The USA is being urged not to renew a five-year cultural property agreement with the Arab Republic of Egypt, on the grounds Egypt has prioritised ‘prestige megaprojects’ and ‘political spectacle’ over site protection and collections management
“Modern morality,” wrote Oscar Wilde, “consists in accepting the standard of one’s age.” But how can museums define the moral standard of this age when constrained by historic rules of stewardship and the absence of a modern ethical framework?
This week’s announcement that Cambridge University has transferred legal ownership of its collection of 116 Benin artefacts to Nigeria could be hugely significant
Britain’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport has confirmed it will review the exclusion it imposed on national collections that prevents them from returning cultural objects on moral grounds
Six Native American skulls, acquired to advance the pseudoscience of phrenology, have been returned by the University of Edinburgh to the Muscogee Nation, a self-governed Native American Tribal Nation
Can museum visitors throw light on objects that lack a reliable history, description or provenance? Manchester Museum hopes they can
A rare and important 19th century gold hairpin once owned by Empress Tiruwork, wife of the Abyssinian Emperor Tewodros II, will be returning to Ethiopia following negotiations by the Royal Ethiopian Trust with the Rome auction house Bertolami Fine Art
In 2022 several western collections made a decision to transfer ownership of their Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. Reassured by progress on the construction of a major new facility in Benin City, they understood their artefacts would be exhibited in a new museum to be called the Edo Museum of West African Art
After years of delay and political distraction, the official opening of the new Grand Egyptian Museum finally took place in the shadow of the pyramids on the evening of November 1st attended by monarchs, world leaders, heads of state and government
A new commissioned sculpture marking the latest stage in the Renewable Cultural Partnership between the V&A and the Manhyia Palace Museum has gone on display in South Kensington
A delegation of Shuar representatives from Ecuador visited the UK this month on a week-long programme to exchange knowledge, strengthen collaboration and learn how different museums in England are “looking after our ancestors”
While some museums continue to wrestle over their ‘Benin dilemma’, the Denver Art Museum is celebrating a cultural collaboration with Nigeria that has lasted over five decades
It’s no easy matter resolving the current ethical debate over the retention and exhibition of human remains. But one public collection is asking visitors to cast their vote
“Would be nice to have a more frank discussion about how objects are collected for the Museum. Saying ‘Donated’ is not enough”
Last week, a delegation of Naga people signed a declaration that will lead to the return of 41 Naga ancestral remains currently held in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford
Village leaders at San Benito Poité in southern Belize, formerly British Honduras, are claiming that an important collection of artefacts removed from the ancient city of Pusilha is not the lawful property of the British Museum
Explaining why a looted artefact should be returned to its country or community of origin can sometimes be straightforward. But explaining how is altogether different
A unique shell necklace believed to originate from the Bass Strait islands has been returned by The Hunterian collection to representatives from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) who travelled to Glasgow to carry it home
Laying Ancestors to Rest pulls no punches. The recommendations made in a new policy brief published by the All Party-Parliamentary Group on Afrikan-Reparations (APPG-AR) include making the sale of human remains illegal and putting an end to the public display of ancestral remains
What will it take to break the British Museum’s determination not to explain when an object is ‘unfit to be retained’?
There are several reasons why Britain’s new Labour administration may be closer to agreeing a loan of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece than the previous Conservative government, even though a full transfer of ownership remains firmly off the agenda
Investigations into the collecting patterns of major US museums has resulted in two immensely readable and influential books covering today’s illegal trade in trafficking antiquities: Chasing Aphrodite and The Medici Conspiracy
In a handover ceremony at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford this week, a cherished cultural object – a sunhat taken violently by British colonisers during punitive expeditions to Sarawak - was returned to the Kenyah Badeng community
MADAGASCAR Updated October 2024 Below is a schedule of successful restitutions made to Madagascar, together with other restitution news. Entries are updated regularly October 2024 In the first review of its kind, France has agreed to review Madagascar's request to return the skull of King Toera, beheaded under French colonial rule Lemonde.fr
ETHIOPIA Updated October 2024 Below is a schedule of successful restitutions made to Ethiopia, together with other restitution news. Entries are updated regularly October 2024 The newly created Royal Ethiopian Trust has negotiated the return to Ethiopia of a 19th century shield looted from from Maqdala and withdrawn from a UK auction in February 2024 prnewswire.com
Discussions held at the end of last month between a delegation of Maasai community leaders from Kenya and Tanzania and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford prove that repatriation is not the only solution for the care of culturally sensitive objects
Britain’s new culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, wants government to adopt a more consistent approach to repatriation. This could lead to amending legislation that allows national museums to start repatriating contested objects
Hard on the heels of an agreement last May to return a looted Greek bronze head to the Republic of Türkiye, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles has announced plans to return another looted artefact to that country
Last week the archaeologist and former Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities Dr Zahi Hawass launched a new petition urging Germany to repatriate the life-sized painted bust of Queen Nefertiti
A growing willingness by museums to reach out and canvas local communities and stakeholders for help resolving the future of contentious objects provides a voice for diaspora communities in the restitution debate
Hard on the heels of the UCLA Fowler Museum’s return of 20 objects to the Warumungu community of Northern Territory, Australia in July, comes news this month of an agreement by London’s Horniman Museum and Gardens to transfer ownership of 10 further Warumungu objects
Struggling to make progress in the restitution of artworks stolen by the Nazis, last month the German government put forward new draft legislation designed to make it easier to enforce claims for the return of stolen artworks
Following their successful repatriation of Chief Crowfoot’s regalia to the Siksika Nation in Canada, Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery (RAMM) has taken another welcome step to protect the continuity of Siksika culture by returning a further sacred object two years later
China Updated February 2026 Below is a schedule of successful restitutions made to China, together with other restitution news. Entries are updated regularly February 2026 Japan is being urged to return the Chinese Tang Honglu Well Stele of the Tang Dynasty and its pavilion looted by Japan during the Russo-Japanese War in 1908 globaltimes.cn June 2024 China launches the Qingdao Recommendations for…
Four years after the Museum was first approached, the Ashmolean in Oxford has agreed to support a formal claim from the Indian High Commission to return a looted bronze statue depicting the Hindu deity Tirumankai Alvar
ALGERIA Updated June 2024 Below is a schedule of successful restitutions made to Algeria, together with other restitution news. Entries are updated regularly June 2024 Algeria has requested the return from France of objects that belonged to Emir Abdelkader, the 19th century resistance fighter defeated in 1847. Francetvinfo.fr June 2024 Algeria has submitted a list of historical artefacts currently…
A Roman bronze head from a statue of a young man, acquired by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 1971, is returning to Türkiye after evidence emerged it was excavated illegally
An official from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has confirmed an object held at National Museums Scotland (NMS) is a sacred Ethiopian Tabot
The British Museum has shown itself adept at refusing to provide information to questions they’d prefer not to answer. We hope our initiative to escalate concerns about the Museum’s collection of Ethiopian Tabots to the Information Commissioner’s Office will encourage greater transparency
The emergent gap between Britain’s national and non-state collections is about to get wider, as prospects for a UK nationwide restitution strategy appear as far away as ever
The sale of an Ethiopian shield, believed looted by British forces at Maqdala in 1868 and sent to auction at Anderson & Garland in Newcastle upon Tyne, has been withdrawn from sale
Mongolia’s Minister of Culture, Nomin Chinbat, visited Britain last November on a mission to strengthen UK-Mongolian cultural relations. On her agenda were plans for a 2027 exhibition at London’s Royal Academy to be called Arts of the Mongol World. But research and restitution were also in her sights
Later this year, thirty-two Asante treasures are returning to Ghana for an exhibition at the Manhyia Palace Museum in Kumasi, exactly one hundred and fifty years after British forces plundered the court of the Asante king in 1874
One of the National Museum of Scotland’s largest exhibits, an 11-metre memorial totem pole, has been repatriated to the Nisga’a Museum in the village of Laxgalts’ap in British Columbia after the Museum in Edinburgh recognised it was sold “without the cultural, spiritual or political authority” of its owners
EUROPEAN UNION Updated December 2023 Below is a schedule of restitution news from the European Union. Entries are updated regularly. December 2023 In a report submitted to the European Parliament, practical steps are recommended to resolve cross-border claims to looted art and to prevent illicit trafficking in cultural objects Miragenews.com
After a petulant Rishi Sunak cancelled a meeting with Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, potentially souring relations with an important European neighbour, we ask whether Prime Minister Sunak might have overlooked an important concession by Greece to resolve the Parthenon Marbles dispute
Over the years, a resolution of the world’s longest running restitution dispute has been blighted by an unseemly excess of nationalism and emotion. The arguments for and against the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles have remained largely unchanged
To date, the efforts that private benefactors are making to return looted objects to Ethiopia far exceed the willingness of Britain’s national collections to do the same
The V&A Museum has entered into an historic agreement with the Republic of Yemen for the Museum to temporarily care, research and conserve four ancient carved funerary stelae
Later this month, the Cultural Affairs Minister for the Indian state of Maharashtra, Sudhir Mungantiwar, is expected to visit London’s Victoria and Albert Museum to sign a memorandum of understanding for the return of a deadly tiger claw weapon known as the ‘wagh nakh’