Lol. Did you think “tourists’ convenience” really added to your point?
Possibly it is a good thing.
On the other hand, you don’t get to own something just because you would take better care of it than the present owner. We can accept that the looting of artefacts has in some instances contributed to their preservation and we might be glad of that outcome. This doesn’t change the fact that they were looted, and it doesn’t refute moral or legal arguments for their return.
The British Museum came by their collection legitimately. The Egyptian government asked for help from the expert British archaeologists excavating the tombs. In payment the British got half the artefacts. So the Rosetta Stone is on display in London, while the mask of Tutankhamen is on display in Cairo. All perfectly fair and legal. Without this deal the artefacts might still be underground.
The Rosetta Stone was discovered and taken by the French army duing the French campaign in Egypt, which was an attempt by the French to establish a colony in Egypt. Their intent was that it would be kept and studied at the Institut d’Égypte which they had established in Cairo. When the French were defeated by the British at Alexandria the British seized the stone and took it to London, where it remains. Neither the Ottoman nor the Egyptian authorities were consulted at any point. All of this happened more than a century before the excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamen.
I think we probably should not return the Ark of the Covenant. No telling what would happen.
I stand corrected on the matter of the Rosetta stone. Nevertheless, the point stands that much of the British Museum collection of Egyptian artefacts was gathered with the consent of the Egyptian government.
Yes. I’m not sure to what exent the Egyptian government of the time had any genuine independence, and to what extent it was basically a puppet of the British, so having their consent doesn’t necessarily completely dispose of the issue.
And division-of-finds arrangements may account for less of the collection than you think. As noted, the Rosetta Stone (and many other artefacts seized from the French at the same time) were not acquired in this way. Nor was the other artefact you mentioned, the mask of Tutankhamen, recovered in a division-of-finds excavation. (All of the antiquities recovered in that excavation were deposited in the Egyptian museum.) SFAIK the British Museum didn’t even start to participate in division-of-finds arrangements until the 20th century, by which time it had already amassed a very large, and very important, Egyptian collection.
When I worked at a museum I created an exhibit on war trophies from WWII. Among those trophies was a big Nazi flag signed by nearly ten Arkansas soldiers, some of their hometowns were included, and one of them was a comedian who also wrote, “Hi Hiter!” The exhibit included German marks, helmets, insignia patches from uniforms, a few weapons, etc., etc. as well as some placards describing the items and offering an interpretation of the history of war trophies. Pretty much all our WWII artifacts of German or Japanese origin were taken by American soldiers, sailors, and marines. We even had a katana though I’m reasonably sure it wasn’t the priceless one mentioned in the article. (Maybe I better double check.)
Even if we could trace those items to specific German or Japanese soldiers we would never return them. To the victor go the spoils. There’s no big push among museum professionals to return these kinds of artifacts to their “rightful” owners. Now things like the Elgin Marbles are a bit more controversial. But war trophies like katanas? Nope.
If they were government-issued weapons, wouldn’t the original rightful owner be the state that issued them rather than the soldier who used them, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to turn in your military-issue gear when you leave the military, for precisely that reason?
I think you could make a reasonably strong argument that if weapons and other militaria are taken by individual US soldiers from individual German, Japanese, etc soldiers, or if they are taken from barracks, military stores, etc that the US forces occupy or take over, then the proper course was for the individual US soldiers to turn them in to the US military authorities, and if anybody’s entitled to complain about soldiers keeping them it’s the US military authorities.
And, presumably, they don’t actually want huge numbers of souvenired flags, knives, small arms, etc; they’re not looking for them. So I don’t think there’s a huge problem here that needs solving. There may have been breaches of the rules, but they are not breaches Uncle Sam cares to make an issue of, after this lapse of time.
The right to seize military assets works both ways; Iran still has military assets that the US lost in its failed attempt to rescue hostages in the US embassy in Tehran in 1980 and I believe that until a few years ago it was still actively using some of them. SFAIK the US has never suggested that it is entitled to them back.
But looting from civilians, or looting objects of historical, cultural or artistic significance, are quite different matters, and different considerations apply.
Nor did they care about it back then. Unless it was something of value to G2. Every soldier took souvenirs. And you looted you buddy too, at least for ammo, cigs, food, medical supply, etc. Personal items were sancrosact.
Rhetorical question: The US stole half of Mexico in 1848. Was that a “spoil of war” or should it be returned?
Yes, I know the answer. It was won by conquest, which is legalized theft. Might makes right, QED. We know the tradition. Winners take territory, heads, wealth, women, slaves, and artifacts, and then write the history. Sucks to lose.
I’ll admit my cynicism was whetted by John Dolan aka Gary Brecher War Nerd rants. The War Nerd’s basic “view of modern warfare [is that] most wars are asymmetrical/irregular.” Such combatants are NOT going to abide by “rules of war” coded by powerful nation-states to mainly protect themselves. Regular forces fighting irregulars must almost inevitably respond in kind. Which means don’t be surprised by looting on all scales. In “total war”, entire enemy societies are military targets, so anything taken is a “spoil of war”. (Atrocities are a given but that’s another topic.)
Do I wish this weren’t so? Yes, and I want a helicopter for Xmas. Just as likely. :dubious:
Should looted artifacts be returned? We can argue “should” forever. IMHO current returns probably reflect shifting power/influence balances between the parties involved. I doubt most returns are willing.
Actually, nope. The US claim to the territory is not founded on the brute fact of conquest, but on the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which Mexico ceded the territory to the US.
Now, sure, the Treaty was not exactly freely negotiated and agreed between willing parties; it was more or less forced on Mexico by a victorious US. But the point here is not that the Treaty legitimizes the taking of territory by conquest; it doesn’t do that, and if the US were now to invade Mexico again to take yet more territory, it couldn’t argue that the Treaty shows that this is a legitimate way of acquiring territory.
No, the point is that it’s important that there be ways of bringing wars to a conclusive and accepted end. If there weren’t, there would be a constant worldwide state of never-ending war. And preventing this is more important than settling every single claim for property or territory on just terms.
So, no, might doesn’t make right. Might only become right if, in the end, everybody involved agrees, however reluctantly, that what has been acheived by might is now to be considered right. So the foundation for that right is not might, but is the agreement of the states involved.
And the same may be true for concerns about looting, expropriation, etc. When states of war are ended by treaty, there very often will be a provision about resolving outstanding claims arising out of such matters. How they will be resolved very much depends on the bargaining power of the states concerned. Maybe Country B (which lost the war) will abandon all claims against Country A. Maybe Country A will pay an agreed lump sum to Country B, and Country B will take on itself the responsiblity for settling the claims of its citizens who say they were the victims of unlawful looting. Mabye outstanding claims will be referred to international arbitration. Maybe something else.
The situation is different when we’re dealing with the theft of cultural/artistic heritage in the context of colonisation. Most of this can’t be justified as something permitted by the laws of war, (a) because it isn’t permitted by the laws of war, and (b) because it mostly didn’t happen during wars anyway, but during a period of colonial occupation and exploitation, which may (or may not) have come after a war of conquest. Rules about the taking of spoils of war are generally irrelevant to disputes about what was done or alleged to be done during a period of colonial occupation.
Sure. But here’s the thing; the US authorities could properly decide that they weren’t interested in spoils of war, and that individual soldiers could keep for themselves material that might otherwise be considered spoils of war. But they couldn’t properly decide that individual soldiers were permitted, e.g., to loot civilian property. If I have a nice clock on the mantelpiece in my home and GI Joe likes it and takes it for himself, GJ Joe has stolen from me. If it is the policy of the US occupying forces that GI Joe should be allowed to do this and should not suffer any consequences or incur any obligation to me, then the US has stolen from me. Either way, I have been stolen from.
IANAL so I won’t comment on any of the legal aspects, but I think it is 100% fair that an enemy combatant lose his gear in combat and have it then be confiscated and becoming the property of the military force/nation that defeated him.
Certainly nobody here or elsewhere would blame a Taliban insurgent for having a pair of U.S. Army boots in his possession (say he got it off the body of a dead American soldier in Kandahar) and demand that he return it by mail to Washington DC.
No, we have* what’s claimed to be* a copy (if something in a completely different language could be said to be a “copy”) of an original, with no corresponding Ottoman copy despite their excellent record keeping.
There’s plenty of evidence. You mean to say there’s no proof.
That doesn’t make it right.
Cite? It may have been pervasive, that doesn’t mean it was legal.
Yes, more than a hundred years previously. They were not in imminent danger.
You’re aware the frieze actually forms one continuous artwork, right? And even the metopes form a coherent set.
Yes, let’s cut up the Mona Lisa and distribute it amongst the world’s top galleries, so everyone can see a bit.
No we did not.* We paid for it*. And in fact Mexico had little control over those areas, and was just about bankrupt. Several other states of Mexico had gone into rebellion and declared independence. Without those US dollars, Mexico would have dissolved into anarchy and warlords.
Sure, and that’s your opinion. Excellent record keeping? In the late Ottoman Empire? It is to laugh.
There’s no evidence at all it was faked. In order to have evidence that the firman was faked, we’d have to have that document. Do we? No. We have a copy, in another language.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43385273?seq=1
Umm, no, just after (wiki) War of Independence
The Erechtheion was used as a munitions store by the Ottomans during the Greek War of Independence[59] (1821–1833) which ended the 355-year Ottoman rule of Athens. The Acropolis was besieged twice during the war, first by the Greeks in 1821–22 and then by the Ottoman forces in 1826–27. During the first siege the besieged Ottoman forces attempted to melt the lead in the columns to cast bullets, even prompting the Greeks to offer their own bullets to the Ottomans in order to minimize damage.[60] Thankfully there was no large explosion during that war.
On the Rosetta Stone, one very recent development is that Geoffrey Robertson, the prominent QC who represents the Greek government in the British courts in their attempts to get the Elgin Marbles back, has been arguing that the Stone is a whole different matter - see, for instance, here.
Basically, he argues that the slab was just a bog standard example of a routine proclamation that has little intrinsic value as an artefact. It’s only important because the particular instance that wound up in London thus prompted the work in Britain and France that led to the decipherment. It’s more significant for its impact on European thought than as just another Egyptian find.
Two aspects are, of course, worth pointing out:
[ul]This rather glides over the fact that it’s a perennial part of the BM’s argument that the Elgin Marbles only really become iconic once they arrive in London. In other words, the claim is that they’re similarly more important as an influence on European art and thinking in London than they ever were in Athens.[/ul]
[ul]Robertson does have a new book out on the subject in general, so no doubt feels it in his best interest to stir up a bit of press coverage.[/ul]
Your wiki article discusses the collapse of the Ottoman empire in the early 1900s but the marbles were taken a hundred years earlier. Nothing about the record keeping either. Weird cite.