News

Explaining why a looted artefact should be returned to its country or community of origin can sometimes be straightforward. But explaining how is altogether different

A unique shell necklace believed to originate from the Bass Strait islands has been returned by The Hunterian collection to representatives from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) who travelled to Glasgow to carry it home

Laying Ancestors to Rest pulls no punches. The recommendations made in a new policy brief published by the All Party-Parliamentary Group on Afrikan-Reparations (APPG-AR) include making the sale of human remains illegal and putting an end to the public display of ancestral remains

What will it take to break the British Museum’s determination not to explain when an object is ‘unfit to be retained’?

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