Two British museums are returning gold and silver artifacts to Ghana under a long-term loan arrangement — 150 years after the items were looted from the Asante people during Britain’s colonial battles in West Africa.
The British Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, together with the Manhyia Palace Museum in Ghana, on Thursday announced the “important cultural’’ collaboration, which sidesteps U.K. laws that prohibit the return of cultural treasures to their countries of origin. Those laws have been used to prevent the British Museum from returning the Parthenon Marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles, to Greece.
Some 17 items in total are involved in the loan arrangement, including 13 pieces of Asante royal regalia purchased by the V&A at auction in 1874. The items were acquired by the museums after they were looted by British troops during the Anglo-Asante wars of 1873-74 and 1895-96.
LOL
We’re going to steal your shit, then “loan” it back to you. Don’t get it twisted, it’s still ours, but you can hold it until we say you can’t.
The article is confusing, but it seems the British Museum (et al) is returning ownership of the artifacts back to Ghana, but they will remain in the museum on loan from Ghana due to a shitty UK law which forbids the museum from actually physically returning them. So now they legally belong to Ghana, who has agreed to continue to display them in the British Museum on on loan status.
It’s a step in the right direction, and it’s currently as much as UK law allows. If/when that law is changed or repealed, Ghana will be free to take them back without any further hindrance.
Note that neither the British Museum nor most British people want to keep the stolen artifacts. In fact it would be better for the British Museum to close if that’s the end result.
The fact is that Britain is not within the control of the people. Basically just a bunch of rich people manipulating the population and doing whatever they want… Think Midgar from Final Fantasy 7.
That’s literally 99%* of the world not just Britain.
*Edit: Forgot the Zapatistas.
why would they not want to keep them?
Is that a real question? Because they were stolen and we have evolved as a civilization (mostly) to acknowledge that it was wrong to take them in the first place.
The only reason to want to keep them is greed and pride. Both of which are pretty piss poor foundations for a law.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
LONDON (AP) — Two British museums are returning gold and silver artifacts to Ghana under a long-term loan arrangement — 150 years after the items were looted from the Asante people during Britain’s colonial battles in West Africa.
Some 17 items in total are involved in the loan arrangement, including 13 pieces of Asante royal regalia purchased by the V&A at auction in 1874.
The items were acquired by the museums after they were looted by British troops during the Anglo-Asante wars of 1873-74 and 1895-96.
“These objects are of cultural, historical and spiritual significance to the Asante people,’’ the museums said in a statement.
“They are also indelibly linked to British colonial history in West Africa, with many of them looted from Kumasi during the Anglo-Asante wars of the 19th century.”
The items covered by the loan agreement represent just a fraction of the Asante artifacts held by British museums and private collectors around the world.
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