NEWS
News
Topical news to help promote and raise the public profile of cultural restitution
Articles with up to date facts, information and current research to ensure the debate is better informed
There are several reasons why Britain’s new Labour administration may be closer to agreeing a loan of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece than the previous Conservative government, even though a full transfer of ownership remains firmly off the agenda
Investigations into the collecting patterns of major US museums has resulted in two immensely readable and influential books covering today’s illegal trade in trafficking antiquities: Chasing Aphrodite and The Medici Conspiracy
In a handover ceremony at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford this week, a cherished cultural object – a sunhat taken violently by British colonisers during punitive expeditions to Sarawak - was returned to the Kenyah Badeng community
Discussions held at the end of last month between a delegation of Maasai community leaders from Kenya and Tanzania and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford prove that repatriation is not the only solution for the care of culturally sensitive objects
Britain’s new culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, wants government to adopt a more consistent approach to repatriation. This could lead to amending legislation that allows national museums to start repatriating contested objects
Hard on the heels of an agreement last May to return a looted Greek bronze head to the Republic of Türkiye, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has announced plans to return another looted artefact to that country
Last week the archaeologist and former Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities Dr Zahi Hawass launched a new petition urging Germany to repatriate the life-sized painted bust of Queen Nefertiti
A growing willingness by museums to reach out and canvas local communities and stakeholders for help resolving the future of contentious objects provides a voice for diaspora communities in the restitution debate
Hard on the heels of the UCLA Fowler Museum’s return of 20 objects to the Warumungu community of Northern Territory, Australia in July, comes news this month of an agreement by London’s Horniman Museum and Gardens to transfer ownership of 10 further Warumungu objects
Struggling to make progress in the restitution of artworks stolen by the Nazis, last month the German government put forward new draft legislation designed to make it easier to enforce claims for the return of stolen artworks
