Witchcraft & Pagan News - Lyonel Perabo reviews "The Museum of Other People" by Adam Kuper and uses his experiences as a museum guide to consider the problems of repatriating artifacts and artworks. | Book Reviews, Paganism, Perspectives, Reviews
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The Dutch government has returned 1,500 historical artifacts to Indonesia, four years after an agreement was made with the Education and Culture Ministry. Credit: National Museum Jakarta “Basically, there are 1,500 [objects] that used to be held in the Nusantara Museum in Delft, Netherlands, which were returned to Indonesia through the national museum,” Education and Culture Ministry culture director-general Hilman Farid said at a press conference at the National Museum in Central Jakarta as quoted by tempo.co. The 100-year-old Nusantara Museum was the only museum in the Netherlands dedicated specifically to art and cultural objects from Indonesia, a former Dutch colony, and it closed its doors in 2013 due to financial difficulties. The museum had initially offered to hand over around 12,000 artifacts to Indonesia, but the culture director-general opted to accept a selection of 1,500 objects instead. The repatriation process symbolically started in November 2016, when Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte presented President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo with a Bugis keris from the collection. Credit: National Museum Jakarta “This is the first time in the history of Indonesia that Indonesian cultural objects or artifacts that were taken [to the Netherlands] are returned,” Hilman said. “This is very historic and we want to share it with the public. Hopefully, this paves the way for the return of objects in other European museums.” National Museum head Siswanto said the museum would present the artifacts to the public in an exhibition scheduled for June 2020. He added that the returned artifacts would not just be limited to the National Museum. “Other museums will also have the opportunity to get back their cultural objects. This offer might encourage regional museums to improve the quality of their collection.” Credit: National Museum Jakarta Golkar lawmaker Adrianus Asia Sidot of the House Commission X, which oversees art and culture, said he appreciated the Dutch government’s decision to return the artifacts. “The return [of the artifacts] is a very meaningful New Year’s gift,” Adrianus said in a statement on the official House of Representatives website. “Going forward, we have the responsibility to safeguard, secure and take care of these valuable historical relics. If other nations value Indonesia’s culture, we should value it even more.” Source: The Jakarta Post [January 07, 2020] Labels Archaeology, Heritage, Indonesia, Netherlands, South East Asia TANN you might also like Newer Post Older Post
The Government of Mexico recently returned 37 archaeological pieces to the Peruvian State, the Mexican Culture Ministry has reported. Credit: Mauricio Marat, INAH The objects — from the timeframe between the pre-Columbian era and the viceregal period — were voluntarily handed over or recently confiscated. According to Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) Director Diego Prieto, the returned pieces —except for a couple of wooden vessels from the viceregal period— are "outstanding examples" of Nazca, Chimu, Inca, Lambayeque, Recuay, and Chancay Cultures' pottery, metallurgy, and textile industries. Credit: Mauricio Marat, INAH Credit: Mauricio Marat, INAH Within this framework, the restitution of archaeological pieces took place on Tuesday during the III Meeting of the Peru-Mexico Strategic Partnership Agreement Council headed by Mexican Foreign Affairs Minister Marcelo Ebrard and his Peruvian counterpart Gustavo Meza-Cuadra. "Despite conflagrations that represent a global stability risk, actions such as the restitution of these invaluable pieces are ‘hope glimmers’ that contribute to diplomacy," Minister Ebrard stated. Source: Andina [January 08, 2020] Labels Americas, Archaeology, Heritage, Mexico, Peru, South America TANN you might also like Newer Post Older Post
Ancient sculptures that were missing for decades after being stolen during Lebanon's civil war are to go on display in Beirut thanks to a global fight against antiquities smuggling that has been stepped up since wartime looting in Iraq and Syria. The repatriated marble sculptures dating back to 4th-6th centuries on display during a ceremony at Beirut National Museum in the Lebanese capital [Credit: AFP] The five marble statues were among a haul of hundreds that Lebanese militiamen took from a storehouse in 1981, some of which are only now emerging onto the shadowy global arts market and even into the world's greatest museums. Three of the five sculptures unveiled at a ceremony in Beirut on Friday were spotted in New York's Metropolitan Museum - where they were on loan from a private collector - by a curator who identified them using the Art Loss Register, an online database of stolen artefacts. One of the people instrumental in getting them sent back to Lebanon was Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Matthew Bogdanos, an Iraq war veteran who led the investigation into looting at the national museum in Baghdad during the chaos of the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein. Outrage at looting there and in Syria, and fear that art trafficking was funding militant groups, has driven countries to work together to stop it, said Bogdanos, who was in Beirut on Friday for a ceremony to unveil the statues. "It has resulted in greater attention, greater scrutiny and greater resources, all of which we desperately need in order to fight such an entrenched global network," Bogdanos, whose office has recovered thousands of stolen antiquities in recent years, told Reuters at the ceremony at Beirut's National Museum. The five ancient sculptures displayed inside Beirut National Museum in Beirut, Lebanon [Credit: Reuters/Jamal Saidi] One of the other statues was identified last year by a gallery in Germany, which noticed it on the Art Loss Register. The fifth was seized in a container entering Lebanon's port of Tripoli last month. Archaeologists excavated all the statues in the 1960s and 1970s in Sidon at the Temple of Eshmoun, a god of healing. They were carved between the sixth and fourth centuries BC, when Lebanon's Phoenician civilisation was ruled by the Persian empire but influenced by Greek art and culture. One of the statues, a bull's head, was from the capital of a pillar in the temple. The other statues, of youths and children, included one dedicated to the temple by fond relatives in thanks for the recovery from illness of their child. "Heritage is not for Sale" They will be added to the Beirut museum's display of Eshmoun sculptures, which include a complete capital with bull heads facing in each direction and marble statues of babies and children. Only a handful of more than 500 Eshmoun statues pillaged from the storerooms of Byblos citadel in 1981 have been identified and returned to Lebanon. "We will put every resource that we have to recover any piece wherever it is and whoever thinks it belongs to him. Our heritage is not for sale," said Lebanon's Culture Minister Ghattas Khoury. Like these pieces, items smuggled from Iraq and Syria may stay hidden for decades before traffickers start selling them to collectors. "It is rare that we would see anything on the market for 10 or 20 or even 30 years, because they do have the patience. They stockpile these pieces," said Bogdanos. The international nature of the trade makes it hard to trace them. "If you would follow the pieces which we have here, there was a kind of ping-pong between Europe, America, Europe again ... it's a globalisation," said Rolf Stucky, a Swiss archaeologist who registered many of the looted Eshmoun statues on Art Loss in the 1990s, allowing them to be identified now. But countries now share information and help train authorities, both in the main markets for stolen artefacts and in the regions from which they come. Lebanon itself has stopped many foreign pieces from being shipped through Beirut, said Ghattas. As a neighbour of Syria, it is a major route for items looted from there. "In many respects (smugglers) didn't have to be smart in their trafficking behaviour simply because no countries were cooperating enough, were devoting enough resources to stop it," said Bogdanos. "That has all changed." Author: Angus McDowall | Source: Reuters [February 04, 2018] Labels Archaeology, Heritage, Lebanon, Near East TANN you might also like Newer Post Older Post
A German museum handed over the remains of an Aboriginal ancestral king to Australia on Tuesday in the first of three such ceremonies across Germany this month, which Canberra called a record return.
ROME, ITALY—Alberto Bonisoli, Italy’s culture minister, handed over nearly 800 artifacts to Luo Shugang, China’s […]
The company says its passion for historical Bibles and other artifacts led to "regrettable mistakes." It will pay a $3 million fine for improperly importing items such as ancient clay tablets.
The 'sonic attack' (causing headaches and some repatriations) on US diplomatic personnel in Havana has been revealed as most likely caus...
Far-right Lega Nord leader Matteo Salvini promised to “fill planes and send immigrants home” but the number of repatriations as actually fallen.
MOGADISHU, Aug 5 (UNHCR) - More than 100 Somali refugees from Kenya flew into the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday, marking a new chapter in the voluntary return process. Earlier in the day, two planes, carrying 116 people, took off from Dadaab camp in Northeastern Kenya. Dadaab is the largest refugee settlement in the world and hosts about 333,000 Somali refugees. The voluntary returns came after the Tripartite Commission formed by UNHCR and the Governments of Kenya and Somalia, agreed to step up support for voluntary repatriations of Somali refugees.
