Repatriation of Cultural Artifacts: Overview

Introduction

Although it may seem simple enough to decide to repatriate, or return, human remains and artifacts to their country of origin, the issue of who owns cultural artifacts and where they belong remains contested and thorny. Museums across the world preserve and interpret art and artifacts from other countries and cultures, and some argue that they are in the best position to care for these objects.

The case of the so-called Elgin Marbles is perhaps the best-known controversy over repatriation and has drawn international attention for decades. These fifth-century BCE Greek sculptures, originally integrated into the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis, were removed and shipped to England by agents of Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin, who claimed to have received permission to do so from the Ottoman Empire. He sold the sculptures to the British government in 1816, and they reside in the British Museum, which millions of people visit every year. The Greek government has sought the return of the sculptures since 1832, shortly after gaining independence from the Ottomans, and though their efforts are supported by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and many others, the British Museum remains committed to keeping the sculptures in London, arguing that they are as at home there as are the other sculptures from the site, which reside in a museum in Greece and not in their original location.

Adding to the complexity of the issue is the legacy of colonialism throughout the world. Many cultural artifacts were taken from indigenous peoples, including Native Americans, whose rights were subsumed by the dominant culture. These artifacts were treated as objects of curiosity and highlighted the perceived savagery or exoticism of cultures and traditions that were being destroyed by colonial expansion. Still, hundreds of years later, museums across the world point to the level of care and protection that these artifacts receive and the careful, nuanced interpretation that they now provide and question why, in a multicultural world where all can benefit from cross-cultural education, they are being pushed to return artifacts to places with inadequate or far-flung facilities and potentially unstable governance.

Understanding the Discussion

Artifact: An object made or used by human beings; generally, an item that demonstrates an element of historical or cultural importance.

Colonialism: The act or policy of one country acquiring control of another in order to occupy it and exploit it for economic and political gain.

Elgin Marbles: Also called the Parthenon Sculptures, a collection of sculptures that were acquired by agents of Lord Elgin in Athens, Greece, between 1801 and 1809 and that are displayed at the British Museum in London, England.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO): A specialized agency of the United Nations aimed at contributing to “the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information.”

History

Cultural artifacts have been taken by foreign powers, often in times of war, since the earliest recorded history. One of the earliest cultural objects known to have been taken during wartime is the stele of King Naram-Sin of Akkad, now in the Louvre Museum in Paris, France. Made around 2250 BCE, it was taken to the capital of the Elamites, in present-day Iran, about a thousand years later. French archeologists found it in 1898 and shipped it back to France. Similarly, Greek art and artifacts were looted and displayed in Rome, and it was during the reign of Roman emperor Augustus that the first recorded repatriation took place, as he returned some artifacts to Greece.

During the Renaissance, as Europe rediscovered the works of classical antiquity, art and artifacts moved across Europe. During the Napoleonic Wars, the French engaged in widespread looting on the Italian Peninsula, justifying their actions by identifying themselves as the heirs of Rome. The Louvre, a former royal residence, was used to showcase much of this plunder, including the statue of Laocoön and His Sons, which warranted its own triumphal procession. Napoleon attempted to create an encyclopedic museum of art, with French culture triumphant and ascendant.

Napoleon is also partially responsible for the Western world’s abiding fascination with Egyptian artifacts. When he invaded Egypt in 1798, he brought with him a cadre of scientists and architects, who catalogued and removed artifacts as they went. The French campaign in Egypt was short-lived, and many of the artifacts from that expedition were claimed by the British and brought to the British Museum. The publication of Description de l’Égypte (1809–28), which included 837 copperplate engravings and some three thousand drawings, helped to spur a wave of Egyptomania, a fervor for all things Egyptian, that swept through the Western world again in the 1870–80s and in the 1920s, after the discovery of pharaoh Tutankhamen’s tomb.

Napoleon was also indirectly responsible for the first large-scale voluntary repatriation in modern history, when Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, oversaw the return of plundered art and artifacts after defeating the French at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Artifacts were returned to Spain, Prussia, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, the Papal States, and other Italian states. Wellington also first articulated the idea that it is a moral act to return artifacts to their countries, writing in 1815 that Britain and her allies, “having the contents of the museum justly in their power, could not do otherwise than restore them to the countries from which, contrary to the practice of civilized warfare, they had been torn.”

The seizure and display of cultural artifacts, and even the use of people and human remains as artifacts, is tied to another kind of cultural violence as European powers invaded and colonized much of the world. The collecting of “curiosities,” exotic objects collected or acquired through trade or plunder, was popular in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe. This can be seen as giving rise to the Eurocentric archeology of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that encouraged the collection and analysis of cultural artifacts in a way that supported colonial dominance, often working for governments intent on the eradication of the very “vanishing” cultures it claimed to be preserving. In Egypt, for example, European archeologists lauded the magnificence and sophistication of ancient Egypt while expressing contempt for the living Egyptians they encountered.

Colonizers filled museums with the cultural artifacts they had acquired, supporting the idea that they had mastery of the world. As colonized areas began to assert their national identities and regain independence, however, the return of cultural artifacts became important to reclaim some measure of precolonial identity. In many cases, artifacts were displayed in ways that were disrespectful or demeaning, as in the case of human remains or religious artifacts. For example, in August 2018, Germany returned human remains to Namibia, gruesome relics of what has been called the twentieth century’s first genocide. Moreover, pseudoscientific studies using these remains, taken from Herero and Nama people who fought German colonizers between 1904 and 1908, had been considered proof of European racial superiority by the Nazi regime.

In addition to nation-states demanding the return of objects associated with national identity, indigenous groups have identified objects of their heritage and sought their return. Many of these objects were taken through coercion, fraud, or outright theft, and are considered vital to the survival of indigenous cultures.

Repatriation of Cultural Artifacts Today

Few institutions today would argue that cultural artifacts are proof of a culture’s savagery or the rightness of colonialism, but debates over who is the best caretaker for these objects and who is qualified to claim them continue to rage. Some scholars and museum professionals argue against the idea of a national government having a right to claim a cultural artifact just because it originated its modern-day borders. Identity is fluid and changeable, they argue. The determining factor should be who can best care for and share these artifacts for the benefit of all, regardless of postcolonial national borders. This issue becomes more complicated when applied to indigenous peoples, whose cultural ties may transcend national boundaries. The return of indigenous artifacts is often not covered by the international agreements that set the standard for the repatriation of cultural artifacts.

The 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property was the first international treaty agreement to focus on the return of cultural artifacts to states where they originated. In the United States in 1990, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) provided a framework for the return of objects held in museums and by federal agencies. Certain items of cultural significance—such as sacred objects, human remains, funerary artifacts, and “objects of cultural patrimony”—are to be returned to those American Indians or Native Hawaiians with proven lineal descent or “cultural affiliation.” In 2008 the Association of Art Museum Directors, representing museum administrators throughout North America, agreed to align their acquisitions with the UNESCO stance, helping to curb the ongoing black market in artifacts and spurring a wave of repatriation of stolen goods.

International repatriation settlements can be but are not always controversial. In 2020 the United States government recovered and returned 479 cultural and historical antiquities to Haiti. After years of acrimony, an agreement between Yale University and the government of Peru returned thousands of legally acquired artifacts, including human bones, to Machu Picchu by 2013 and established an academic partnership between Yale and a Peruvian university.

The debate over the Elgin Marbles is an interesting study of how this issue has evolved over time. After Lord Elgin received the sculptures, along with what may have been a forged document granting their export from the Ottoman Empire, they were sold to the British government in 1816 and transferred to the British Museum. Some have argued that even if the Ottomans did give Elgin permission, the removal was wrong as the Ottomans were occupiers; others maintained that Elgin rescued the sculptures from total ruin. After two centuries of international pressure to return the marbles, the sculptures may become part of the negotiations between the European Union (EU) and the United Kingdom as it leaves the EU. However, Hartwig Fischer, the director of the British Museum, asserted, “Since the beginning of the nineteenth century, the monument’s history is enriched by the fact that some [parts of it] are in Athens and some are in London where six million people see them every year.”

These essays and any opinions, information, or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

About the Author

Bethany Groff Dorau is a freelance writer, museum manager, and local historian based in West Newbury, Massachusetts. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in history and sociology and a master of arts degree in history, both from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

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