number of objects on one visit, it could be a good idea to split the museums into multiple isolated sub-museums. Don’t worry that the ancient Greece objects are spread among multiple rooms and two different floors, very few visitors want to see them all in one visit. Also, this gives visitors the excuse to return.</p>
<p>However, there are two challenges in deploying our analysis into the current situation. First of all, our data was generated by a very small sample of visitors that were clearly unrepresentative of the general population of the museum-goers and this might produce some biases in the findings. Second, the audie guides are mostly used by international visitors whereas the expectation is that the first group of visitors post-lockdown would be more domestic considering sparsity of international trips.</p>
<p>Reopening museums, it is important to know what type of visitors would be more likely to show up at the door and what type of visits would suit them the best. There is still a lot more to understand about visitors but I hope our work can give some basic insights helping the preparation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/141819/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Taha Yasseri receives funding from the European Commission (Horizon 2020), Google Inc, eHarmony, Oxford University John Fell Fund, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He is affiliated with the Alan Turing Institute for Data Science and AI.</span></em></p>
Understanding the different types of visitors and how they navigate museums can help these institutions reopen safely.
Taha Yasseri, Senior Research Fellow in Computational Social Science, Oxford Internet Institute, Alan Turing Fellow, University of Oxford
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/133092
2020-03-09T14:57:27Z
2020-03-09T14:57:27Z
Mary Beard and the British Museum – who runs the UK’s cultural institutions?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319093/original/file-20200306-118890-606bca.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C5%2C3488%2C2061&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of Britain's great cultural institutions: the British Museum in London.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Claudio Divizia via Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many of those within academic and cultural circles in the UK were shocked and angered recently when it was reported that the government <a href="https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/mary-beard-british-museum-1202679615/">had refused to allow</a> the nomination of one of the country’s leading public intellectuals to the board of trustees of the British Museum. Mary Beard was rejected, reportedly by order of the prime minister’s office, apparently because of her outspoken pro-European Union views. </p>
<p>To put this into context, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/01/british-museum-put-mary-beard-on-the-board-despite-downing-st-veto">No 10 is reported</a> to have rejected someone whose <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Beard_(classicist)">CV reads as follows</a>: Dame Commander of the British Empire, professor of classics at Cambridge University, Royal Academy of Arts professor of ancient literature and classics editor of The Times Literary Supplement. And this, apparently, because she takes an opposing view on one of the key issues of the day.</p>
<p>Former BBC World Service boss Sir John Tusa – himself a former trustee of the British Museum – condemned the decision, calling it an “<a href="https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/18883">absolute scandal</a>”. It has been reported that the British Museum <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8061773/British-Museum-defies-Downing-Street-veto-plans-make-pro-EU-scholar-Mary-Beard-trustee.html">will defy the government</a>and that Beard will still be appointed to one of five trustee positions that the museum controls itself (the government and the Queen control the other 20).</p>
<p>But the story of the government’s rejection of Beard’s candidacy is not just about escalating political polarisation within Britain but also a deterioration of the “arm’s-length principle” that has characterised the governance of cultural institutions in the UK for many years.</p>
<p>It’s a principle that is designed to protect institutions like the British Museum from politicisation. The argument is that it protects both parties, preventing important cultural institutions from becoming politicised and at the same time protecting the government from any backlash due to the inherent heterodoxy and freedom of expression within arts and culture. </p>
<p>The British Museum itself cites arm’s length as its governance principle, as you can see from this extract below: </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319072/original/file-20200306-118966-1hguwqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319072/original/file-20200306-118966-1hguwqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319072/original/file-20200306-118966-1hguwqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319072/original/file-20200306-118966-1hguwqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319072/original/file-20200306-118966-1hguwqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319072/original/file-20200306-118966-1hguwqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319072/original/file-20200306-118966-1hguwqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319072/original/file-20200306-118966-1hguwqy.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">How the British Museum is governed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">British Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In their much cited <a href="https://www.americansforthearts.org/sites/default/files/ArmsLengthArts_paper.pdf">1989 discussion of cultural funding practices</a>, Canadian academics Harry Hillman-Chartrand and Claire McCaughey noted that: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>having been appointed by the government of the day, trustees are expected to fulfil their grant-giving duties independent of the day-to-day interests of the party in power, much like the trustee of a blind trust. </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Guarantee of independence</h2>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/24/contents">British Museum Act (1963)</a>, out of the British Museum’s 25 trustees, 20 are appointed by the Crown – one by the queen, 15 by the prime minister and four by the culture secretary. Refusing to nominate Beard – while distasteful on the part of the government – might not strictly be a violation of the arm’s-length principle, because the museum can still insist on having Beard as one of its five nominees. The real violation would be if the choice of the trustees was not allowed as a result of further government intervention.</p>
<p>Most public cultural institutions do not have the options available to the British Museum. The arms’s-length principle has been undermined within the realm of British cultural governance for some time. Of the four institutions covered by the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1992/44/contents">1992 Museums and Galleries Act</a>, only the trustees of the Tate Gallery and the National Gallery are allowed one nomination – but it must be a trustee from the other institution’s board (so the National Gallery chooses a trustee from the Tate Gallery’s board and vice versa). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319096/original/file-20200306-118960-pk7fk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/319096/original/file-20200306-118960-pk7fk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319096/original/file-20200306-118960-pk7fk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319096/original/file-20200306-118960-pk7fk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319096/original/file-20200306-118960-pk7fk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319096/original/file-20200306-118960-pk7fk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/319096/original/file-20200306-118960-pk7fk4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">National Portrait Gallery is allowed to nominate only one of its trustees.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">FenlioQ via Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In comparable institutions covered by other acts, for example the V&A Museum, all trustees are appointed by the prime minister’s office. So the wholesale appointment of trustees to cultural institutions by the government is not unusual and there is no scope for the kind of action or show of independence that the British Museum trustees are planning to take. </p>
<p>Here lies the danger – the arm’s length maintained between the government’s political interests and those of trustees of cultural institutions has – in essence – become closer. It now appears to be more of a handshake.</p>
<h2>A limited model</h2>
<p>The arm’s-length principle is more commonly discussed in terms of funding and in relation to the UK’s various Arts Councils. The Arts Council of Great Britain – now the Arts Council of England (ACE) – which was created in 1946, was arguably the world’s first arm’s-length council.</p>
<p>Despite this model finding its way into governance in countries around the world, such as <a href="https://www.crcpress.com/Global-Cultural-Economy/Beukelaer-Spence/p/book/9781138670099">Australia and New Zealand</a>, the ACE model has been <a href="https://www.americansforthearts.org/by-program/reports-and-data/legislation-policy/naappd/distance-or-intimacy-the-arms-length-principle-the-british-government-and-the-arts-council-of-great">found wanting</a> for its inattention to <a href="https://www.cusp.ac.uk/themes/a/oakley-obrien-inequality-in-cultural-production/">issues of systemic exclusion</a> on race, class, gender and even location. One <a href="https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/sites/artsprofessional.co.uk/files/administrator/ace_in_a_hole_jan2020.pdf">criticism</a> of ACE’s recently released ten-year strategy, ACE in a Hole?, focused on the values it needs to espouse rather than any particular initiative.</p>
<p>The two most important, as far as I am concerned, are trust and accountability. The report’s authors highlight the lack of accountability and trust between ACE, the government and the various cultural communities. These criticisms echo one another – even as far back as 1997, academic <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10286639709358066">Ruth Blandina-Quinn</a>, whose work has focused on arts policy, noted increasing politicisation of the Arts Council. This, she wrote, had been exacerbated by the lack of criteria for appointment, as well as political appointees, a lack of transparency, a lack of accountability to the artistic community and increasingly closer ties with, and oversight by, the government. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1234048980595748864"}"></div></p>
<p>While the public awaits the conclusion of the Mary Beard episode, it’s a good time to examine and debate whether arm’s length is still the principle within cultural governance. Criticisms about <a href="https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526144164/">systemic inequity</a> within the arts and cultural industries abound and have not been helped by the exclusion of one of the UK’s leading female public intellectuals. </p>
<p>It’s a slippery slope – Britain’s cultural institutions must be safeguarded from becoming political footballs where a person’s opinions alone are grounds for exclusion from governing bodies. The debate, as we wait to see whether Mary Beard is allowed to take up her place in the British Museum’s trustees, is what a country whose galleries and arts organisations are directly controlled by government placeholders will look like.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/133092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim-Marie Spence serves on the advisory board of the John Hansard Gallery in Southampton.</span></em></p>
The government must respect the arm’s-length principle which ensures institutions like the British Museum are independent from government control.
Kim-Marie Spence, Postdoctoral Researcher in Pop and Global Cultural Industries (and Adjunct Lecturer, University of the West Indies), Solent University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/117061
2019-05-15T12:57:01Z
2019-05-15T12:57:01Z
Repatriation: why Western museums should return African artefacts
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/274580/original/file-20190515-60532-lfx4zy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A mummy of the Ancient Egyptian Priestess "Tamut" (900 BC) on display at British Museum in London, in 2014. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Facundo Arrizabalaga</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A large number of artefacts held in Western museums and libraries are known to have been appropriated over the ages through conquest and colonialism. The looting of African objects anthropologists, curators and private collectors took place in war as well as in peaceful times. It was justified as an act of benevolence; as saving dying knowledge.</p>
<p>Some museums have started <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/museum-life/maqdala-1868">to try and acknowledge</a> that their collections have uncomfortable histories tied to colonial violence. Nevertheless, Britain’s long-standing policy is not to cease ownership over its looted treasures. As then-Prime Minister David Cameron said of Greece’s Elgin Marbles and India’s Koh-i-Noor diamond:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>No, I certainly don’t believe in “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-21623965">returnism</a>”, as it were. I don’t think that is sensible.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The defence against “returnism” is the same defence museums give for their existence: they are custodians and conservers of humanity’s cultural and natural treasures. </p>
<p>This may seem like a valiant cause. But it essentially means that Ethiopians, or the people of India and Greece, cannot be trusted to preserve their own cultural heritage. This is why the calls for repatriation grow louder every day. </p>
<p>A more serious problem is that the collections retain and perpetuate the stereotypical narratives Europeans had – and still have – about Africans. </p>
<p>The thousands of articles collected in most museums are not accompanied with their original history. The items on display are selected, organised and given tags or identifications by Europeans. The power to select, name and decide the meaning of these items makes Europeans the authors of African history.</p>
<h2>Legacies</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://imd.icom.museum/what-is-imd/imd-in-short/">International Council of Museums</a> celebrates museums every May 18, stating that they are:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples. Museums and libraries preserve artefacts and manuscripts in the name of cultural preservation, so that future generations may enjoy them. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>But this isn’t always the case. The truth is that there are artefacts on display in Western museums that fail to meet these lofty ideas. </p>
<p>These range from animals and cultural objects, to collections of human remains. The remains include thousands of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/25/over-1000-african-skulls-in-berlin-are-a-reminder-of-europes-dark-colonial-history/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.319dc84422d6">Africans’ skulls</a>. These collections of African remains are reminders of scientific racism and the creation of <a href="https://popularresistance.org/deep-racism-the-forgotten-history-of-human-zoos/">human zoos</a> which took place as recently as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/16/belgium-comes-to-terms-with-human-zoos-of-its-colonial-past">1958</a>, when living people from Congo were put on display for a world fair event. </p>
<p>They don’t express Africa’s history or culture, or offer any means of “cultural exchange or mutual understanding”, as the International Council of Museums suggests. They are parts of the legacy of European men who travelled to distant lands and brought items of interest that fascinated their audience in what was then known as the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jan/13/cabinet-curiosities-taxidermy-retro-museums">cabinet of curiosity</a>, a popular way of representing unknown places and lives.</p>
<p>The cabinets of curiosity evolved into modern museums. Today, there are some attempts to make African displays more culturally sensitive. For example, the <a href="https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2018/12/06/the-struggle-to-tell-the-story-of-colonialism">Belgian Africa museum</a>, was refurbished with the aim of removing its racist and neo-colonial narrative. </p>
<p>But these changes don’t amount to the reversal of the colonial narrative. They simply make museums look progressive and relevant to today’s society. </p>
<p>Another tactic deployed by museums and libraries is to claim that they are making texts available to humanity by digitising manuscripts and documents. But these books are only accessible to people who speak the European language in which they are catalogued, and those who have an internet connection. If the books aren’t digitised, the only way to access them is to travel to the library and gain a reader or researcher pass – clearly beyond the means of those who could use them for their original purpose. </p>
<p>In several western ethnological museums where colonial items are still kept, Africans continue to be depicted as warrior tribes, with superstitious beliefs, and homogenous and unchanging cultures. Even when museums attempt to offer an insight into the original purpose or meaning of certain artefacts, they inevitably come from a European perspective.</p>
<h2>The justification for repatriation</h2>
<p>Repatriation seems the only way to address the historical injustice museums have caused. This is crucial to restore the agency of Africans as producers of their own history. </p>
<p>Preservation is not the only answer to the question of what to do with the vast wealth of natural, cultural and intellectual items, including human remains, held in Western museums. Following repatriation, Africans should determine the worth and place of these collections. Not all artefacts need to be preserved and put on display. They are living sources of knowledge, objects of worship and expressions of life. </p>
<p>For example, human remains, including the <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/qvyp95/the-fight-to-repatriate-african-skulls-in-european-museum-collections">skulls of African ancestors</a>, may be buried following local traditions. Cultural items could become sources of knowledge and storytelling.</p>
<p>A good example are the large volume of Geez manuscripts which were taken along with more than 15 Tabots – holy replicas of the Ark of the Covenant – during the Battle of Maqdala in 1868 by British troops. The Tabot are sacred religious objects used by all Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Churches around the world. Only priests can touch them and they cannot be displayed as objects of curiosity or relics. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/reflections-on-ethiopias-stolen-treasures-on-display-in-a-london-museum-97346">Reflections on Ethiopia's stolen treasures on display in a London museum</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Ethiopian manuscripts aren’t artefacts. They are important documents that could be used as textbooks in thousands of traditional schools in Ethiopia. </p>
<p>By dispossessing people of their cultural artefacts, books and important religious and cultural relics, you dispossess them of their knowledge, history and philosophy. This has very concrete real-world implications. On this year’s International Museum Day, museums and libraries that hold vast collections of African cultural resources must face the fact that they are still continuing a legacy of dispossession similar to that of their colonial forebears.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/117061/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The power to select, name and decide the meaning of these items makes Europeans the authors of African history.
Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, Lecturer of Human Rights, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/107726
2018-11-29T09:43:18Z
2018-11-29T09:43:18Z
Easter Island statues: international law is shifting against British Museum
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247725/original/file-20181128-32214-oxlftq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hoa Hakananai'a.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoa_Hakananai%27a#/media/File:Hoa_Hakananai%27a.jpg">Wikimedia</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Standing tall at the entrance of the British Museum is the statue known as Hoa Hakananai’a. To the Rapa Nui, the indigenous people of Easter Island, it means stolen or hidden friend. He is one of the iconic Moai head carvings that made the south Pacific island famous. The Rapa Nui see the Moia not as mere carved basalt rocks but as brothers and sisters. They believe that the eyes in the statues carry the spirits of their ancestors, and provide protection to the people. </p>
<p>They consider Hoa Hakananai’a to be one of the most spiritually important Moai of all. He left Easter Island in 1868 when Captain Richard Powell, commander of the British frigate HMS Topaze, took him without permission. Powell gave the statue to Queen Victoria, who donated him to the British Museum. It has resided there ever since. </p>
<p>The Rapa Nui are now lobbying the museum to bring him back, having gained self-administration over their ancestral lands from Chile in 2017. But while the museum <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/20/easter-island-british-museum-return-moai-statue">has said</a> it would consider a loan request for the statue, it does not seem prepared to go further. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247728/original/file-20181128-32236-1aphs8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247728/original/file-20181128-32236-1aphs8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247728/original/file-20181128-32236-1aphs8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247728/original/file-20181128-32236-1aphs8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247728/original/file-20181128-32236-1aphs8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247728/original/file-20181128-32236-1aphs8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247728/original/file-20181128-32236-1aphs8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247728/original/file-20181128-32236-1aphs8y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Moai statues on Easter Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/moai-statues-on-easter-island-ahu-1242243421?src=BW2v5BCEtRPJI77THcvNpQ-1-5">AlexandrinaZ</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Both the British Museum and counterparts in continental Europe are increasingly under pressure to return thousands of artefacts taken during colonial times. Many museums seem sympathetic to returning human remains – the British Museum <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/news_and_press/press_releases/2006/tasmanian_cremation_bundles.aspx">recently announced</a> it was returning Aboriginal ash bundles to the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre, for example. But when it comes to giving back heritage objects, long-term loans are the usual offer. </p>
<p>Most museums hide behind their own conservation policies, arguing that “deaccession” – permanently removing an item – is prohibited. In the past, it was often difficult to mount a legal challenge against this position. Yet there are signs that international law may finally be moving in favour of the Rapa Nui and the many other indigenous peoples affected. </p>
<h2>Existing law</h2>
<p>There is not yet any binding international law on this subject, so indigenous peoples have mainly had to rely on the various non-binding multilateral treaties and declarations dealing with the illegal trafficking of cultural objects. The UN’s <a href="http://ankn.uaf.edu/iks/protect.html">Principles and Guidelines</a> for the Protection of the Heritage of Indigenous People, adopted in 1995, request that governments and international organisations help indigenous peoples to recover such objects. They should be returned “wherever possible”, particularly if they have “significant cultural, religious or historical value”. </p>
<p>The relevant treaties include the <a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13039&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html">UNESCO Convention</a> on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property 1970, and the <a href="https://www.unidroit.org/instruments/cultural-property/1995-convention">UNIDROIT Convention</a> on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects adopted in 1995. The UNIDROIT convention specifies that the relevant court in the state with the object should order it to be returned if the requesting state either establishes that its removal significantly impaired the “traditional or ritual use of the object by a tribal or indigenous community”, or that “the object is of significant cultural importance”. </p>
<p>There are <a href="http://www.unesco.org/new/en/culture/themes/restitution-of-cultural-property/successful-restitutions-in-the-world/">countless examples</a> of these conventions producing results – either through museums such as the American Getty <a href="http://www.getty.edu/news/press/center/revised_acquisition_policy_release_102606.html">voluntarily</a> following their requirements; through domestic challenges such as <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-04/09/content_6600892.htm">the case</a> that China won in Denmark in 2008 to repatriate over 150 smuggled relics; or on the back of UN recommendations such <a href="http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001896/189639E.pdf#page=2">as those</a> that saw Germany return the Boğazköy Sphinx to Turkey in 2011. </p>
<p>The conventions have crucial legal weaknesses, however. Under UNIDROIT, for example, the time limits for recovering stolen indigenous cultural property are flexible, while the rules only apply to items stolen after the treaty came into force. UNIDROIT has also only been signed or ratified by a limited number of countries, including New Zealand, Italy and Spain – but not the UK. Also, only states can participate, making it harder for indigenous peoples to bring actions. </p>
<p>Two later UNESCO conventions from <a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=17716&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html">2003</a> and <a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=31038&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html">2005</a> remedy this latter issue by recognising and encouraging the active participation of indigenous peoples in safeguarding cultural heritage. Yet neither convention covers past appropriations. Meanwhile, the UK is not a party to the <a href="http://www.unesco.org/eri/la/convention.asp?language=E&KO=17116&order=alpha">2003 treaty</a> and is party to the <a href="http://www.unesco.org/eri/la/convention.asp?KO=31038&language=E&order=alpha">2005 treaty</a> only through EU membership, which is due to end in March 2019. </p>
<h2>New avenues</h2>
<p>Human rights law is playing an increasingly promising role in this area. The most comprehensive relevant instrument is the <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/declaration-on-the-rights-of-indigenous-peoples.html">United Nations Declaration</a> on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted in 2007. Article 11, for example, recognises such peoples’ rights “to practice and revitalise their cultural traditions and customs”. This includes an accompanied duty for states to “provide redress through effective mechanisms, which may include restitution” (meaning they would return the object). </p>
<p>Putting cultural heritage on the human rights agenda has been a welcome addition to the legal toolbox around indigenous cultural objects, but as with most international legal instruments, implementation remains a thorny issue. The case is getting stronger, however. In 2016, the UN Human Rights Council <a href="http://webtv.un.org/watch/ahrc33l.21-vote-item3-40th-meeting-33rd-regular-session-of-human-rights-council/5149312998001">issued a resolution</a> recognising the importance of preserving and protecting cultural heritage as an “indispensable element of human flourishing”. </p>
<p>More recently, France appears to be spearheading change. A <a href="https://news.artnet.com/art-world/french-restitution-policy-macron-1399429">recent report</a> by two specialist scholars, commissioned by President Emmanuel Macron, urged changing French heritage laws to support the permanent return of African art taken without consent. It talks in terms of “colonial restitution” as a remedy for an infringement of the human rights of people whose cultural artefacts were taken away. If the French government follows up by overhauling its cultural heritage laws, it will be a major step forward. </p>
<p>International environmental law is also seeking to endorse the repatriation of indigenous cultural heritage. The <a href="https://www.cbd.int/conferences/2018">UN Biodiversity Conference 2018</a>, taking place in Egypt, has been considering adopting the draft <a href="https://www.cbd.int/doc/c/abac/dff3/cff7857dbeffc2eb8ee17654/wg8j-10-02-en.pdf">Rutzolijirisaxik Voluntary Guidelines</a> for the Repatriation of Traditional Knowledge Relevant for the Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity. These deal with the repatriation of the traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples and local communities held by museums, botanical gardens and other facilities. </p>
<p>All this progress makes me cautiously optimistic about the legal basis for future claims in this area. It is still a long road ahead, but with the right endorsement and cooperation from national governments and some goodwill from museums, the process of repatriation can gain further momentum. </p>
<p>This is a question of moral decency, and it is not just about cultural attachés: we can all become ambassadors lobbying for the restitution of looted cultural objects. As the historian David Olusoga <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/may/27/return-colonial-artefacts-to-build-bridges-post-brexit-olusoga-says">aptly argues</a>, in post-Brexit times, making friends to repatriate stolen objects is a matter of self-interest. The likes of the Rapa Nui are owed an apology. Returning Hoa Hakananai’a would be the first step in a long process of peacemaking and healing.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107726/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saskia Vermeylen receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust, and has previously received funding from ESPA and RCUK. </span></em></p>
The indigenous Rapa Nui say the statue is one of their most spiritually important.
Saskia Vermeylen, Strathclyde Chancellor's Fellow, Law, University of Strathclyde
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/107479
2018-11-23T13:13:56Z
2018-11-23T13:13:56Z
Returning looted artefacts will finally restore heritage to the brilliant cultures that made them
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247032/original/file-20181123-149338-1jkg488.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C258%2C2617%2C1804&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One of the plundered Benin plaques, at the British Museum.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/plaque-warrior-attendants-16th17th-c-nigeria-751012396?src=da3MPHvFfZ4elDJvDArYtw-1-0">Shutterstock.</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>European museums are under mounting pressure to return the irreplaceable artefacts plundered during colonial times. As an archaeologist who works in Africa, this debate has a very real impact on my research. I benefit from the convenience of access provided by Western museums, while being struck by the ethical quandary of how they were taken there by illegal means, and by guilt that my colleagues throughout Africa may not have the resources to see material from their own country, which is kept thousands of miles away. </p>
<p>Now, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/arts/design/france-museums-africa-savoy-sarr-report.html">a report</a> commissioned by the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has recommended that art plundered from sub-Saharan Africa during the colonial era should be returned through permanent restitution. </p>
<p>The 108-page study, written by French art historian Bénédicte Savoy and Senegalese writer and economist Felwine Sarr, speaks of the “theft, looting, despoilment, trickery and forced consent” by which colonial powers acquired these materials. The call for “restitution” echoes <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-3-cases-explain-restituting-nazi-looted-art-difficult">the widely accepted approach</a> which seeks to return looted Nazi art to its rightful owners.</p>
<p>The record of colonial powers in African countries was frankly disgusting. Colonial rule was imposed by the barrel of the gun, with military campaigns waged on the flimsiest excuses. The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021853700010215">Benin expedition of 1897</a> was a punitive attack on the ancient kingdom of Benin, famous not only for its huge city and ramparts but its extraordinary cast bronze and brass plaques and statues. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=123%2C146%2C1462%2C1013&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247018/original/file-20181123-149314-19h5v9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Three British soldiers in the aftermath of the Benin expedition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Interior_of_Oba%27s_compound_burnt_during_seige_of_Benin_City,_1897.jpg">Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The city was burnt down, and the British Admiralty auctioned the booty – more than 2,000 art works – to “pay” for the expedition. The British Museum got around <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=621873&partId=1&searchText=benin+bronze+oba&page=1">40% of the haul</a>.
None of the artefacts stayed in Africa – they’re now scattered in museums and private collections around the world.</p>
<p>The 1867 British expedition to the ancient kingdom of Abyssinia – which never fully acceded to colonial control – was mounted to ostensibly free missionaries and government agents detained by the emperor Tewodros II. It culminated in the Battle of Magdala, and the looting of priceless manuscripts, paintings and artefacts from the Ethiopian church, which reputedly needed 15 elephants and 200 mules to carry them all away. Most ended up in the British Library, the British Museum and the V&A, where they remain today.</p>
<h2>Bought, stolen, destroyed</h2>
<p>Other African treasures were also taken without question. The famous ruins of Great Zimbabwe <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/africa/article/abyssinian-difficulty-the-emperor-theodorus-and-the-magdala-campaign-18671868-by-darrell-bates-oxford-oxford-university-press1979-pp-xiv-240-map-plates-bibl-950/87357AE77ACA20265A82FD6BBCE7BF21">were subject to</a> numerous digs by associates of British businessman Cecil Rhodes – who set up the Rhodesia Ancient Ruins Ltd in 1895 to loot more than 40 sites of their gold – and much of the archaeology on the site was destroyed. The iconic soapstone birds were returned to Zimbabwe from South Africa in 1981, but many items <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=596305&partId=1">still remain</a> in Western museums. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247009/original/file-20181123-149329-1h1bbe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zimbabwe’s soapstone birds, photographed in 1892.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Soapstone_birds_on_pedestals.jpg">Wikimedia Commons.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While these are the most famous cases, the majority of African objects in Western Museums were collected by adventurers, administrators, traders and settlers, with little thought as to the legality of ownership. Even if they were bought from their local owners, it was often for a pittance, and there were few controls to limit their export. Archaeological relics, such as inscriptions or grave-markers, were simply collected and taken away. Such <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/cultural-property-global-commodities-case-mijikenda">activities continued</a> well into the 20th century.</p>
<h2>Making them safe</h2>
<p>The argument is often advanced that by coming to the West, these objects were preserved for posterity – if they were left in Africa they simply would have rotted away. This is a specious argument, rooted in racist attitudes that somehow indigenous people can’t be trusted to curate their own cultural heritage. It is also a product of the corrosive impact of colonialism.</p>
<p>Colonial powers had a patchy record of setting up museums to preserve these objects locally. While impressive national museums were sometimes built in colonial capitals, they were later starved of funding or expertise. After African countries achieved independence, these museums were low on the priority list for national funding and overseas aid and development, while regional museums were virtually neglected. </p>
<p>Nowadays, many museums on the African continent lie semi-derelict, with no climate control, poorly trained staff and little security. There are numerous examples of theft or lost collections. No wonder Western museums are reluctant to return their collections. </p>
<p>If collections are to be returned, the West needs to take some responsibility for this state of affairs and invest in the African museums and their staff. There have been <a href="http://www.getty.edu/foundation/initiatives/past/africa/geap.html">some attempts</a> to do this, but the task is huge. It is not enough to send the contentious art and objects back to an uncertain future – there must be a plan to rebuild Africa’s crumbling museum infrastructure, supported by effective partnerships and real money.</p>
<h2>The rightful owners</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/247015/original/file-20181123-149338-11wnsh9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Hoa Hakananai’a: a Moai at the British Museum.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/sheeprus/13335231584/sizes/l">Sheep</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Will the <a href="http://www.quaibranly.fr/en/">Musée du quai Branly</a>, that great treasure house of world ethnography in Paris, which holds more than 70,000 objects from Africa, be emptied of its contents? Or the massive new <a href="https://www.humboldtforum.com/en">Humboldt Forum</a> – a Prussian Castle rebuilt at great cost to house ethnographic artefacts in Berlin which opens early in 2019 – be shorn of its African collections? There are already fears at the British Museum that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/20/easter-island-british-museum-return-moai-statue">a very effective campaign</a> may lead to the return of its Rapu Nui Moai statues to Easter Island.</p>
<p>This year is the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Magdala, and the V&A Museum has <a href="https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/v-and-a-opens-dialogue-on-looted-ethiopian-treasures">entered into worthy discussions</a> to return its treasures to Ethiopia. But there are reports this would be on the basis of a long-term loan, and conditional on the Ethiopian government withdrawing its claim for restitution of the plundered objects. The Prussian Foundation in Berlin <a href="https://plone.unige.ch/art-adr/cases-affaires/great-zimbabwe-bird-2013-zimbabwe-and-prussia-cultural-heritage-foundation-germany">entered into a similar agreement</a>, unwilling to cede ownership of a tiny fragment of soapstone bird to the Zimbabwe Government in 2000.</p>
<p>The report by Savoy and Sarr offers hope that such deals could become a thing of the past and that Africa’s rich cultural heritage can be returned, restituted and restored to the brilliant cultures that made it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107479/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Horton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Colonial powers plundered the heritage of countries all over the world – restitution is long overdue.
Mark Horton, Professor in Archaeology, University of Bristol
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/98093
2018-06-15T09:39:37Z
2018-06-15T09:39:37Z
Illegal trade in antiquities: a scourge that has gone on for millennia too long
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223191/original/file-20180614-32304-xbs128.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">h</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Looting of artefacts has always been a sign of military might or economic power. Over millennia, conquering generals would take away with them trophies to adorn their cities. In more recent centuries, the wealthy upper classes would make “grand tours” of classical sites and acquire – through whatever means – anything from vases to statues to entire temple friezes to show off at home. Owning a piece of antiquity was seen as demonstrating wealth, a love of ancient culture and, ultimately, one’s own distinction: having things that nobody else could have. </p>
<p>At least this is what the looters thought. We should now all know the most apt way to describe this dubious form of collection – and it’s a word that has historical resonance: vandalism. </p>
<p>So many antiquities were stolen that they fill massive imperial museums in many of the world’s capital cities: the British museum, the Louvre, the Metropolitan, the Istanbul museum. These institutions continue to hold on to national treasures of other countries, claiming that they are international museums keeping the heritage of the world and making it available to everyone. </p>
<p>So it is with the Parthenon Marbles – one of the most <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/03-04/parthenon-sculptures-british-museum-controversy/">controversial acts of vandalism of them all</a> – held in the British Museum in London after being dubiously “acquired” by Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin in 1801, less than three decades before the independence of Athens from Ottoman rule.</p>
<p>The UK’s opposition leader, Jeremy Corbyn, recently stated that a Labour government would return the marbles to Greece. In <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/corbyn-return-elgin-marbles-greece-british-museum-a8381681.html">a statement on June 3</a> he said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>As with anything stolen or taken from occupied or colonial possession – including artefacts looted from other countries in the past – we should be engaged in constructive talks with the Greek government about returning the sculptures’</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The traditional position for the British government on the Parthenon marbles is that it is up to the <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/news_and_press/press_releases/2015/unesco_mediation_proposal.aspx">trustees of the British Museum to decide</a> on the return of any artefacts in its collection. But, as the government is a key funder of the museum, it can surely wield a powerful influence on trustees’ decisions.</p>
<p>So the marbles have remained in London. And the antiquities trade is still going strong – not only depriving countries of their heritage, but, which is worse, depriving the world of the information that could be extracted with appropriate systematic excavation and reducing the artefacts into mere art pieces that can only be enjoyed in a stale museum context and not as both rich symptoms and teachers of the history of mankind. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, there is evidence that revenue from the sale of stolen antiquities looted in Syria and Iraq has been <a href="https://culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/sites/culturalpolicy.uchicago.edu/files/Bogdanos.Paper_.pdf">used to fund Islamic State</a> and other terrorist groups – so one illegal activity has been connected to many others.</p>
<h2>Fighting the trade</h2>
<p>How are we to stop this trade, which is a scourge of historical knowledge, local pride and international sovereignty. The illicit trade in antiquities – and almost all trade of antiquities is illegal in some sense, as it almost always breaks the law of the source countries – is considered to be a common crime. In many countries there are police departments that are specialised in this type of crime. For example, the UK has the Metropolitan Police’s art and antiques unit and in the US the FBI has a 16-person <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/investigate/violent-crime/art-theft">Art Crime Team</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/223192/original/file-20180614-32334-1b6seud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Mask of Warka, one of the earliest representations of a human face, was recovered in Iraq after being stolen from the National Museum in Baghdad during the 2003 US invasion.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the UK, “Operation Bullrush” by the art and antiques unit successfully prosecuted dealer <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/egyptian-treasures-smuggler-is-jailed-1256685.html">Jonathan Tokeley-Parry</a> in 1997 for smuggling priceless antiquities out of Egypt (he was also sentenced in absentia in Egypt). Meanwhile in 2002 a US court <a href="http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2017111000">convicted Frederick Schultz</a>, the former president of the National Association of Dealers in Ancient, Oriental and Primitive Art, under the 1934 National Stolen Property Act (NSPA) of conspiracy to receive antiquities stolen from Egypt. </p>
<p>Meanwhile various countries are signing memoranda of understanding (MOU) to control the importation of antiquities and to coordinate efforts to prevent smuggling. In 2017 the US concluded an <a href="https://theantiquitiescoalition.org/ac-news/after-long-delay-us-and-egypt-sign-historic-mou-restricting-endangered-heritage-from-american-import/">MOU with Egypt</a>. These arrangements are backed by the <a href="http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13039&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html">1970 UNESCO Paris convention</a> which prohibits the sale and purchase of ancient art that had not been in circulation before the ratification of that treaty by each country.</p>
<p>But most of these measures and stakeholders focus on the final destination of the illicit antiquities, the collectors or museums – and this isn’t enough. There need to be measures to account for all stages of the illicit trade of antiquities: from excavation to the first and second intermediary (the dealers), to those transporting it from one country to another, to the final purchaser, the collector.</p>
<h2>Working together</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://heritagemanagement.org/">Heritage Management Organisation</a> (HERITΛGE), a project associated with the University of Kent, has been working to create a comprehensive strategy for the illicit antiquities trade, which aims to combine the knowledge and efforts of multiple stakeholders: scientists, local communities, police, collectors, legislators and the public.</p>
<p>To prevent illicit excavations police forces need to deploy the latest technological advances such as satellite surveillance, pattern recognition and forensic science. But they need the assistance of local communities in areas of archaeological significance who need to become more positive as stakeholders in the protection of their heritage.</p>
<p>Collectors should not all be seen as the enemy – but as potentially powerful stakeholders that need to be engaged and trained in the fight against the illegal antiquities trade. Many collectors are careful in how they buy – but others are simply ignorant of how to buy more responsibly. Collectors have insights and valuable information on clandestine networks, art dealers and their potentially rigorous verification (or not) of the legal standing of each piece in their own collections. With the cooperation of the Greek Ministry of Culture, HERITΛGE organised the first ever meeting between collectors, the ministry and the police in Greece. Much more needs to be done in this area.</p>
<p>It’s all very well having international treaties to control the antiquities trade, but first they must be understood by all the relevant stakeholders. HERITΛGE has published one of the few commentaries on <a href="https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/cultural-property-law-and-restitution">restitution in both European and international Law</a>. </p>
<p>It is imperative that volunteers are trained on how to check the provenance of items for sale and on how to use existing databases to “catch” clandestine or stolen pieces. One example is academic <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/christos-tsirogiannis-on-the-trail-of-the-tomb-raiders-95tspm0f8">Christos Tsirogiannis</a> who had had some success in tracking down looted antiquities and ensuring they are returned to their country of origin. </p>
<p>But, for this strategy to bear fruit, all the relevant stakeholders need to collaborate with an open mind and then maybe there is a chance that we’ll be able to bring an end to millennia of the despoiling of so many countries’ national heritage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98093/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Evangelos Kyriakidis directs the Heritage Management Organization. He is a Senior Lecturer in Aegean Prehistory in the University of Kent.</span></em></p>
What’s needed is a comprehensive international strategy to combat the illicit trade in antiquities.
Evangelos Kyriakidis, Senior Lecturer in Aegean Prehistory, University of Kent
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/97346
2018-06-05T13:44:34Z
2018-06-05T13:44:34Z
Reflections on Ethiopia’s stolen treasures on display in a London museum
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221235/original/file-20180531-69521-15gwv3q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ethiopian books and other materials, such as this ancient Bible, are in great demand. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In early April an exhibition called “<a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/network/maqdala-1868">Maqdala 1868</a>” opened at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. It’s comprised of treasures looted from Ethiopia, and so contributes to the ongoing controversy and debate about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/jan/29/disputedart.art">treasure ownership</a>. </p>
<p>In the case of Ethiopia, what is important in this <a href="http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/04/exhibition-artifacts-stolen-ethiopia-revives-controversy">controversy</a> is the fact that the question of ownership is linked to the question of memory: whose story should be remembered through these treasures? </p>
<p>As the name “Maqdala 1868” suggests, the stolen treasures are incorporated into the narrative of the British imperial war, to tell a story of how the British <a href="https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/abyssinia">sent a large army</a> to free their citizens from a savage king called Theodore in 1868. A century and a half after the battle Ethiopia’s stolen treasures are still used as war trophies, their meaning forever defined with the abandoned name of a short lived imperial fortress at Maqdala.</p>
<p>But for Ethiopia, there is no connection between the Maqdala war in 1868 and the stolen treasures at Maqdala. The war was imperial aggression against the King of Ethiopia. The stolen treasures amount to pure vandalism, a theft of knowledge and a crime against the current Ethiopian generation who are dispossessed of their intellectual heritage and history. </p>
<p>It’s this final meaning of “Maqdala 1868” that the British readily <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm199900/cmselect/cmcumeds/371/371ap61.htm">ignore</a>.</p>
<h2>Rewriting the Maqdala 1868 narrative</h2>
<p>The Maqdala expedition is popularly known as a campaign for the release of British prisoners. But at the same time, a large army of “<a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=U_thAgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false">scientific</a>” staff were sent to bring knowledge and treasures from the country. </p>
<p>The acting director of the British Museum, Richard Holmes, was already preparing to take manuscripts for his collections. Henry Stanley, the architect of Belgian King Leopold’s <a href="https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/08/30/daily/leopold-book-review.html?mcubz=2">hellfire colony</a> over the Congo, joined as a reporter. The Army under Captain Napier was “<a href="https://arb.crasc.dz/index.php/en/26-vol-09-n-01/219-the-maqdala-campaign-and-its-enduring-impact-on-ethiopia">the biggest</a> yet sent from Europe to Black Africa”.</p>
<p>Ethiopia began a new industrial revolution ten years before the battle. King Tewodros began manufacturing cannons and mortars, and constructing boats, roads and carriages. The National Library was established with an extensive collection of manuscripts from all over the country. As a sovereign Christian king, Tewodros endeavoured to build fraternity with Britain and wrote several letters to Queen Victoria.</p>
<p>The British were not prepared to accept a black king as a sovereign partner. They ignored him until he arrested British diplomats who conspired with foreign enemies and wrote accounts of the king as a black savage. By the time the British forces arrived with the help of internal defectors, Tewodros tried to solve the conflict peacefully. He released the British captives and sent <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/33924AB2CC7CD96BB4A63F33A1704880/S0035869X00166948a.pdf/div-class-title-the-last-two-letters-of-emperor-tewodros-ii-of-ethiopia-april-11-and-12-1868-div.pdf">gifts</a> to Napier’s soldiers as a gesture of friendship. </p>
<p>The official stated purpose of the campaign was the release of the hostages. But Napier was not satisfied. The British demanded the surrender of the King, but he refused. Tewodros committed suicide and the British went on a looting spree. The entire treasury was looted; the cannons and mortars he manufactured were destroyed. 200 mules and 15 elephants were needed to carry all the looted bounty. What couldn’t be taken was set on fire. Maqdala burned for weeks with countless destroyed manuscripts left scattered over the abandoned citadel. </p>
<p>On the way back, soldiers held auctions to divide the loot. Richard Holmes alone acquired <a href="http://www.afromet.info/history/">350 manuscripts</a> for the British Museum.</p>
<p>The only son of the dead King, Alemayehu, was also taken along with the treasures. His unhappy life ended in exile at the age of 18. His remains are still buried at St George’s Chapel of Windsor Castle, despite <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/07/britain-kidnapped-ethiopian-prince">multiple requests</a> for their repatriation.</p>
<h2>Creating knowledge dependency in Africa</h2>
<p>Before and after Maqdala, many Ethiopian manuscripts were taken through clandestine and diplomatic means. Germany acquired hundreds of manuscripts and scrolls through <a href="https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00524382/document">collectors</a> such as Johannes Flemming and Enno Littmann. The French sponsored the Dakar-Djibouti Mission that collected enormous African materials, including 350 Ethiopian manuscripts. </p>
<p>The collection of African materials was used to produce knowledge that fit with the European view of the Dark Continent. Having numerous manuscripts at their disposal, European scholars translated them into their own languages. Hiob Ludolf wrote “the new history of Ethiopia” without needing to travel to the country. He is regarded as <a href="https://www.aai.uni-hamburg.de/en/ethiostudies/about.html">the father of modern Ethiopian history</a>. </p>
<p>Centres of Ethiopian Studies emerged in Europe with acquisitions of various Ethiopian manuscripts. Carlo Conti-Rossini <a href="http://www.menestrel.fr/spip.php?rubrique694&lang=en&art=en">listed</a> about 1200 Ethiopian manuscripts spread across Europe during the early 20th century. Like the British Library, the <a href="http://www.menestrel.fr/spip.php?rubrique828&lang=en">French National Library</a> has a large collection of Ethiopian texts. Recently, manuscript collections from Ethiopia have gone <a href="https://erc.europa.eu/projects-figures/stories/ancient-manuscripts-ethiopia-preserving-historical-and-cultural-heritage">digital</a>.</p>
<p>The collection of Ethiopian manuscripts is carried out in the name of saving the humanity’s endangered heritage. The V&A exhibition itself is portrayed as a show of human history. But Ethiopian books and other materials are not endangered objects. They are in great demand in the traditional education system. Some European professors use them to produce books. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221177/original/file-20180531-69493-3o5tm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221177/original/file-20180531-69493-3o5tm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/221177/original/file-20180531-69493-3o5tm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221177/original/file-20180531-69493-3o5tm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221177/original/file-20180531-69493-3o5tm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221177/original/file-20180531-69493-3o5tm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221177/original/file-20180531-69493-3o5tm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/221177/original/file-20180531-69493-3o5tm3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Volumes of catalogues in the British Library list a large collection of Ethiopian manuscripts not available in Ethiopian libraries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author supplied</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ethiopians, however, who research about their past cannot access these manuscripts. We have to travel to European universities and museums for a brief glance at our own intellectual heritage. Even books that are digitised are not easily accessible. Those available online are hard to access from Ethiopia due to limited internet access. Texts written about Ethiopia are in European languages and are expensive to purchase. The British Museum’s proposal to loan the looted items to Ethiopia adds insult to injury.</p>
<h2>The breaking of history</h2>
<p>One of the consequences of knowledge dispossession is the breaking of history; the disintegration of the historical narratives that connect past and present generations of Ethiopians and other Africans. Like Egypt, Ethiopia provides the evidence that Africa is <a href="https://www.thereporterethiopia.com/index.php/content/africa-mother-all-civilization">the mother of all civilisations</a>. </p>
<p>Ethiopians wrote books before the British had an alphabet. They were <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTSDoevgQ8I">the first</a> to accept Christianity. Ancient Greek authors like Homer and Herodotus <a href="http://www.meskot.com/Ethiopia_RP.htm">praised</a> Ethiopia as a land of justice, wisdom and spirituality. Europeans’ legend eulogised Ethiopia as the land of a powerful Christian king called Prester John. Diasporic Africans <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDvJGw58V_M">sing</a> of Ethiopia as the symbol of redemption, a holy land.</p>
<p>Many of the Ethiopian manuscripts which were looted from Maqdala provided evidence for this glorious image. Yet, the books and objects from Ethiopia are now stored in various European universities and museums with little hope for restitution. Scholarship produced by many Europeans professors and their Ethiopian followers often advance Eurocentric theories that <a href="http://www.tadias.com/03/08/2010/assumptions-and-interpretations-of-ethiopian-history-part-i/">delink Ethiopia</a> from Africa by claiming, among other things, a <a href="http://addisstandard.com/opinion-decolonizing-ethiopian-studies-2/">non-African origin</a> to Ethiopia’s civilisation. </p>
<p>This is a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/aug/18/great-zimbabwe-medieval-lost-city-racism-ruins-plundering">common practice</a> of denying Africa of its own civilisational origin. </p>
<p>Ethiopians today are unable to produce their own knowledge, relying instead on imitating the content of western education. We study about the West more than our own country. English is used as a medium of higher education despite the fact that less than 1% of the population understands it. We are cut from our own history, and look to European historians like Ludolf to educate ourselves about our past.</p>
<p>So the legacy of Magdala 1868 is about much, much more than just the looting of Ethiopia’s cultural heritage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97346/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For Ethiopia, there is no connection between the Maqdala war in 1868 and the stolen treasures at Maqdala
Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes, Lecturer of Human Rights, Curtin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/85412
2017-10-09T14:19:27Z
2017-10-09T14:19:27Z
Can Britain make an ivory ban work? Only if it learns from America’s experience
<p>Sales of ivory within the UK could soon be banned, if the government gets its way. British environment minister Michael Gove has launched a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-sets-out-plans-for-ivory-ban">12-week consultation exercise</a> on a policy which, if implemented, would also ban all ivory imports and exports to the country.</p>
<p>There is much to celebrate about the government taking a lead on this issue. However, such bans can have unintended consequences. The US, for instance, is just over a year in to its own “near total” ivory ban after it <a href="https://www.fws.gov/international/pdf/questions-and-answers-african-elephant-4d-final-rule.pdf">amended its Endangered Species Act</a> with a special rule for the African elephant. At a stroke it effectively outlawed domestic trade in elephant ivory, yet the ban has affected museums, musicians and even Arctic peoples. No wonder the US government’s own Fish and Wildlife Service needs to issue guidance on “<a href="https://www.fws.gov/international/travel-and-trade/ivory-ban-questions-and-answers.html">What Can I Do With My Ivory?</a>”. If the UK is to make its ban work, it should first look across the Atlantic for some valuable lessons.</p>
<h2>Museums have an ethical dilemma</h2>
<p>Museums contain lots of ivory items of historical or cultural significance, and the important role they play in public life makes the case for an exemption. I recently visited The Smithsonian in Washington DC to find out how it is dealing with the ban as its experience will be important for UK institutions with ivory items such as the British Museum, the Natural History Museum and the V&A. </p>
<p>The Smithsonian clearly does not condone or advocate illegal ivory trading, and its own National Museum of Natural History recently developed an excellent display on the negative effects of the ivory trade on elephants.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"887747305536978945"}"></div></p>
<p>Yet, as the public has turned against ivory, many museums are pondering whether, or how, to display these items. The Smithsonian has established an Ivory Task Force to think through these complex challenges. Ivory pieces for example, can be an important part of displays about historical injustices that we should not forget – one obvious example is the <a href="https://voices.nationalgeographic.org/2015/09/04/video-ivory-trade-and-slave-trade-linked-throughout-history/">link between</a> the slave trade and the trade in African elephant ivory. The newest member of the Smithsonian the <a href="https://nmaahc.si.edu">National Museum of African American Hisotry and Culture</a>, has a display which specifically tackles this. </p>
<p>The US ban also makes it harder for museums to share their collections internationally. Museums may be reluctant to loan out their ivory where strict domestic bans are in place, as there is a risk their collection will be impounded. While US regulations allow the import and re-export of worked ivory as part of a non-commercial travelling exhibition, the ivory must be proven to be “<a href="https://www.fws.gov/international/travel-and-trade/ivory-ban-questions-and-answers.html">pre-convention</a>” – that is, removed from the wild before global laws on wildlife trade came into force in 1976. However, the reality is that museums are likely to remain concerned that their collections will be at risk if they travel to the US. The UK plans go even further, and propose a ban on all ivory, whether it is pre-convention or not.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189413/original/file-20171009-6947-319eb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189413/original/file-20171009-6947-319eb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189413/original/file-20171009-6947-319eb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189413/original/file-20171009-6947-319eb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189413/original/file-20171009-6947-319eb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=779&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189413/original/file-20171009-6947-319eb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189413/original/file-20171009-6947-319eb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/189413/original/file-20171009-6947-319eb4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=979&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Should one small ivory disk make the whole thing off limits?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details/collection_image_gallery.aspx?partid=1&assetid=586199001&objectid=55372">British Museum</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ivory also pops up in unlikely places, and small bits of ivory can render a much larger item illegal. For example one of the chronometers which was aboard the HMS Beagle with Charles Darwin has an ivory disk on its case. This puts it off limits for US museums – in order to import it they would have to remove the ivory and replace it with another material, such as plastic. But if the disk is replaced, can we really still claim it is the same chronometer that voyaged with Darwin? Does it retain its historical significance?</p>
<h2>Ivory … but not elephants</h2>
<p>The US domestic ivory ban has also hit sales of carvings in narwhal and walrus ivory, which generate income for some native Arctic communities. Dealers in Arctic arts were facing more and more questions and criticism from customers who assumed the ivory was banned, such that it became less profitable and desirable to stock and sell items made from other forms of ivory. One group in Alaska, the Iñupiat, has <a href="https://voiceofthearcticinupiat.org/wp-content/uploads/VOICE_E-news_no_3.pdf">called for greater clarity</a> on the law. While the market for Arctic arts and carvings is less significant in the UK than in the US, it is worth thinking about how a British ban might compound this problem. </p>
<p>Art and antique dealers may also suddenly find sections of their stock are illegal to sell. This also affects musicians since many instruments have parts made from ivory. Piano keys are obvious, but there are also several traditional instruments that have ivory parts, including the Japanese lute-like Shamisen, antique European violin bows, and even many bagpipes. Under the US ban, instruments with ivory parts can only enter the country if the owner can prove that the ivory was taken from the wild before 1976 and can provide the correct musical instrument permit. This is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/05/bagpipes-new-hampshire-canada-customs-seized-ivory">not as easy as it sounds</a>.</p>
<p>The UK consultation refers to the need to develop specific and clearly defined exemptions to a domestic ivory ban. This is important. But as the <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-cites-and-why-should-we-care-65510">global trade ban on endangered plants and animals</a> has shown, the more exemptions there are, the more potential loopholes there are for traffickers to exploit; for instance, the trade in antique and reworked ivory has been used as a <a href="http://www.traffic.org/home/2017/6/23/ivory-seizure-exposes-japans-lax-domestic-ivory-trade-contro.html">cover for illegal ivory</a>. There are no easy answers, but learning from the US would be a very good place to start.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85412/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rosaleen Duffy receives funding from European Research Council and ESRC</span></em></p>
An ivory ban in the US had a series of unintended consequences.
Rosaleen Duffy, Professor of International Politics, University of Sheffield
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/67378
2016-12-01T07:29:13Z
2016-12-01T07:29:13Z
Museums are returning indigenous human remains but progress on repatriating objects is slow
<p>It’s not difficult to imagine how someone might be prevented from paying respects to their ancestors and ensuring proper observances because they’re buried overseas. Thousands of families who’ve lost relatives during the battles of far-off wars know only too well the distress of loved ones resting on foreign soil. </p>
<p>But for countless Australian Aboriginal families, it’s not voluntary service or even conscription that led to their ancestors’ remains ending up overseas. Rather, it’s <a href="http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/AUIndigLawRw/2007/7.html">grave robbing</a>, and the practice of stealing Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders’ bodies to be placed in museums, anatomy collections and cabinets of curiosity. </p>
<p>In some particularly grisly cases, known individuals, such as William Lanne <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2011/02/15/3139548.htm">described as the last full-blooded Tasmanian Aboriginal man</a>, and Yagan, a Noongar man from the western coast of Australia, were mutilated and <a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/first_australians/resistance/yagan">rendered anthropological specimens</a>.</p>
<p>It’s hardly surprising then, that over the last half century, there have been growing calls for lost souls like these to be brought back home. The recent repatriation of human remains from museums and university collections in the United Kingdom has resulted in <a href="http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2016/10/15/aboriginal-remains-to-return-from-uk.html">some high-profile events</a>. These include the repatriation of ancestral remains of Ngarrindjeri and other people of South Australia, in a moving <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/remains-of-13-aboriginals-will-be-returned-to-australia/news-story/f099cb9d25ca56caaea792f8a8fbeaa5">ceremony</a> conducted by Aboriginal Elder Major Sumner. </p>
<p>But <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-03-16/new-encounters-conference-at-national-museum-of-australia/7250096">calls by Aboriginal activists</a> and descendants to return objects collected or stolen by colonisers, explorers and others have been <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/review/repatriation-of-indigenous-artefacts-a-hot-topic-for-museums/news-story/69b375d1357e828c6bb4666e73141c34">met with much less enthusiasm</a>. For the most part, museums have been slow to engage with issues surrounding the return of artefacts, even as they’ve been proactive about returning human remains. </p>
<h2>The Gweagal Shield</h2>
<p>The case of the “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/25/the-gweagal-shield-and-the-fight-to-change-the-british-museums-attitude-to-seized-artefacts">Gweagal Shield</a>” and the current quest for its return to Australia by Rodney Kelly, a descendant of the warrior Cooman whose shield it was, highlights some of the issues at play. </p>
<p>The shield is <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-11-02/rodney-kelly-demands-british-museum-returns-shield/7986862">generally accepted as having been “collected”</a> when the HMS Endeavour visited Botany Bay in 1770, by either Captain James Cook or the naturalist Joseph Banks. It was subsequently given to the British Museum, where it is still held. Its story is much like that of the <a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/encounters/encounters_films/videos/bark_etchings">Dja Dja Wrung barks</a>, which were “<a href="https://theconversation.com/dja-dja-wurrung-barks-are-australian-art-the-british-museum-should-return-them-54640">collected</a>” by the settler John Hunter Kerr. </p>
<p>Contemporary Aboriginal activists say they regard the shield, like the bark etchings, as representing an unbroken connection with their ancestors of the 18th and 19th centuries. Their claim for the object’s return is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/feb/10/battle-for-bark-art-indigenous-leaders-hail-breakthrough-in-talks-with-british-museum">based on this connection</a>.</p>
<p>Repatriation of objects is difficult because museums are nothing without their collections. And sending back human remains, many of which are rarely shown, is an easier option. </p>
<p>In the United States, for instance, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act <a href="https://www.nps.gov/nagpra/">(NAGPRA)</a>, which became law over 15 years ago, ensures the return of cultural items to lineal descendants and culturally affiliated Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organisations. According to the Act, cultural items can include human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects, and objects of cultural patrimony. </p>
<p>But even under NAGPRA, the repatriation of “collected” cultural materials continues to be <a href="http://repository.jmls.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1386&context=ripl">a contested, murky area</a>. </p>
<p>The paths that indigenous objects travelled as they entered into the collections of Britain, Europe and North America are varied. Some of the material in collections were simply stolen, others traded, some were offered for sale, and some were taken in the aftermath of violence, even massacres.</p>
<p>The direct descendants of the Cooman people from whom the Gweagal Shield was stolen <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/sep/25/the-gweagal-shield-and-the-fight-to-change-the-british-museums-attitude-to-seized-artefacts">have said</a>, they do not recognise the British Museum as having title or rights of ownership. </p>
<h2>Object of study</h2>
<p>Australian Aboriginal cultural materials, and indeed Aboriginal people, have traditionally been the objects of study in museums. Most of the great museum collections of Aboriginal artefacts were amassed over a 40-year period from the end of the 19th to the second decade of the 20th century. </p>
<p>During this time, Aboriginal artefacts were collected as curiosities and as sources of information about an exotic other. As a result, museums — particularly museums with ethnographic and anthropological collections — have become the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/apr/09/indigenous-australians-enduring-civilisation-british-museum-repatriation">focus of discontent and action</a> by a range of indigenous communities and individuals.</p>
<p>In response, many Australian museums have employed Indigenous people as expert-advisors or in <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-02/sa-museum-first-aboriginal-curator/7811030">curatorial positions</a>. Unsurprisingly, this has not always improved relations as the problems are structural rather than personal. </p>
<p><a href="http://vuir.vu.edu.au/27473/1/How%20Indigenous%20people%20have%20altered%20the%20function%20of%20the%20Melbourne%20Museum%20Nov%202002.pdf">The source of tension</a> has been – and remains – the manner in which museums are perceived as experts and authorities on indigenous cultures. The collection of cultural materials from all over the world are the spoils of conquests in which indigenous peoples were dehumanised and oppressed; the museum was part of a rationalised, operationalised dispossession. </p>
<p>The British, on arrival in what was to become Australia, understood the world they entered as a place that was completely alien. Everything they encountered, they saw as a new discovery. They were fascinated by Aboriginal people and collected their material culture; often as <a href="https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/6081/releases/MOMA_1984_0017_17.pdf?2010">exemplars of “primitivism”</a> – and even as <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/management/human_remains.aspx">examples of ancestral humans</a>. </p>
<h2>Resistance and the future</h2>
<p>Some of the arguments against – and resistance to – the return of objects reflect the anxieties museum staff expressed during the debate around the repatriation of the <a href="http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1883142_1883129_1883001,00.html">Elgin Marbles</a>, after the Greek government formally requested their return from the British Museum in 1983. </p>
<p>The Elgin Marbles are a collection of Classical Greek sculptures that were originally part of the temple of the Parthenon at the Acropolis of Athens. In 1801, Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin removed them from the Parthenon and sent them to Britain. They have <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/elgin-marbles-parthenon-sculptures-athens-greece-mps-bill-return-reunification-british-museum-a7129801.html">been contested ever since</a>. </p>
<p>Museums as repositories of objects and collections feared that their repatriation would <a href="http://www1.american.edu/TED/greekmarbles.htm">open the floodgates</a> – and their very existence would be threatened. </p>
<p>Still, thanks to technology, change may be in the air. </p>
<p>The recent emergence of online exhibitions and virtual collections has meant that museums have become more accessible. And the ways that the public and communities interact with their collections is significantly different. Museum collections are no longer only accessible to those who can physically visit them. </p>
<p>Many museums are attempting to decolonise. By changing their processes, they are supporting the aspirations of Indigenous people and communities, and hiring Indigenous staff to develop policies and actively repair the damage of the past; as well as working with <a href="https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/christianthompson.html">contemporary artists and artisans</a>.</p>
<p>Another exciting possibility is the emergence of new virtual reality technology and <a href="https://3dprint.com/104091/first-nations-repatriation/">3D printing</a>. Using the latest innovative technologies, we predict museums will have the opportunity to either offer virtual repatriations, or to hold on to the virtual object and repatriate the original. </p>
<p>These are exciting possibilities, but they will not satisfy everyone. </p>
<p>Repatriation of objects differs from returning human remains. Bringing home ancestors and family can be imagined as a human right; the right to decide the fate of our relatives. But the question of repatriating objects is clearly more complex. It needs more debate, and more creative interventions to move beyond the current impasse.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67378/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Myles Russell Cook is employed by Museum Victoria.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lynette Russell receives funding from Australian Research Council, and sits on the research committee of the Museum of Victoria. </span></em></p>
The question of repatriating objects is clearly more complex than returning human remains. It needs more debate, and more creative interventions to move beyond the current impasse.
Myles Russell Cook, Lecturer, Design Anthropology and Indigenous Studies, The University of Melbourne
Lynette Russell, Professor, Indigenous Studies and History, Monash University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/69032
2016-11-23T19:22:49Z
2016-11-23T19:22:49Z
Long before Europeans, traders came here from the north and art tells the story
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146932/original/image-20161122-24543-1taiiw4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail of Mungurrawuy Yunipingu (Gumatj), Macassan Prau 1946.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Berndt Collection, Berndt Museum, The University of Western Australia</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As part of the celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary of Dutch explorer Dirk Hartog “bumping” into the north-west coast of Australia, <a href="http://museum.wa.gov.au/museums/maritime/travellers-and-traders-indian-ocean-world">Travellers and Traders in the Indian Ocean World</a> charts the ebb and flow of people, goods, stories and ideas across the expanse of the Indian Ocean. </p>
<p>The oldest object included is a 2500BC clay boat that presages the journeys undertaken over the following millennia with the aid of the Roaring Forties and the annual monsoons.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146467/original/image-20161117-18145-1deli1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146467/original/image-20161117-18145-1deli1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146467/original/image-20161117-18145-1deli1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146467/original/image-20161117-18145-1deli1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146467/original/image-20161117-18145-1deli1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=928&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146467/original/image-20161117-18145-1deli1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146467/original/image-20161117-18145-1deli1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146467/original/image-20161117-18145-1deli1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mungurrawuy Yunipingu (Gumatj), Macassan Prau 1946.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Berndt Collection, Berndt Museum, The University of Western Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was the reliability of these winds that enabled regular journeys, and it was on Australian beaches that the first point of contact with Aboriginal Australians and those from other continents began. Earlier than the Dutch, the English, and the French, the Macassan fishing fleets regularly visited Arnhem Land and the North West coast in search of trepang (the sea cucumber). </p>
<p>Their visits were recorded orally for centuries. Two mid-20th century bark paintings from Yirrkala depict these stories, showing praus (fishing boats) under full sail. Departing from the southwest Celebes (now Sulawesi, Indonesia), the Macassans made landfall in Arnhem Land and exchanged goods and cultural information before moving westward down the coast in search of this rare delicacy.</p>
<p>Their distinctive sails puncturing the sky, the praus described in these paintings would have been impressive as they arrived off the coast. With men below decks and others attending to the twin rudders and chickens running wild on the decks, these images of the boats record details of their design and operation based on cozy familiarity.</p>
<p>Their regular return trips indicate that the local communities welcomed their visitors, and when they dropped anchor to prepare for their long stay, the festivities began.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146466/original/image-20161117-18134-tw7v0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146466/original/image-20161117-18134-tw7v0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146466/original/image-20161117-18134-tw7v0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146466/original/image-20161117-18134-tw7v0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146466/original/image-20161117-18134-tw7v0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146466/original/image-20161117-18134-tw7v0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146466/original/image-20161117-18134-tw7v0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146466/original/image-20161117-18134-tw7v0h.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Wonggu Munungurr (Djapu), Macassan Prau 1946.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Berndt Collection, Berndt Museum, The University of Western Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Once they had caught substantial numbers the trepang were boiled, dried and processed on the beaches, under Tamarind trees the visitors planted. As anthropologists Ronald and Catherine Berndt explain, these visits are <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1321802.The_World_of_the_First_Australians">remembered through generations</a> in oral histories, songs, dance and in rock paintings and bark paintings, like those in the exhibition. </p>
<p>To communicate with their visitors the Yolŋu community adopted a Macassan Pidgin, with some words still in use, such as “rupiah” for money, “balanda” for white person and “jama” for work. They also exchanged goods and it is likely that some of the Aboriginal men worked with the trepangers on their praus.</p>
<p>A few would have returned to Port of Macassar where they encountered Dutchmen, like the one depicted in the wonderful sculpture collected by Ronald and Catherine Berndt in Yirrkala in 1946. This balanda (European) man, with his jaunty cap, radiant grin and elaborate buckled belt, was likely a customs official who made a distinct impression. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146468/original/image-20161117-18113-1umhoy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146468/original/image-20161117-18113-1umhoy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/146468/original/image-20161117-18113-1umhoy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146468/original/image-20161117-18113-1umhoy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146468/original/image-20161117-18113-1umhoy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146468/original/image-20161117-18113-1umhoy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146468/original/image-20161117-18113-1umhoy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/146468/original/image-20161117-18113-1umhoy8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mungurrawuy Yunipingu (Gumatj) Waramu figure of Dutch custom official seen at the Port of Macassar 1946.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Berndt Collection, Berndt Museum, The University of Western Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Later, Mungurrawuy Yunipingu carved and painted his version of a meeting that likely took place many decades before, reinterpreting their detailed descriptions to create his lively portrait. </p>
<p>Called Waramu figures, these sculptural works collectively represent the visiting Macassans, and they are similar to the carved wooden effigies, called Tau tau, made by the Toraja people of South Sulawesi as part of their burial ceremonies. It is likely these carved figures were another aspect of a rich exchange of culture and ideas.</p>
<p>This long history of engagement between the Yolŋu and their northern neighbours remains embedded in their culture and in stories still recounted. Indeed, the tradition of Yolŋu painting on Torajan pots is one currently being revived. Will Stubbs from the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre is developing a project to commission the building of a traditional Prau in Sulawesi and then sail it to Port Bradshaw where it can become the catalyst for rekindling this unique form of cultural exchange.</p>
<p>Neil MacGregor’s tried and true format of judiciously selecting a limited range of artworks and objects to tell a big story has been embraced by the Western Australian Museum and the British Museum for their latest collaboration. How else could you even attempt to encapsulate the complexity of contact over thousands of years of constant exchange between many different cultures and communities?</p>
<p>MacGregor’s exhibition <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/radio_series.aspx">Shakespeare’s Restless World</a> and his marvellous <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/germany_memories_of_a_nation.aspx">Germany, Memories of a Nation</a>, not to mention the international blockbuster <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/a_history_of_the_world.aspx">A History of the World in 100 Objects</a>, enabled him to tackle subjects that might otherwise have been uncontainable.</p>
<p>Similarly, Travellers and Traders, which only ripples the surface of this vast subject, provides enough to intrigue, to entertain and, most importantly, to stimulate further investigation.</p>
<p>The story of the Macassan traders is one of many interweaving narratives that run through the exhibition. By piquing our interest, it challenges us all to dig deeper and find the links that unite us across the expansive arena of the Indian Ocean.</p>
<p><br></p>
<hr>
<p><em><a href="http://museum.wa.gov.au/museums/maritime/travellers-and-traders-indian-ocean-world">Travellers and Traders in the Indian Ocean World</a> is at Fremantle Maritime Museum until 23 April 2017.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/69032/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ted Snell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
For centuries, fishing fleets from Sulawesi regularly visited Australia in search of trepang. Their visits were recorded orally and have been depicted in detailed artworks.
Ted Snell, Professor, Chief Cultural Officer, Cultural Precinct, The University of Western Australia
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/40461
2015-04-26T19:31:25Z
2015-04-26T19:31:25Z
Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation is a challenge to review
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79000/original/image-20150422-1848-1tlzwro.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Shell Necklace, Displayed at the Great Exhibition, London, 1851. Maireener shell and fibre. Oyster Cove, Tasmania, before 1851 </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The Trustees of the British Museum.</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Reviewing <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/indigenous_australia.aspx">Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation</a>, which opened last week at London’s British Museum, is a challenge. </p>
<p>Sponsored by BP, the collaborative exhibition draws on Australian Aboriginal objects and artefacts, many of which were taken from disparate parts of the country during first-wave British colonisation. These now form part of the museum’s archival collection (AKA spoils of British colonisation). More recent works – in some cases by practising contemporary Australian Aboriginal artists – are also on display. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79201/original/image-20150424-25541-e60qyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79201/original/image-20150424-25541-e60qyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79201/original/image-20150424-25541-e60qyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79201/original/image-20150424-25541-e60qyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79201/original/image-20150424-25541-e60qyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79201/original/image-20150424-25541-e60qyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79201/original/image-20150424-25541-e60qyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79201/original/image-20150424-25541-e60qyd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=637&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kunmanara Hogan, Tjaruwa Woods, Yarangka Thomas, Estelle Hogan, Ngalpingka Simms and Myrtle Pennington, Kungkarangkalpa. Acrylic on canvas, 2013.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The artists, courtesy Spinifex Arts Project.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kungkarangkalpa, (Seven Sisters or Pleiades – above) is an immensely vibrant canvas collaboratively created by members of the Spinifex group, whose country lies in northwestern Australia. This - literally - stellar work documents the passage through the night sky of the eponymous star-sisters in their attempt to avoid unwanted advances of a sexual predator, an older man with sorcery powers, who relentlessly pursues them. </p>
<p>This nocturnal cycle is repeated eternally, reflecting, inter alia, detailed Aboriginal knowledge of astronomy and direction-finding. The joyous explosion of colour in this painting gives living, breathing testimony to Deborah Bird Rose’s observation, in her essay <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/system/files/resources/62db1069-b7ec-4d63-b9a9-991f4b931a60/files/nourishing-terrains.pdf">Nourishing Terrains</a> (1996), that “…country is synonymous with life” (p10) and also that: “People say country knows, hears, smells, takes notice, takes care, is sorry or happy.” (p7).</p>
<p>An ambitious exhibition, Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation aims for both breadth and depth. Its title encapsulates an apt and nifty pun: Australian Aboriginal people, often against overwhelming odds, have endured – as in surviving over a long period of time – as distinct peoples, and have maintained some of their cultural practices, while not only enduring – in the sense of suffering painfully and patiently – the initial seismic shock of British colonisation but also its continuing bitter aftermath.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79190/original/image-20150424-25541-9co1cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79190/original/image-20150424-25541-9co1cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79190/original/image-20150424-25541-9co1cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79190/original/image-20150424-25541-9co1cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79190/original/image-20150424-25541-9co1cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79190/original/image-20150424-25541-9co1cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79190/original/image-20150424-25541-9co1cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79190/original/image-20150424-25541-9co1cv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dancing Figure - unknown artist, Noongar. Carol Native Settlement, WA, Australia (1945-1953). Ink on paper.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The Trustees of the British Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This exhibition provides refreshingly strong coverage of the history and cultural practices of Tasmanian Aboriginal people, a relatively unusual occurrence in exhibitions of this kind. In many, Tasmanian Aboriginal lifeways are consigned to little more than an historical footnote, although this has been changing in recent years. No doubt this is greatly enabled by the choice of a widely respected exhibition curator, <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/about_us/departments/staff/africa,_oceania,_americas/gaye_sculthorpe.aspx">Gaye Sculthorpe</a>, an Aboriginal Tasmanian. </p>
<p>A propos of this, a splendid Tasmanian maireener shell and fibre necklace is on display, the gracile design features of which reflect specific and enduring kinship relationships. These translucent bluish-green pearl-like shell necklaces are of great cultural significance for Aboriginal Tasmanians, kept alive today by the efforts of the incomparable <a href="http://www.daao.org.au/bio/lola-greeno/biography/">Lola Greeno</a> and other Tasmanian Aboriginal women.</p>
<p>At the centre of this visually splendid exhibition are several magisterial works, none more so than Yumari created by the late, great Pintupi artist <a href="http://www.daao.org.au/bio/uta-uta-tjangala/biography/">Uta Uta Tjangala</a> in 1981. Tjangala (c. 1922-1990) was one of the original group of Papunya artists who began painting with acrylics on canvas in the early 1970s.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79371/original/image-20150426-14581-1wr3p7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79371/original/image-20150426-14581-1wr3p7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79371/original/image-20150426-14581-1wr3p7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79371/original/image-20150426-14581-1wr3p7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79371/original/image-20150426-14581-1wr3p7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79371/original/image-20150426-14581-1wr3p7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79371/original/image-20150426-14581-1wr3p7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79371/original/image-20150426-14581-1wr3p7m.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Yumari (1981) – artwork by Uta Uta Tjangala (c. 1926-1990), Pintupi people. Papunya, NT, Australia. Acrylic on canvas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">National Museum of Australia</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Measuring more than 2.2 x 3.6 metres, Yumari is on loan from the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. One dimension of the lengthy interconnecting stories underpinning this Pintupi “Yilpinji” work (“Yilpinji” is usually inadequately translated as “love magic”) relates to sorcery, seduction, lust, and other “R-rated” subject matter. </p>
<p>Part of the Yumari narrative recounts the transgressive sexual love of a man for his mother-in-law, the <em>par excellence</em> taboo relationship in many parts of Aboriginal Australia and its surrounding islands. Such illicit passion is widely regarded throughout tradition-oriented Aboriginal Australia as “the love that dare not speak its name”. </p>
<p>It’s a source of irresistible and delicious irony that, given its racy subject matter, part of this Yumari artwork – was <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-05-28/australian-passport-undergoes-facelift/1697620">recently selected</a> and put into service as a watermark on all new and renewed Australian passports. </p>
<p>The exhibition also includes several short, rather oversimplified video loops, intended as illustrative. In all cases, greater depth of context needed to be provided. One video entails images showing certain aspects of the history of Aboriginal Land Rights, accompanied by a sound track with an Aboriginal voice-over adumbrating on that historical struggle; another frames the concept of “country”, with four minutes of footage attesting to the geographical and ecological diversity of Aboriginal Australia. </p>
<p>It reads rather like a travelogue, with imprecise accompanying signage: “Diverse people, environments, and connection to country.” </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79203/original/image-20150424-25574-ze8yb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79203/original/image-20150424-25574-ze8yb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79203/original/image-20150424-25574-ze8yb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79203/original/image-20150424-25574-ze8yb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79203/original/image-20150424-25574-ze8yb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=314&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79203/original/image-20150424-25574-ze8yb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79203/original/image-20150424-25574-ze8yb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79203/original/image-20150424-25574-ze8yb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=394&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bark painting of a barramundi. Western Arnhem Land, c. 1961.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The Trustees of the British Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As an exhibition, Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation hovers uneasily between being a fine art exhibition showing the diversity and sheer visual and sociocultural potency of contemporary Australian visual art practice, and older-style ethnographic survey of objects excavated from the archives of the British Museum, arranged in rows behind glass cases - as is the case with various weapons including spears, spear heads, boomerangs and so forth. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79192/original/image-20150424-25581-1n562jw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79192/original/image-20150424-25581-1n562jw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79192/original/image-20150424-25581-1n562jw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79192/original/image-20150424-25581-1n562jw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79192/original/image-20150424-25581-1n562jw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=682&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79192/original/image-20150424-25581-1n562jw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79192/original/image-20150424-25581-1n562jw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79192/original/image-20150424-25581-1n562jw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=857&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spear Points – a group of spear points crafted from various types of stone, glass (including from coloured bottles) and the cream-coloured ceramic insulators from telegraph poles. Kimberley region, WA, Australia. c. 1855-1940.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The Trustees of the British Museum</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>That exhibition style, albeit in this context in post-modern garb, is redolent of the “Wunderkammer” (literally “Cabinets of Wonder”) – European keeping-places for objects pertaining to specifically-themed collections of yesteryear. While the relationship between these two disparate approaches is not one of seamless fusion, it certainly makes for an exhibition that’s good to think with.</p>
<p>On entering this rather rarefied, relatively small space comprised of only a few rooms, one strolls into an immense kaleidoscope, a time-capsule encompassing the intermeshed histories of Australian Aboriginal people with British colonists and collectors.</p>
<p>While the artefacts and artworks on display reveal a good deal about the passions and priorities of the colonised, as do the trophies of the coloniser, I feel that more guidance in terms of explaining the exhibition’s aims and themes would have been helpful. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79739/original/image-20150429-23394-gmb60k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79739/original/image-20150429-23394-gmb60k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79739/original/image-20150429-23394-gmb60k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79739/original/image-20150429-23394-gmb60k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79739/original/image-20150429-23394-gmb60k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79739/original/image-20150429-23394-gmb60k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79739/original/image-20150429-23394-gmb60k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79739/original/image-20150429-23394-gmb60k.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">James Cook – with the Declaration, Vincent Namatjira, 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Vincent Namatjira</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As historian and anthropologist Patrick Wolfe pointed out in his essay <a href="http://www.kooriweb.org/foley/resources/pdfs/83.pdf">Nation and Miscegenation</a> (1994): </p>
<blockquote>
<p>To get in the way, all the native has to do is stay at home. Since it cuts through Indigenous society to connect directly to its territorial basis, it is awkward to speak of settler colonisation as an articulation between coloniser and colonised. As a social relationship, it is best conceived of as a negative articulation. The cultural logic which is organic to a negative articulation is one of elimination. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Getting in the way while staying at home is readily applicable to the still-seeping, festering wound of the joint British-Australian nuclear testing program <a href="http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/11/05/backgrounder-why-was-maralinga-used-secret-nuclear-tests">that took place</a> at Maralinga and elsewhere on Aboriginal land through the 1950s and into the 1960s, horribly maiming (and worse) significant numbers of Aboriginal people and affecting subsequent generations in terms of birth defects, life expectancy and in multifarious other ways. </p>
<p>While admittedly this is dealt with in reasonable depth in the catalogue, the text accompanying the exhibition simply states that some Aboriginal people were “removed from the arid centre of Australia when the land was needed for atomic testing”.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79043/original/image-20150423-3125-1bpiwlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79043/original/image-20150423-3125-1bpiwlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79043/original/image-20150423-3125-1bpiwlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79043/original/image-20150423-3125-1bpiwlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=207&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79043/original/image-20150423-3125-1bpiwlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79043/original/image-20150423-3125-1bpiwlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79043/original/image-20150423-3125-1bpiwlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=261&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Spear Thrower Black Spear thrower. North Western Australia, late 19th or early 20th century.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The Trustees of the British Museum.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Reading between the lines is quite possible for some aspects of this exhibition, but this anodyne statement nullifies that possibility. Maralinga and the atomic testing program in general remain unfinished business, implicating both the British and Australians, and it seems unduly timid not to have served this up to the Brits a tad more forcefully.</p>
<p>In terms of the <em>in situ</em> documentation of these works, surely more should be expected of the British public? In any case reading such signage isn’t mandatory. The excellent <a href="http://www.britishmuseumshoponline.org/invt/cmc26944">accompanying catalogue</a> develops the exhibition’s themes to a considerably greater extent, but – at £25 – purchasing it may well be beyond the means of many visitors. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79191/original/image-20150424-25541-1dp4idi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79191/original/image-20150424-25541-1dp4idi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79191/original/image-20150424-25541-1dp4idi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79191/original/image-20150424-25541-1dp4idi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79191/original/image-20150424-25541-1dp4idi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1064&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79191/original/image-20150424-25541-1dp4idi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1337&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79191/original/image-20150424-25541-1dp4idi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79191/original/image-20150424-25541-1dp4idi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1337&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Magpie Geese in the Arafura Swamp (1988) – artwork by George Milpurrurru (1934-1998), Gurrumba Gurrumba clan, Yirritja moiety, Yolngu. Ramingining, central Arnhem Land, NT, Australia. Natural pigment on bark.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© The artist's family and Bula'bula Arts, Ramingining</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This implicit contention informing this exhibition is that the elimination to which Wolfe alludes has never been (fully) realised, largely on account of continuing Aboriginal resistance. In such an historical site as the British Museum, imbued with such gravitas, a great strength of this exhibition is simply broaching this matter, and providing the visual evidence to back it up. </p>
<p>But the critique mounted by the exhibition is mild, because it is presented indirectly and very politely – not something for which we Australians are well known. Maybe it’s the best approach, because preaching/proselytising can be counterproductive. On the other hand, has a greater opportunity been lost? </p>
<p>Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation will be <a href="http://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/encounters/about">on show</a> in Australia later this year, British Museum artefacts and objects included. It’s a lay-down misère that then, some of the simmering, underlying, understated, and underplayed issues arising from this exhibition, including the possibility of repatriating some of these works, will be aired, and a few sparks may fly. </p>
<p><br></p>
<p><em>Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation is <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/exhibitions/indigenous_australia.aspx">at the British Museum</a> until August 2.</em></p>
<p><strong>Also by Christine Nicholls:</strong> <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/the-dreamtime-series">The “Dreamtime” series
</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40461/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christine Judith Nicholls does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
It hovers uneasily between being a fine-art exhibition showing the diversity and sheer visual and sociocultural potency of contemporary Australian visual art practice, and an older-style ethnographic survey.
Christine Judith Nicholls, Senior Lecturer in Australian Studies, Flinders University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.