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The Netherlands has returned some stolen artifacts to Indonesia

smithsonianmag.com

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Re: The Netherlands has returned some stolen artifacts to Indonesia

#141

Post by whycome »

graemep wrote: post #54
danparsonson wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That argument wears thin very quickly, especially when the people of the culture from which the artifact originates are not able to view it (because it now lives in London instead of their home country), and thereby learn about their own history. See for example the Benin Bronzes; imagine that the original US Constitution document were housed in a museum in Nigeria.

The Benin Bronzes if returned will go to the descendants of the original owners - the kings of a kingdom built on slavery. I certainly know many people in countries from which these things were taken who think they are safer somewhere stable - I have heard exactly the comment that returning things will probably mean then end up stolen by politicians from Sri Lankans with regard to the things the Netherlands returned…

> kingdom built on slavery

I’m not being facetious here, but isn’t the USA (and other nations) basically that? So much of the wealth was accrued through the “low” labor costs of early industry.

Re: The Netherlands has returned some stolen artifacts to Indonesia

#142

Post by senderista »

mihaic wrote: post #96
TremendousJudge wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After all, the British Museum, the main example for restitutions, is located in a global city, given completely free access to its huge collection on display and pays for preservation. The global cultural value it adds is much larger than individual museums all over the would could provide. Most of the collection of the British Museum is not on display at any given moment (if ever). They could lose 90% of their inv…

Most of these third world countries also have some artefacts on their soil as well. Do they need literally all of them, and you'd have to visit the globe to see international artefacts? The most famous ones, like the Rosetta Stone, only became famous from their usage by Western archeologists. As for London being expensive, well visiting any foreign country is expensive by non-natives. At least in London you can get a…

Modern Greeks and Egyptians have significant genetic and cultural continuity with the ancient peoples of those regions. (No, the Arabs did not displace the Egyptians.)

Re: The Netherlands has returned some stolen artifacts to Indonesia

#143

Post by ipaddr »

jntun wrote: post #86
ipaddr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the Taliban example of destroying Buddhist culture in the 90s. They are/were the current people in power would you suggest returning items to be destroyed or carefully preserving them for future. Would you return items to a place incapable of taking care of them?

Do you have any interest in talking about the British & American roles in funding, training, and arming the Taliban in the 70, 80s, and early 90s? Or would you prefer creating a hypothetical where we are burdened to take care of the people who just can't take care of themselves (after we wreak havoc on them)?

We can talk about the US and USSR proxy wars and how they trained and armed people on different sides because they did not want to engage directly. Doesn't change the fact that the Buddhist cultural items were being destroyed because it conflicted with their version of Islam. Handing them back would be unwise.

Re: The Netherlands has returned some stolen artifacts to Indonesia

#144

Post by ipaddr »

devsda wrote: post #138
ipaddr wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the Taliban example of destroying Buddhist culture in the 90s. They are/were the current people in power would you suggest returning items to be destroyed or carefully preserving them for future. Would you return items to a place incapable of taking care of them?

> Would you return items to a place incapable of taking care of them? Isn't this like saying "I'm not going to return what I stole because you clearly aren't capable of taking care of it, if you are it would never have been stolen" I think there's a misunderstanding about the intention behind asking for return of stolen artifacts. It's not aleays about the artifacts themselves or how valuable they are or preserving t…

It's like taking a pet fish from your friends house. He moves but you want to give it back to the new home owner who doesn't have tank. Not a good remedy. Neither is giving it back to your friend if he isn't allowed pets in his new home.

The fish should never been taken but trying to do the ideal thing will kill the fish. Be practical not idealist.

Re: The Netherlands has returned some stolen artifacts to Indonesia

#145

Post by comte7092 »

jahewson wrote: post #129
comte7092 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While London is indeed a global city, access is very much not equal. Immigration/tourism requirements are always the strictest against the very countries who were plundered during colonial times, in comparison to rich countries with an imperial past/present. Most of the world will never visit the UK. Most of the value that the British museum supplies goes back to the UK in the form of tourism and to close allies of t…

> Immigration/tourism requirements are always the strictest against the very countries who were plundered during colonial times Trivially false. The UK has strict requirements for Russia, a former imperial power. The USA was formerly 13 British colonies and has few restrictions.

The USA is a current imperial power and built atop of a genocide against its native population. The US as an entity has no history that would be relevant to a historical plunder carried out by the British.

Russia is currently in direct conflict with the UK (specifically financial and indirect military support to Ukraine, obviously not with regards to a hot war). Whereas that is not the case with any African nations I am aware of, yet many of those nations face significant travel restrictions not faced by a pre Ukraine invasion Russian population.

Re: The Netherlands has returned some stolen artifacts to Indonesia

#146

Post by jltsiren »

jahewson wrote: post #122
jltsiren wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in some cases, the items were lost because they were put in museums. Europe was not exactly a stable place in the 20th century. Many things were destroyed in the wars, and many items were stolen from museums by conquerors, individual soldiers, and looters.

Such as? I don’t see a single missing artifact on this list that was taken by Europeans and lost in WWI or WWII: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missing_treasures Plenty lost in other parts of the world though!

That is a very short list of particularly notable lost items. European museums had hundreds of millions of items in their collections, and many of them were lost. The number of documented pieces of art and artifacts lost in WW2 is in millions. The actual number is likely much higher, as the documents were often also lost. Nazis looted as a matter of policy. Soviets practiced wholesale destruction. Even Americans did widespread looting, often taking items that had first been stolen by Nazis.

For a more concrete example: The Colonial Collections Committee report behind the article discusses a total of 390 items. 10 of them were known to be lost before the 1990s. Further 17 were not found in an inventory at that time. One additional item was determined to be a loss that had been reported earlier. Two further items had been reportedly transferred somewhere else, but their current status is unknown.

Re: The Netherlands has returned some stolen artifacts to Indonesia

#147

Post by sangnoir »

gaoshan wrote: post #30

The labeling of things in museums as "stolen" is lacking, IMO. In some cases, yes... straight up looted items are in museums. In other cases, though, the items could easily have ended up lost to time (or political, economic, social turmoil) if they had not been taken and put in museums outside of the places where they originated. Additionally some of these places would not have had the means to care for antiquities b…

> In other cases, though, the items could easily have ended up lost to time (or political, economic, social turmoil)

That's a hard sell when the country that winds up with the artifacts was also the primary agitator of political, social and economic turmoil (you know, the usual colonial stuff). An arsonist shouldn't get to keep victims' heirlooms to "save them from the conflagration".

Re: The Netherlands has returned some stolen artifacts to Indonesia

#148

Post by anonymous18473 »

Here is a take I haven't seen anywhere else: according to Wikipedia, when the Europeans took the Rosetta Stone it was nothing more than rock in some wall. The European then turned it into something truely special.

A hot take on this could be to just return a rock of equal size. It is not clear how all the information gathered should be factored into this.

Re: The Netherlands has returned some stolen artifacts to Indonesia

#149

Post by jntun »

ipaddr wrote: post #143
jntun wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any interest in talking about the British & American roles in funding, training, and arming the Taliban in the 70, 80s, and early 90s? Or would you prefer creating a hypothetical where we are burdened to take care of the people who just can't take care of themselves (after we wreak havoc on them)?

We can talk about the US and USSR proxy wars and how they trained and armed people on different sides because they did not want to engage directly. Doesn't change the fact that the Buddhist cultural items were being destroyed because it conflicted with their version of Islam. Handing them back would be unwise.

Well I don't want to talk about that first part, mainly because it's a very poor interpretation of history. You brought up the Taliban and I wanted to investigate that thought you had further. You seem to be trying to paint an ideological picture unrelated to the topic and insist on a leading question built on the assumption "if you give the artifact back, it will be destroyed".

Re: The Netherlands has returned some stolen artifacts to Indonesia

#150

Post by rich_sasha »

jahewson wrote: post #122
jltsiren wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in some cases, the items were lost because they were put in museums. Europe was not exactly a stable place in the 20th century. Many things were destroyed in the wars, and many items were stolen from museums by conquerors, individual soldiers, and looters.

Such as? I don’t see a single missing artifact on this list that was taken by Europeans and lost in WWI or WWII: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missing_treasures Plenty lost in other parts of the world though!

Not in wartime, but in recent years, the British Museum, a prime holder of foreign antiques, reported they lost thousands of items. Some were found or recovered, but some were confirmed as stolen.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgy4w221z5o

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