this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2024
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On one hand, sure, the British took a lot of things from other places when their empire spanned the globe. And, it sucks for places that had their stuff taken that it is no longer where it was.
On the other hand the British Museum is probably one of the safest places in the world for these things. The museum cares about preservation, knows how to do it, and has the funds to do it. And, while there's undoubtedly corruption in the UK, there's a very low chance that any of these things is going to disappear out of the museum and into some powerful person's private collection.
Mohamed Salah is standing in front of a statue from Egypt, which was taken from Egypt to London. But, the British didn't manage to take the Buddhas of Bamiyan from Afghanistan to London, and what happened? The Taliban blew them up. The British also didn't fully loot Iraq when they controlled that territory, which meant that in the 2003 war the museum was looted but not by people who wanted treasures for a public museum. The poorer and less politically stable a country is, the greater the chances that their cultural treasures will be stolen or destroyed.
Despite the repression and corruption, Egypt is now probably stable enough that if any of these items were returned to Egypt, they would probably be well treated and put on display for Egyptians to see. The power of the military in Egypt and the level of corruption probably means a few small items would disappear from the museum, but the most important items would make it. But, is Egypt stable enough that the museum would be safe for another 20, 40, 80 years? I have my doubts. I do think London is probably safe for that long.
Maybe it's just me, but I think the number one priority should be preserving these things for the future. Displaying them for the public should be a lower priority. If there are items like scrolls or clothing that are too delicate to even display behind a glass case, they should be stored away. I know that's how they handle things at the Smithsonian, and I assume the British Museum is the same. Because of that, my bias is that the most important cultural items should be in the care of the richest museums in the world, even if it means that they're not in the places they came from.
Yes. Preservation that's why it was taken. You see that statue was in imminent danger of being left there for the local people to preserve. The horror!
My favorite story about the British stealing shit is that time they stole a cultures entire written history. They had it all written on tablets and arranged in a specific order. It never occurred to them though that they should put page numbers because who would jumble them up? Who would destroy their history like that? Ah yes, the British, that's who.
But that's all in the past, and now it's the only place on earth that can preserve these things. The only place. There is no other place. No possible other home for these artifacts.
Well, as I can see the comment remind you of what happen in when "Muslim Arab" did in Iraq where, "checking notes", the US and the UK destroyed the country and move it to a civil war while stealing oil and gold, then blame them for what happen to the museum.
Then he also remind you of what "Muslim" did in Afghanistan where, "checks notes", the US and UK made sure to fund an Islamic extremist ideology to fight the Russian, then complain when they destroyed a Buddhist statue.
The same comment doesn't seems to see the irony of colonizer stealing shit, making money of it, and then finding lame excuse and ignoring that Arab and Muslim lived in these lands for over 1400 years where all these artifact survived to modern day.
You mean the ISIS which appeared after America invaded Iraq, destroyed it, and backed violent rebel groups with weapons?
Must be that "Islamic extremism" again.
I mean ISIS that Israel and US funded to move Syria to a disaster, allowing them to put bases all over the country and sign deals for oil extraction on recognized Syrian border..
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_with_the_Islamic_State
Point of order, the Iraqis used a worker action to prevent the US from taking the oil.
Or more specifically, from importing American oil workers and executives to rebuild the oil fields and run them in the near term. The Iraqis had a reasonable fear that they would be squeezed out of the industry and it would return to a Western corporation just taking all the oil, as it was before 1972.
Bush actually backed off and now Iraq administers it's own oil and sells leases like most other countries. Just recently they finalized a deal with Total(France), ACWA(Saudi Arabia), QatarEnergies, and Basra Oil Company (Iraq).
So hopefully it's working out for them long term.
It's almost like a bunch of colonizing powers came in and stole all their money and material wealth and usurped their country's political system and beggared all the people and then they didn't have the money time or motivation to protect the artifacts while they were all starving or being bombed
The British Museum can't even keep its collection from being stolen (ironic), there are 2000 missing artifacts if I remember correctly. Any excuse that "the British Museum can protect the artefacts" doesn't hold true anymore. They should return the stolen artefacts to be displayed in the county of origin. Egypt has very strong laws to preserve and protect ancient artefacts.