Should museum relics return to their native lands? It's an increasingly common question, with renewed calls for the likes of the Rosetta Stone and Parthenon Sculptures (AKA the Elgin Marbles) to be repatriated. In December 2022, Pope Francis decided to 'donate' three pieces of the Parthenon marbles from the Vatican Museums to the Greek Orthodox Church. And we're starting to see more artefacts reunite with their home countries – for example, 192 looted pre-Islamic antiquities are being returned to Pakistan from New York. However, fights for certain treasures continue; take a look at some of the most controversial relics still held in museums abroad.
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. The pieces were acquired by the British Museum in 1816 and are still on display, known to many as the Elgin Marbles. The relics remain controversial, with 54% of the British public believing they should be returned to Greece.
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, and remained with the Royal Museums of Berlin until 1945, when it was quietly pinched by the Soviets at the end of the Second World War. 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 war.
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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.
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 the Second World War, 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. It’s hoped the British Museum – which holds some 900 objects alone – will follow suit. The Benin Bronzes, as they’re otherwise known, date back to the 13th-17th centuries and were looted by British soldiers in 1897.
The staggering Dendera Zodiac is one of the best-preserved ancient depictions of observable stars and zodiac graphics, dating roughly to 50 BC. In 1820, a man named LeLorrain was commissioned to remove the map (using explosives) from the Hathor Temple in Qena, Egypt. When it arrived in France, it was quickly sold to King Louis XVIII. The circular map is currently suspended from the ceiling in the Louvre’s Egyptian section, while a plaster cast replica can be seen at the temple.
Egyptian archaeologists are still demanding the return of the Bust of Nefertiti, which has been in Germany since 1913. The detailed relic was almost returned in the 1930s, but Hitler thwarted the negotiations. It is currently on display at Berlin's Neues Museum. German authorities maintain it’s too fragile to be returned. The limestone sculpture dates back to around 1340 BC and depicts Queen Nefertiti, the wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten and potential stepmother of Tutankhamun.
In 1799, the Rosetta Stone was discovered in northern Egypt by Napoleon's army, but became British property in 1801 following the Emperor's defeat in Egypt. It's been housed at the British Museum since 1802. The relic from 196 BC bears inscriptions of the same text in Egyptian hieroglyphics, ancient Greek and demotics (a colloquial Egyptian script), which meant hieroglyphics could finally be translated in 1822. In October 2022 there were renewed calls from leading Egyptian archaeologists to return the artefact to its origin country.
The Koh-i-Noor diamond likely originates from the Golconda mines in central southern India. In 1849, it was 'surrendered' to Queen Victoria by 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. Adding to the controversy is whether Camilla (Queen Consort) will 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 on display at Berlin's Pergamon Museum, includes the original torso (unearthed from the Aphrodisias excavation site in Turkey in 1904) and 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 thus 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. The V&A is currently in dialogue with Ethiopia to return the treasures, but no 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. The Hoa Hakananai’a was built around AD 1000-1200 and brought to London in 1869, and stands at 7.9 feet (2.4m) tall. By comparison, a museum in Chile's capital Santiago recently returned a Moai Tau del Ivi Tupuna to the remote island. 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 held by collectors, museums and art dealers before being owned by the Dapper Foundation. Despite their Paris museum closing in 2017, the foundation stated the Bangwa Queen will continue to appear in exhibitions around the world, despite traditional Bangwa leaders requesting its return.
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 prevented from returning 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 was still met with controversy as the catalogue wasn't made fully public, meaning ordinary Congolese citizens are unable to know exactly what was transferred – nor request other artefacts to 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. It's now on display at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg; Russia has refused to return the painting on multiple occasions.
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 vital aspect of Iranian national identity, it’s contested as to how it was acquired – 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.
Black Lives Bristol’s protest against police brutality and racial inequality in June 2020 saw a landmark statue of slave trader Edward Colston graffitied, pulled down and thrown into Bristol Harbour. While his toppled statue went on display at Bristol’s M Shed museum for seven months, the ensuing controversy led the 18-foot (5.5m) statue to be moved to the museum’s collection store instead. In April 2022, the British government gave approval for the statue to go back on display at a Bristol museum, so watch this space…
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