By William Mullen Tribune staff reporter
December 15, 2002
Art museums have been asked to return works stolen by Nazis from wealthy Jews. Native Americans have demanded the return of human remains and sacred objects taken without permission from their ancestors and now in the hands of history museums. If at first these museums balked at losing some of their most treasured possessions, they soon bowed to both laws and public opinion and repatriated many artifacts. The process had become commonplace enough that a statement by 18 directors of the world's most prominent art museums made public last week was startling in its contrary position. While the museums have no dispute with requests by Nazi survivors or Native Americans, they take issue with a rising tide of claims for repatriation of antiquities acquired centuries ago in an atmosphere of ethical standards far different from today's. The signatories, including James Wood, director of the Art Institute of Chicago, argued that long-held antiquities in their collections "have become part of the museums that have cared for them, and by extension part of the heritage of the nations which house them." The statement is seen by some as an indication of how deeply worried museum administrators are about erosion of their core collections.Especially worrisome are antiquities that came to their collections from colonial lands 100 or 200 or more years ago during the heyday of 18th and 19th Century western imperial conquest. Released in London, the statement was issued in the face of increasingly insistent demands on museums from nations such as Greece and Egypt that want priceless historical relics returned to them. The Elgin Marbles is an example. The British Museum acquired the priceless marble frieze from the Parthenon in Greece 200 years ago in a way that would be illegal by today's standards of museum ethics. "Is there a statute of limitations on this sort of thing?" asked Neal Harris, a University of Chicago historian. "I don't think you can issue flat-out edicts on the return of things acquired centuries ago. It's very complex when things are taken a long time ago. If people can make legal claims in those sorts of situations, it would put all museums at risk, not to mention individual collectors," he said. Wood called each of the museums signing the statement "universal museums" that display in one place great works of art from all the world's cultures, with examples of their art represented from antiquity through the modern era. "This is a much broader issue than the question of national patrimony," he said. The statement is not "trying to make clear-cut positions on any particular repatriation case, but get people to understand the history, contributions and importance of the universal museum concept." Wood insisted the statement simply reiterates the position most museums have taken for many years. It was formulated during an international meeting in Munich of more than 200 art museum directors who "thought it would be positive thing to affirm our thinking." What may have triggered the statement is a 200-year battle the British Museum is having with Greek authorities over ownership of the Elgin Marbles.
In 1801, when Greece was a part of the Turkish-ruled Ottoman Empire, Lord Elgin, the British ambassador at the Ottoman court, got permission to remove the exquisitely sculpted frieze from the Parthenon in Athens. At the time, the Parthenon building, erected in 450 B.C., was a steadily crumbling ruin so ignored by the Ottomans that, had Elgin not rescued the frieze, historians believe it would have been lost forever. By the time Elgin sold the frieze to the British Museum in 1816, Greeks were demanding its return, as were many prominent Britons. But the sculptures have inspired so many generations of artists and historians at the British Museum that they are considered among the most seminal cultural influences in western civilization. In recent years, Greece has mounted a new campaign to have the sculptures returned in time for the staging of the Olympic Games in Athens in 2004. The Greek campaign has won a surprising amount of public sympathy in England. A poll reported in the Times of London in October showed 56 percent of all Britons favored giving the sculptures back to Greece, though 76 percent of those polled said they knew "not much" or "nothing" about the sculptures. "I think what's new," said Kimberly Rorschach, director of the Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, "is this notion of claiming illegalities in transactions that happened 200 years ago or more. "The Elgin Marbles legally were removed with the permission of the Ottoman government. To look at it with our own sense of justice today, the legality might be called into question, but I don't think we can go back and change what happened 200 years ago." What is going on, said Ohio State University historian Steven Conn, is an evolution of the concept of cultural patrimony, artifacts that embody the history and essential spirit and beauty of a nation's peoples. "The Europeans developed a fairly confident sense of their cultural patrimony by the late 19th Century," he said.
That sense came in no small part because of their unease in seeing rich Americans swarming across their lands, buying up refinement by the boatload in the form of fine and decorative arts, and shipping it across the Atlantic. "At some point," said Conn, "European governments decided the Americans were taking away too much, that it represented a raid on their cultural heritage. "They began enacting regulations about what sorts of artifacts that could and could not legally leave their countries, and so the notion of `cultural patrimony' was born." Conn said there is a danger in trying to reverse what's already happened. "It is very easy to issue retroactive indictments on the past. That is a tricky and dangerous business" said Conn, author of a 1998 book on museum history, "Museums and American Intellectual Life." "Had Elgin not rescued the Marbles from the frieze at the Parthenon, they almost certainly would have been destroyed. If you regard this sort of material as somehow transcending notions of ownership belonging to the world, you can see museums as ideal repositories for them. "Much of the material that survives in museums from ancient Mesopotamia, located on the border of modern Iran and Iraq, would have been destroyed by war in the last 20 years had it remained in the ground," he said. "Think of the lunatic government in Afghanistan blowing up the giant Buddha sculptures. The whole museum enterprise has its roots in western expansion and imperialism, but these institutions should not be burdened with that responsibility, but only be mindful of it. "The kind of public service these museums provide is pretty remarkable."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Taiwan returns looted China Buddha head
Associated Press
TAIPEI, Taiwan - A Taiwanese Buddhist group on Monday returned to China a 1,300-year-old sculpture of Buddha's head that looters stole from a pagoda in 1997. During a brief ceremony at a temple in northern Taipei, Buddhist Master Sheng Yen said returning the Buddha head to China could improve relations between the two rivals. Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949 and relations remain tense. Sheng said that earlier this year a group of lay disciples donated the head - stolen in 1997 from the Four Gate Pagoda in the city of Jinan - to his Dharma Drum Mountain, a Buddhist group involved in research and education. Sheng said his disciples purchased the head abroad, but has not identified the seller. The Buddhist group gave the sculpture to Zhou Weiping, head of a cultural preservation association from Jinan in Shandong Province. The Jinan pagoda, built in 611 during the Sui Dynasty, features a square central column. A sitting Buddha statue sits in front of each face of the column. The stolen head belonged to the Akshobhya, the "Unshakable" or "Immovable" Buddha, who sits on the column's eastern side, the Dharma Drum Mountain group said.
Metal detectors may lead to iron bars
By Cormac O’Keeffe
DO NOT buy or accept metal detectors as presents this Christmas or you could end up spending the new year in jail, an expert warned yesterday. And shops and manufacturers were told not to advertise metal detectors as they were making potential criminals of buyers. Antiquities expert Dr Ned Kelly made the comments yesterday as selected items from a hoard of 800 artifacts, which were recovered from thieves, were put on display at the National Museum. “We would advise people coming up to Christmas, not to give or receive metal detectors. “They run the risk of finding themselves before the courts, and even run the risk of imprisonment,” Dr Kelly said. It is illegal to dig for archeological objects and to use metal detectors for such a purpose without a special licence. Dr Kelly said advertisements were running in national papers promoting metal detectors, including junior versions for €12.50. The National Museum’s antiquities curator said one supermarket was also promoting them, unaware they were making potential criminals of buyers. Dr Kelly unveiled a number of items recovered from a massive artifact theft involving more than 800 items. These included a rare gold covered Christian mount from Lorrha, Co Tipperary, featuring a crucifix in a circular frame. The mount is thought to have an insurance value to up to €50,000. Other items on display were two Bronze Age daggers, an Iron Age pin, musket balls and hundreds of perfectly preserved coins with the month and the year of minting still visible. “We are giving people an opportunity to see this significant and important material.
Not to have documented it and the material collected would have been a significant loss,” said Dr Kelly. Anthony Molloy, a 68-year-old former Duchas employee, and his 44-year-old son Kevin, were last week found guilty at Birr District Court of being in the possession of archeological objects. Judge Michael Reilly gave them the probation act partly because they had co-operated fully with the National Museum. The court had heard that Anthony Molloy had been given a metal detector as a retirement present. The father and son went on to raid monastic sites and castles near their north Tipperary home. Dr Kelly advised people who have information on the use of metal detectors to contact the gardaí or the National Museum on 01-6777444.
http://www.examiner.ie/
Attack on Thatcher's statue was 'work of art'
By Nicole Martin (Filed: 17/12/2002)
A theatre producer cut the head off a statue of Margaret Thatcher because he believed it "represented the ills of the world's political system", a court was told yesterday. Paul Kelleher, 37, took a swipe at the £150,000, 8ft marble sculpture on display at the Guildhall Art Gallery, central London, in July using a cricket bat he had hidden in his trousers. He failed to knock off the head and grabbed a metal pole to complete what the prosecution described as "acts of wanton destruction". Addressing Southwark Crown Court, south London, in his own defence, Kelleher admitted "lopping" off the statue's head but claimed he had done it "for very good reasons". He presented his actions as an attack on greed, war, globalisation, money, big business and the music industry. He told the jury: "My defence will centre around artistic expression and my right to interact with this broken world." Kelleher, who denies one charge of damaging property, had planned the attack as soon as he heard that the statue was to go on display at the gallery, the court heard. Kelleher, of Isleworth, west London, said: "I didn't have anything against Margaret Thatcher personally, just what she stands for." After the attack he sat on a bench and "calmly" awaited the arrival of security staff. "The objective was served as soon as I severed the head," he said. "I wanted to be caught but I didn't want to be caught before I had done it." John Hardy, prosecuting, told the court that Kelleher, who has a young son, was neither a "mindless thug" nor "some vandal bent on random destruction". Mr Hardy appealed to the jury to put aside any personal feelings towards Lady Thatcher.
He added: "It is right to say that the Thatcher years engendered a great deal of polarised feeling. Some people feel Lady Thatcher was a saviour of her country, a victor of the Falklands war, someone who single-handedly pulled our economy out of the doldrums and put our society on a better road. "Others regard the Thatcher years as the economy of the greengrocer producing irreparable social division and producing a system of privatisation, the flaws of which we are reaping nowadays."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
More problems for Athens Athens
- Dig nearly anywhere in Athens and you come across antiquities. Good news for archaeologists but bad news for organisers trying to frantically build 2004 Olympic sites on time for the world's largest sporting event. "It is a problem in Greece generally. Wherever you dig, you find antiquities," Tilemachos Hitiris, the Greek government's 2004 Olympics spokesperson said. So far, Olympic organisers have been spared major complications in their race against the clock as none of the finds or ruins have cancelled venue plans. However, every new excavation has resulted in public controversy and significant delays. "In Greece, there are strict protection laws concerning antiquities, so if antiquities suddenly present themselves, the construction work will stop so that the excavation can start," said Nicoletta Valakou, the head of prehistoric and classical antiquities department of the Culture Ministry. "Plans are often changed and months of delays are not uncommon," she added. "It is a very strict law," said Panos Protopsaltis, the 2004 Athens organising committee's transportation general manager. "Whenever you discover something, you do not just improvise, you call in the archaeologists and they come and impose their own rules. We may not like their pace, but we respect their mission." In the case of the equestrian site in Marcopoulos, about 16 kilometres southeast of Athens, archaeologists conducted a total of 20 digs after discovering a 2 500-year-old shrine to the love goddess Aphrodite, which is also believed to have served as a brothel.
Olympic construction eventually resumed after extensive delays, but only where archaeologists were not working. Digging carefully through swampy ground by hand, archaeologists unearthed the ruins of 4 000- year-old ancient dwellings at the site of the 2004 Olympic rowing centre at Schinias, about 28 kilometres northeast of Athens. Here too, construction resumed only after the government agreed to dismantle the remains of the three early Bronze Age dwellings and move them a short distance from their original sites. But the short move took weeks of preparations. "We dug underneath the foundations by hand, made small holes and poured the cement into them. That way we were able to create a cement grid to be lifted by cranes," said Valakou.
Public debate
The recent finds at Schinias have set off a public debate about the struggle to deliver the 2004 venues on time and to still respect Greece's history and environment. The rowing centre has been the centre of a public feud between the Greek government and environmental groups and archeologists. Opponents of the project claim the facility will endanger birds, fish and rare species of pine, and will encroach on the site of the 490 B.C. Battle of Marathon, after which the modern race is named. Olympic organisers insist no damage will come to the delicate ecosystem. They also said the site was under water at the time of the Athenian's victory over the Persians at Marathon, a claim challenged by the discoveries. Archaeologists have also unearthed fragments from a second century A.D. Roman aqueduct built by the Emperor Hadrian at the Olympic Village. After delays caused by negotiations with the department of antiquities, Olympic officials decided to include the ancient ruins as part of the village's design. While the majority of the protests have been resolved much still remains to be done. Building venues for 28 sports and constructing appropriate housing for 10 500 athletes and 21 000 journalists is only a part of the massive project. Securing transportation for the thousands of fans, athletes, journalists and volunteers is the real hurdle. While the new airport and metro are currently functioning, work on highway extensions and a badly needed tram system have barely begun. The Greeks are hoping that their special history, ancient settings and passion for the games will lead people to forgive traffic delays and other setbacks. "We will have Games on a human scale," said Athens 2004 Olympic Organiser Gianna Angelopoulou-Daskalaki. The marathon race will retrace the route of the first marathon man, who ran to Athens with news of victory from the battle at Marathon.
Cyclists will race around the base of the Acropolis hill and the archery competition will be held in the Panathenaic Stadium, the site of the first modern games in 1896. - Sapa-DPA
http://www.news24.com/
Return of remains at risk
By Peter Fray Europe Correspondent London December 18 2002
Britain's long-running dispute with Greece over the return of the Elgin Marbles sculptures threatens to stall Australian efforts to repatriate thousands of Aboriginal remains from leading British museums. Members of an independent British working group, due to report on the export of human remains, say they have recently been warned against recommending law reforms that might indirectly assist the Greeks. British laws now effectively prevent the return of remains from the British and Natural History Museums, which house the country's largest collections of Aboriginal remains. The Greek Government has recently renewed efforts to have the marbles, given to the British Museum by the Earl of Elgin in 1816, returned in time for the Athens Olympics in 2004. The working group of prominent academics, museum curators and lawyers is expected early next year to recommend repatriation of human bones and other tissues, often taken without the permission or knowledge of Aboriginal people during the 19th and 20th centuries. But group members told The Age a government official had recently warned them not to compromise Britain's position on the Elgin Marbles. The deputy director of the British Museums Association, Maurice Davis, said the Blair Government appeared nervous about introducing legislation that could be used by Greece. "It was made clear to us that the Department of Culture is worried that campaigners may make a link between any legislation about (returning) human remains and the Elgin Marbles," he said. Dr Davies would not discuss the report but said it would be "sympathetic and understanding" to repatriation. A survey by the group has found human remains, including Aboriginal, in more than 60 British museums.
A government spokeswoman denied that any attempt had been made to link repatriation of human remains with the Elgin Marbles. She said the marbles were owned by the British Museum and their return to Greece was a matter for the museum's board. "The issues are not linked and the working group has not had this type of warning," she said. But another group member backed up Dr Davies and said it was "not the first time" the department had expressed concerns about the Elgin Marbles. Britain's reluctance to reform museum laws appears to undermine the joint statement in favour of repatriations made by Prime Minister John Howard and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in July, 2000. At the meeting, Mr Howard said he "understood the difficulties involved". Lyndon Ormond Parker, a London-based Aboriginal researcher and postgraduate student, called on Australia to step up diplomatic pressure on the British Government to return human remains. Aboriginal people would pursue British museums through European courts if the Blair Government proved incapable of dealing with the issue, he said.
http://www.theage.com.au/
THE AGE - EDITORIAL - Melbourne Australia
Transparency and glass cases
December 15 2002
Museums that seek to retain plundered or culturally sensitive artefacts should think again.
The model of anthropologist Baldwin Spencer, which sits in a glass case in the Melbourne Museum's Aboriginal centre, Bunjilaka, challenges us to ask what he might be doing there. The words painted on the glass - "We do not choose to be enshrined in a glass case with our story told by an alien institution which has appointed itself ambassador for our culture" - are from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre. Under Tasmanian law - the first of its kind in the world - indigenous Tasmanian remains must be returned to Tasmania. The skeleton of Truganini, long described as the last Tasmanian Aborigine, was displayed in a glass case in the Tasmanian Museum until 1947. But a revolution in understanding has taken place since then; a revolution that has changed, and also enriched, our ideas about what a museum might be. The Melbourne Museum had its own extensive collection of Aboriginal artefacts, but has returned objects of cultural significance to their traditional owners. It also houses a "keeping place" where precious objects are kept in trust for their communities. The Melbourne Museum's progressive attitude, and its willingness to adapt to changing circumstances, provide an interesting contrast to the declaration by a group of leading American and European museums last week. Although the declaration opposes the traffic in illegal artefacts, it argues that "objects acquired in earlier times must be viewed in the light of different sensitivities and values reflective of that earlier era". It says the decision to repatriate objects must be made on a case-by-case basis; that museums have played an important role in educating the public about ancient civilisations and "serve not just the citizens of one nation but the people of every nation". The declaration was not signed by the British Museum, which is under intense pressure to return the Parthenon marbles to Greece, but its director, Neil MacGregor, said he supported the declaration's intent. The British Museum has a collection of Aboriginal remains. The question of the repatriation of human remains held by British institutions is being examined by a House of Commons working group and its report will be released soon. Some overseas institutions - including London's Natural History Museum - have resisted returning human remains to their descendants in other countries. Although the issue of human remains raises questions quite separate from that involved in the repatriation of artworks, the reasons given by those institutions keen on keeping their collections intact are often the same in both cases: they argue that it is the integrity of the collection- rather than the concerns of the traditional owners - that should take precedence. In the case of the Parthenon marbles, the Greek Government counters, quite rightly, that the statues belong on the site from which they were taken. A new museum built to house the marbles stands on the Acropolis; the room designed for the statues has a glass wall showing the backdrop of the Parthenon behind them. Although it is understandable that the British are reluctant to give up such a splendid exhibit, they have no moral or cultural justification for not doing so. Philhellenes such as Lord Byron viewed Lord Elgin's taking of the marbles in 1806 as an act of vandalism and theft at the time. Even taking into account the "sensitivities and values of an earlier era", the acquisition was a dubious one. In the case of human remains, the "sensitivities and values" that allowed themto be taken and displayed in the first place have been so thoroughly discredited that a decision to keep such collections intact would appear, at this stage, like an endorsement of the racism and cultural imperialism that allowed such collections to be amassed. A London-based Aboriginal researcher and postgraduate student, Lyndon Ormond Parker, says the museums' declaration is a sign that they believe themselves to be under serious threat from the repatriation movement. The case that the museums put for their own cause - "The universal admiration for ancient civilisations would not be so deeply established today were it not for the influence exercised by the artefacts of these cultures, widely available to an international public in major museums" - is not without merit. Museums have played an important role in scholarship and education, but, as the case of the Melbourne Museum demonstrates, this role can be enhanced if museums are prepared to take an honest look at their past practices and to make a call on the most ethical way to settle mistakes made by their predecessors. This is not to endorse the wholesale repatriation of artefacts - it may well be that some collections will be better off in a well-funded museum than in their land of origin. It would be wrong to assume, however, that this is automatically the case. As the Baldwin Spencer exhibit eloquently demonstrates, some cultural practices are not only outdated, but offensive. They are best kept in a glass case.
http://www.theage.com.au/
State Hermitage Refuses to Return Works of Art
The State Hermitage has declared that it will not return works of art to their countries of origin. As a Rosbalt correspondent reports, this was announced on Monday, December 16, at an ITAR- TASS press conference by Director of the State Hermitage Museum Mikhail Piotrovsky.
In Mr Piotrovsky's opinion, various countries' demands that works of art held in museums abroad be returned to their countries of origin amounts to "stealing stolen property", an old Bolshevik slogan. 'We are not talking about those works of art that appeared in museums after the Second World War or which are now being smuggled out of their countries of origin,' said the director of the museum. However there are a lot of 'foreign' works of art located in museums, which were acquired in different circumstances. Mr Piotrovsky said that if we were to 'globalize the problem' then the whole of the Louvre's Egyptian section would have to be returned to Egypt, all Greek works of art, scattered across the globe, would have to be returned to Greece and the Hat of Monomakh, which is kept in the Kremlin, would have to be returned to Kazan as it was made by Tatar craftsmen. 'It is only worth talking about restitution when works of art have special national value,' he emphasised. However, he is sure that there could be different interpretations of this: the Parthenon did not have any special value for Greeks of the Middle Ages, their work has "returned" to them via Europe, after the Renaissance. 'In large museums like the Hermitage, the Louvre and others which don't specialize in any area of art, there are many works of art that have been removed from their historic and territorial origins. At the same time the collections of these museums display culture that is common to all humankind,' he emphasised.
http://english.pravda.ru/
Preservation of Cultural Heritage in Ethiopia
Renovation of two palaces
The palaces of Menelik II in Addis Ababa and of Yohannnes IV in Makelle will be renovated. The two rulers are considered to have led the foundation of modern Ethiopia.
The Menelik Palace was built in 1877, when the city of Addis Ababa was founded, i.e. two years before the Negus of Shoa became the Emperor of Ethiopia. The palace has a remarkable pavilion system with outstanding wooden stairs and structures. In the structure one finds both African, Arabic and Indian elements. The most beautiful part of the palace is the prayer house. In addition it has bedrooms of the Emperor and the Empress, the office of the Emerpor's minister for Defense and the Council building. It also has a dinner and a coronation hall.
The Palace in Makelle was built during the reign of Yohannes (1872-1889). It is a big square, stone structure and reminds more of a defense work than the Menelik palace.
Austria will fund the feasibility study and the renovation. Austrain architects and restorers will cooperate with Ethiopian experts. The project will take four and a half year. The costst will be around US$ 13, 5 million.
According to Jara Hailemariam, head of the Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage, Ethiopia's preservation policy has several pillars. First of all the conservation of World Heritage sites, such as the rock hewn churches in Lalibela and the archaeological sites in Axum. Next the return of artifacts which have been looted in the past, such as the Maqdala treasures which were taken away by British soldiers in 1868 from Makdala. The country has been rather succesful. During the last years a tabot, an amulet and some other treasures were brought back. Then the fight against the present illicit traffic. To this end Ethiopia is in the process of making an inventarisation of precious treasures in the thousands of churches and monasteries. In 1999 a precious cross, stolen from one of the Lalibela churches, was returned to the country. Jos van Beurden
Austrian City to Return Looted Art
By VANESSA GERA, Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria - An Austrian city has agreed to return a $10 million painting seized by the Nazis to the heirs of its original Jewish owner. The 1916 "View of Krumau" by Austrian master Egon Schiele will likely be returned next year to the heirs of Daisy Hellman, who fled Austria after the Nazi occupation. The work depicts a colorful village on the banks of a dark river. Since 1953 it has been in the possession of the New Gallery, a museum in Linz, about 100 miles west of Vienna. "Morally, this return is justified," Linz Mayor Franz Dobusch said Tuesday in announcing the decision. The museum, which purchased the painting without knowing it had been seized by the Nazis, was not legally bound to give the painting to Hellmann's heirs. But city officials said it was important to do so. "I see the return as a necessary and logical way to come to terms with the past and ensure compensation" for the victims, vice-mayor Reinhard Dyk was quoted as saying by the Austria Press Agency. Vienna's Jewish community has been working with Hellmann's seven legal heirs for three years in their attempt to regain the work. "This is a valuable painting and I understand it was hard for Linz to give it back," said community representative Erika Jakubovits. "But there is a moral obligation — it was absolutely clear how it came to be their property." The painting was seized by the Gestapo after Hellmann fled. In 1942, it was sold by a Vienna auction house to a collector from Berlin, Wolfgang Gurlitt. He sold his collection to the city of Linz in 1953. The Linz city council must approve the handover of the painting, but the vote in January is largely expected to be a formality. Austria was annexed to Adolf Hitler's Germany in 1938. During the Third Reich, the Nazis confiscated and destroyed nearly all synagogues and other Jewish community property in Austria.