Should museum relics return to their native lands? It's an increasingly common question, with repeated calls for artefacts like the Rosetta Stone and Parthenon Sculptures (also known as the Elgin Marbles) to be repatriated. At the heart of the debate lies the issue of cultural heritage: who really owns it and what responsibilities do museums have to the people and nations whose objects were taken? 

Here we take a look at some of the most controversial relics still held in museums abroad...

Priam was the last king of Troy, the semi-mythical city famously destroyed in the Trojan War by Agamemnon, Achilles and other hell-raising heroes of ancient Greece. A 4,500-year-old treasure collection (supposedly) belonging to him was unearthed by German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the late 19th century. 

The collection remained with the Royal Museums of Berlin until 1945, when it was quietly taken by the Soviets at the end of World War II. It later reappeared in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow in 1994, with Russia stating that they’d keep the items as compensation for the destruction of its cities by Nazi Germany during the war. 

As the treasure was found in Troy, located in modern-day Turkey, the nation is also involved in diplomatic efforts to have the treasure returned, which have so far been unsuccessful.

In 1898, two male lions attacked up to 135 railway construction workers in Tsavo (modern-day Kenya) before being shot dead by Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Patterson, the head engineer of the project.

The lions' skins and skulls were sold to Chicago’s Field Museum in 1925, where they have remained on public display ever since. Kenya maintains that the two lions are part of their cultural history and should be returned.

The Parthenon Sculptures once adorned the Parthenon in Athens, a temple built by the ancient Greeks. In the early 19th century, Thomas Bruce – the seventh Earl of Elgin and British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which occupied Greece at the time – removed sections of the panel sculptures from above the columns and brought them to Britain. 

Acquired by the British Museum in 1816, they are still on display, known to many as the Elgin Marbles. The relics remain controversial, with 59% of the British public believing they should be returned to Greece. But in 2024, George Osborne, chairman of the British Museum, said a deal to return them, perhaps as a long-term loan, was "still some distance" away.

Two early 20th-century paintings by Pablo Picasso – Boy Leading a Horse and Le Moulin de la Galette – are housed at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Guggenheim Museum, respectively.

The heirs of their original owner (Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, from a prominent Jewish family) claimed the paintings were sold under duress during World War II, but came to an out-of-court settlement allowing the artworks to remain at the New York City institutions.

Bronze artworks from the Benin Empire (located in modern-day southwest Nigeria) are gradually being returned to the Nigerian government from countries including Germany, France, the UK and the US. In October 2022 three US institutions returned items including a bronze sculptural head of an oba (king), while London’s Horniman Museum and Gardens has agreed to transfer 72 items back. 

Will the British Museum follow suit? It has a collection of around 900 objects, known as The Benin Bronzes, dating back to the 13th-17th centuries, which were looted by British soldiers in 1897. The museum says it "remains open to discussion" about the issue, but their return seems unlikely for now.

Dating to roughly 50 BC, the astonishing Dendera Zodiac is one of the best-preserved ancient depictions of observable stars and zodiac graphics. In 1820, a man named LeLorrain was commissioned by a French antiques dealer to remove the map (using explosives) from the Hathor Temple in Qena, Egypt. 

It was quickly sold to King Louis XVIII, and today the circular map is suspended from the ceiling in the Louvre’s Egyptian section. Although a petition to return it was started in 2022, for now the Hathor Temple makes do with a plaster cast replica. 

Egyptian archaeologists are still demanding the return of the Bust of Nefertiti, which has been in Germany since 1913. The astonishingly detailed limestone sculpture, which dates back to around 1340 BC, depicts Queen Nefertiti, the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten and potential stepmother of Tutankhamun.

The bust is currently one of the star exhibits at Berlin's Neues Museum, and is likely to remain there, as German authorities maintain it’s too fragile to be returned. It was almost returned in the 1930s, but Hitler thwarted the negotiations. 

In 1799, the Rosetta Stone was uncovered in northern Egypt by Napoleon's army, but became British property in 1801 following the French general's defeat in Egypt. It's been housed at the British Museum since 1802, where it is one of the museum's most famous exhibits. 

The relic from 196 BC bears inscriptions of the same text in Egyptian hieroglyphics, ancient Greek and demotics (a colloquial Egyptian script), which helped researchers finally translate hieroglyphics for the first time in 1822. In October 2022 there were renewed calls from leading Egyptian archaeologists to return the artefact to its country of origin.

The Koh-i-Noor diamond likely originates from the Golconda mines in central southern India. In 1849, it was 'surrendered' to Queen Victoria by the 10-year-old Maharajah Duleep Singh following Britain's annexation of his Punjab kingdom. In 1937, it was set in the Crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and can now be seen on display at the Tower of London. 

Numerous countries claim it as their own, but the British government remains firm. However, in a concession to the controversy, Queen Camilla did not wear the crown for King Charles III's coronation in May 2023.

Paolo Veronese’s biblical Wedding at Cana (1563) adorned Venice’s San Giorgio Maggiore monastery until 1797, when Napoleonic troops took the painting from the monastery's refectory wall and shipped it to Paris. 

The 32-foot-long (9.7m) artwork is now the Louvre's biggest painting. Venetians have made numerous attempts to reclaim the astonishing work – but so far have only been sent a full-size, high-tech facsimile of the painting, which is on display at the original monastery.

Eight carvings of soapstone birds once adorned the large stonewalled settlement of Great Zimbabwe, an abandoned Iron Age palatial complex. They were eventually stolen by colonisers, including Cecil Rhodes, the imperialist founder of Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe and Zambia). 

All but one bird has been returned – the missing relic remains on Rhodes’ former estate Groote Schuur, which is now technically owned by the South African government. They have yet to return it, despite international efforts.

The Old Fisherman from Aphrodisias, a statue owned by Berlin's Pergamon Museum (currently closed for refurbishment), combines the original torso, unearthed in Turkey in 1904, with a replica head. But things became complicated when archaeologists discovered the original head at the same site in 1989.

Although Turkey is still striving to reunite the two pieces by bringing the torso back, German authorities maintain that the torso was bought legally and have no plans to return it. Pictured here is a cast copy of what the piece may have originally looked like.

A selection of Maqdala Ethiopian Treasures are still on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, including this glittering gold crown. Following the battle of Maqdala in 1868, the British stole thousands of priceless items and destroyed the Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros's fortress. 

In 2020 the V&A began a dialogue with Ethiopia to return the treasures, with the suggestion of a long-term loan as a first step, but so far no other action has been taken.

One of Easter Island's acclaimed Moai statues is on public display at the British Museum, despite the descendants of those who carved the huge statues requesting its return. Standing at 7.9 feet (2.4m) tall, the Hoa Hakananai’a was built around AD 1000-1200 and brought to London in 1869. The museum currently has no plans to give it up.

By comparison, a museum in Chile's capital Santiago returned a Moai Tau del Ivi Tupuna to the remote island in 2022. The statues embody the spirits of Rapa Nui ancestors, the island's Polynesian inhabitants.

A wooden sculpture of a woman (known as the Bangwa Queen) represents the power and health of the Bangwa people, with huge sacred significance for Cameroonians. The 32-inch-tall (81cm) carving came to Europe in the late 19th century and was owned by collectors, museums and art dealers before coming into the possession of the Dapper Foundation. 

Despite their Paris museum closing in 2017, the foundation has so far resisted calls from traditional Bangwa leaders for its return, stating that the sculpture will continue to appear in exhibitions around the world.

At the American Museum of Natural History, century-old headpieces (similar to the one pictured here), medicine rings and crystals belonging to the Apache tribe are being held in stasis thanks to a longstanding logistics issue. 

Although the New York City museum has agreed to return over 70 items, the Apaches insist they should be legally classified as 'sacred objects' and 'objects of cultural patrimony' instead of the museum's preferred 'cultural items'; a classification that does not acknowledge the Apache's original creation and ownership of the items.

Belgium's Africa Museum opened in 1898. Originally known as the Royal Museum for Central Africa, it houses some 120,000 items from Africa. Mostly looted from the Democratic Republic of the Congo during Belgium's colonisation, items include wooden figures (pictured), a Nkisi Nkonde (power figure) statue and an intricate mask made by the Luba people. 

In 2022 the Belgian government returned 84,000 Congolese artefacts, but this still met with controversy as the catalogue wasn't made public, meaning that Congolese citizens were unable to know exactly what was transferred nor request that other artefacts be returned.

Painted in 1634, The Descent from the Cross depicts Jesus being cared for after his death. Few of Rembrandt's works left the Netherlands, but this artwork was taken to France during the Napoleonic period.

Acquired by Emperor Alexander I from the former Empress of France Josephine in 1814, it's now on display at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. Russia has refused to return the painting on multiple occasions, a situation that is unlikely to change.

Described as the world’s first human rights charter, the 2,500-year-old Cyrus Cylinder is inscribed in ancient cuneiform script and records Persian King Cyrus’s conquest of Babylon in 539 BC. 

A key part of Iranian national identity, the status of its acquisition has been contested – Iran maintains it was stolen, while the British Museum claims the relic was legally excavated in 1897. The cylinder did briefly go on display in Tehran in 2010 and was exhibited across the US before returning to the London institution.

A stunning ceremonial cape crafted from solid gold, the Mold Gold Cape was unearthed by workmen digging at the Bryn yr Ellyllon burial mound near Mold in Flintshire, Wales, in 1833. Dating from between 1900 and 1600 BC, it is considered to be one of the finest gold objects from bronze age Europe.

The cape was acquired by the British Museum in 1836, but there have been recent calls from Welsh politicians and academics to have it returned from London to Wales. For now, however, the cape is staying put.

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