Should museums return relics to their country of origin?

Should museums return relics to their country of origin?
Bettelheim, A., & Adams, R. “Stolen antiquities.” CQ Researcher 17.14 (2007): 313-336. CQ Press. 13 April 2007.
An ancient vase at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is fueling an intensifying ethical and legal debate about some of the world's most celebrated works of art. Two years ago, Italian authorities produced evidence the ancient vessel had been smuggled from Italy and demanded its return. Such prized artifacts have raised thorny questions about the ownership of cultural treasures in private collections and museums around the world. The controversy — and attendant criminal trials of alleged smugglers — is also shedding new light on the secretive world of antiquities collecting — a realm populated by tomb robbers, wealthy connoisseurs and aggressive dealers and curators. Some experts estimate that up to $4 billion worth of precious art is being illegally traded. Whatever their worth, ancient artworks are priceless to Italy, Egypt and other nations increasingly using cultural artifacts to exert political leverage and stoke national pride. From the CQ Researcher. Reprinted with permission from CQ Press.

Books in CBC Library Collection

Feldman, Mark. Archaeology for everyone. New York: Quadrangle, c1977.
Location: Main Collection
Call number: CC75.5 .F44 1977

The dead and their possessions: repatriation in principle, policy and practice. Ed. Cressida Fforde, Jane Hubert and Paul Turnbull. New York: Routledge, 2004.
Location: Main Collection
Call number: CC79.5 .H85D43 2002

Fine-Dare, Kathleen S. Grave injustice: the American Indian Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, c2002.
Location: Reserve Reference
Call number: KF8210 .A57F56 2002

Reid, Donald M. Whose Pharaohs? Archaeology, museums, and Egyptian national identity from Napoleon to World War I. Berkeley: University of California Press, c2002.
Location: American Council of Learned Societies History E-Book Project

Sullivan, Lynne P. and S. Terry Childs. Curating archaeological collections: from the field to the repository. Walnut Creek, Calif.: Altamira Press, 2003.
Location: Main Collection
Call number: CC75.7 .A73 2003 v6

Articles

Kahn, Jeremy. “Is the U.S. protecting foreign artifacts? Don’t ask.” New York Times (8 April 2007): 2.26. ProQuest. Columbia Basin Coll. Lib., Pasco, WA. 14 April 2007.

The Cultural Property Advisory Committee has been the focus of fierce battles between archaeologists, who say the art market fosters the looting of historic sites, and dealers, who say that broad import restrictions threaten collecting by private individuals and museums in the United States. Is the Committee making appropriate decisions to help other countries protect their cultural heritage?

McGuigan, Cathleen. “Whose art is it? American museums are returning some of the world’s great antiquities to their original homes. Should they? A new debate over who owns the past is underway.” Newsweek 149.10 (12 Mar. 2007): 54. ProQuest. Columbia Basin Coll. Lib., Pasco, WA. 14 April 2007.

Museum directors are seeking a legal way to purchase foreign antiquities. Many artifacts purchased in the past have been stolen or looted; now, citing national pride, some governments are demanding them back.

Briggs, Aaron Kyle. “Consequences of the Met-Italy Accord for the nternational restitution of cultural property.” Chicago Journal of International Law 7.2 (Winter 2007): 623-654. ProQuest. Columbia Basin Coll. Lib., Pasco, WA. 14 April 2007.

In February 2006, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Italian Ministry of Culture signed the Italy-Met Euphronios Accord, forever changing the dynamics of the international cultural property trade.

“Getty Museum agrees to return two Greek treasures.” Washington Post (12 Dec. 2006): C.8. ProQuest. Columbia Basin Coll. Lib., Pasco, WA. 14 April 2007.

The J. Paul Getty Museum has settled a decade-old cultural heritage dispute with Greece, agreeing to hand over two ancient treasures that Athens claimed had been illegally spirited out of the country, as Greece steps up its campaign to reclaim looted artifacts, thousands of which are prominently displayed in museums and collections worldwide.