Who the hell is Sekhemka? He was an Egyptian scribe who lived about 4500 years ago. A statue of him was gifted to the Northampton Museum in the 19th Century by Lord Northampton, in classic British tradition of stealing other people’s relics.
Now, however, the museum has put the statue up for auction for funds. It sold for a whopping £15.76 million - of which £6 million is going to the current Lord Northampton.
Alan Moore, the writer of Watchmen, has called the selling “catastrophic” and said "“I’ve donated things to the museum. But I would not be able to do that again in the knowledge that at some point in the future that gifts, made in good faith, could be sold off by a council.”
The Arts Council of England has said that selling the statue could result it the museum losing accreditation, which in turn means losing grants and funding and borrowing/lending items from other museums. Protesters say that as it was gifted to the museum, that’s where it belongs for public viewing.
The Egyptians are livid that the museum considers a piece of their history fit to sell to private bidders - the Egyptian ambassador calling selling it “an abuse to the Egyptian archaeology and the cultural property” and adding “A museum should not be a store. Sekhemka belongs to Egypt and if Northampton Borough Council does not want it then it must be given back.”
The museum says that it having had the statue in their possession for over a hundred years, during the past four years it has been in storage and the funds will be used for development and expansion of the museum.
Who’s right?