-Why there are pyramids in Egypt?
-Because Brits couldn’t moved them to British Museum.
Imagine doing a Gate of Ishtar maneuver but with the pyramids
It’s not quite the same thing (particularly because of the motivation), but, uhh…I suggest you read about Abu Simbel, if you haven’t already.
To be fair. Most of the pyramids were raided far before the British took an interest and whatever they held has now been lost to time.
Eh, I meant the whole pyramids but fair enough.
What’s the opinion on certain high risk countries where there’s a high likelihood of the artifacts simply being destroyed? If I remember correctly ISIS and other similar organizations have burned or bombed several historical sites before.
Museums should participate in cultural exchange, if a museum feels under threat then they have channels they can trust to protect their artifacts until they can be returned
if a museum feels under threat
If you run a museum in Afghanistan and are afraid that the Taliban is going to execute you unless you destroy some blasphemous statue, are you going to risk your life to send the artifact to the British Museum, or are you just going to destroy it? Yeah, some heroes will definitely risk their lives, but most won’t.
Better than nothing
The alternative isn’t “nothing”, it’s getting precious cultural artifacts out of high risk countries where there’s a high likelihood of the artifacts simply being destroyed.
How do you think consent works?
If they are consenting then that’s just my suggestion already
Who’s consenting?
The only opinion that should matter is that of the people the artifacts belong to.
“It’s safer with us” is an excuse that’s been abused by colonizers and raiders for too long.
What if some of the locals want it taken away for protection, but the government wants it destroyed?
There’s no clear ‘owner’ in many cases. I think it places where it’s uncertain, then we should prioritize saving the artifacts over the ones that seek to destroy them.
You will never be able to get everyone to agree on anything and you can’t hold a referendum for every artifact.
So as far as responsibility goes, barring edge cases, it should be left upto the government to decide, as they represent the people.
And tbh, this feels like an argument made in bad faith, because this is such a rare case. No government is going to ask for an artifact back and then destroy it. What happened in afganistan and Syria was a tragedy (they didn’t ask for those artifacts back, they were already there) But that only happened because the previous governments had been destabilized by Russian and American influences. (Iraq war - Isis, Afganistan war - alqaeda)
There’s no clear ‘owner’ in many cases.
Just return it to the country where it was taken from. And I don’t think there are many cases where ownership is vague, most are pretty plain and clear.
then we should prioritize saving the artifacts over the ones that seek to destroy them.
That’s not on you, that’s on their original keepers. Otherwise you are propagating colonial era crimes and justifying them by arguing in bad faith.
P.s.
- Museums have a notorious record when it comes to maintaining artifacts (they aren’t shining beacons of humanity), especially the British museum.
- They also do less than what’s needed to discourage artifact smuggling.
- watch: https://youtu.be/eJPLiT1kCSM
The only opinion that should matter is that of the people the artifacts belong to.
Which people? The government? So in Afghanistan it’s up to the Taliban? If you don’t trust that the government of a country represents the will of the people, then how do you determine what the people want?
And, again, which people? Is a totem pole in a museum in Canada the property of the Canadian people? Or is it something that belongs to the Haida people, and it doesn’t matter what other Canadians want? If it is up to the Haida, it is up to the Council of the Haida Nation, or is it up to the band the original artist belonged to?
What about a Tatar artifact found in Donetsk? Who gets control over that? Is it the Russians since they occupy Donetsk? The Ukrainians because they used to occupy it? Do you have to study the blood of various Ukrainian people to figure out who has the most surviving Tatar DNA?
If you don’t trust that the government of a country represents the will of the people, then how do you determine what the people want?
You mean most governments?
In many cases there is no owner, they’re from a completely separate culture that happened to occupy the same region in the past.
Many cases
Source: my ass
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We have to be extremely wary of people who cite that because it’s so easily used as a justification for artifact theft and can have deep roots in racism.
That’s the question. Where is the line between racism and artifact protection?
Presumably somewhere between racism and artifact protection.
If you’re suggesting a daring heist at the Smithsonian, I’m in!
Much like the theft of historical artifacts by the UK et al, ISIS was the result of decades of imperialist meddling by the US. Maybe just leave things be and let the locals work out what they want to do with their land, their people, and the artifacts on it. Offering assistance without strings attached is good, interventions are bad.
It’s like offering to help your neighbor with their yard: it’s acceptable to offer to lend them your mower, but it’s not acceptable to dig up everything on their property, replace it with grass sod, and spray it regularly with herbicides because you didn’t like the look of their local fauna and are afraid the dandelions and clover would spread to your lawn after your first intervention.
Who do you recognize as the authority to make that decision though? If the locals are currently ruled by a terrorist group or Nazis or whatever, do they get to decide? What about the locals that disagree with the government currently in power?
And an answer of ‘if we just didn’t needlessly meddle’ might be the ideal, but it’s ignoring the realities that we have meddled and some countries are unlikely to stop doing so. We have to accept the world we have not the one we wished we had.
ISIS works for usa, so, the answer is kill all yanks
i need someone to convince me why it is wrong to steal from the British museum gift shop
Will you display for free all your stolen giftshop loot for everyone to see, and promise never to damage it, sell it or dispose of it in any way.
I’ll showcase it to people I allow on my house, and say I take care of it, but what if I put then in ebay? who is going to stop me
If you are comparing stealing from the giftshop to the museum’s procurement process then you have to display your loot in an equal (free) manner to all members of the public, and refuse sell any items.
Is it free to the public?
People in Africa/asia, have to get a visa, and spend thousands (if they manage to be super cheap might only be a few hundred) of pounds to see their own historical artifacts, and keep in mind most of the artifacts are not in display, and it is the British curators who decide what is displayed, and what will likely end up in ebay.
IE: my metaphor is correct
but I’ll tell everyone I’m more responsible than those brown/people and that’s why I get to keep them
You don’t have to pay for people’s transport if they come to see your giftshop loot, but you do have to show it them for free.
No. Selling on eBay is not allowed. In fact, once you have started your collection you are expected to pay for all future additions to your collection (although you may get donations).
Your shoplifting metaphor ignored the curation, storage and display responsibilities. It also assumed resale which, in the British Museum’s case, hasn’t occurred.
I still get to control who gets in (visa)
i see the problem, you’re assuming I’m the British museum in the metaphor, but I’m more like the UK in the metaphor.
And there are plenty of artifacts from the museum that ended up in ebay, but don’t worry, the museum promised they will investigate themselves whenever it happens.
Why is a foreign entity, gets to decide what to do with stolen artifacts?
could I rob a bank, and when they catch me I can blame the bank for low security,.and not have to return anything because I will allow some people to come to my house and show them some bank stationary I also stole? while keeping the money for myself and do with it as I please. while pinky promising to not use the money I stole, but there’s no oversight or consequences if I don’t.
I still get to control who gets in (visa)
You don’t control country visas. Neither does the British Museum.
i see the problem, you’re assuming I’m the British museum in the metaphor, but I’m more like the UK in the metaphor.
Ah OK. Then I’m confused what the “UK giftshop” represents, and also what are you stealing from it.
Why is a foreign entity, gets to decide what to do with stolen artifacts?
A good, but different question. We are straying from the question of being morally able to steal from the British Museum giftshop.
could I rob a bank, and when they catch me I can blame the bank for low security,.and not have to return anything because I will allow some people to come to my house and show them some bank stationary I also stole?
The standard response is that you are a white hat bank robber, and you will return the bank assets once they beef up security. But the Greek bank has done this and still doesn’t have it’s assets back.
Gonna play a game of comment roulette. How far do I have to scroll before I see someone say something like, “That can’t be in their museum because they can’t be trusted with it”.
Spinning the chamber now.
Edit: turns out I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. Now I sad.
on the other hand how often things go missing in the British museum?
Eurotrash gonna eurotrash.
There are occasions when it’s useful.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_cultural_heritage_by_the_Islamic_State
I’m not saying it always is but there are a lot of very unstable places run by people who just don’t care about this stuff. And at the time it was stolen it was either the British museum, someone’s private collection, or the Vatican.
But who made them unstable?
Well, in the case of Syria, decades of oppression under the Assad family combined with religious ideology.
Marion, this is a movie made in the 1980s and set in the 1930s, what the hell are you even talking about?
“I liked you better when you were a child I was grooming!”
Marion, you knew when you met me that I came from the mind of George Lucas. It’s not my fault I’m a little fucked up!
That attitude gets retconed in the great circle.
where he explicitly says that it belongs in a museum and helps locals get their relics to keep safe in their museums. ie, it belongs in their museums.
good game overall
better a museum than on a shelf in someone’s living room (no I won’t be donating it)
They are my human skulls I found them fair and square
This is why I always donate my finished books to my local library. I don’t need them and, if I want to read them again, I can always just go check it out from the library.
Gotta love how the first movie opens with him stealing an idol from an uncontacted Peruvian tribe, and the heroic music swells as he narrowly escapes with spears flying around them.
Granted, this takes place in 1936 and his actions were the norm for the period, but despite coming out in 1981 the movie plays this scene out rather uncritically.
He narrowly escapes with his life after having the idol stolen from him by his rival, Belloq, who works for the Nazis and actually hired that Peruvian tribe to be his little private army. Belloq then orders the Peruvians to attack Jones and he barely escapes on his hired plane.
Where do you get that he hired them?
The opening scene is them discussing that the tribe would kill them just for being in the area, and then Belloq taunts Jones saying he can’t warn them that he’s scamming them because Jones doesn’t speak Hovitos. No where does it say he hired them.
Scamming them is even worse, no?
He didn’t know Belloq was there until after he had robbed them.
So the entire point of my original comment was to give Indiana Jones a bit of vindication from the thinly veiled slander that he was nothing more than a tomb robber working for the colonialist west. How does your correction that Belloq was scamming the Hovitos, not paying them, make any difference to Jones’s character?
It doesn’t. You said Belloq hired them to be his personal army, which paints the Hovitos as complicit in working against their own self-interests. As in, they were the betrayers of their own people and were selling out to Belloq for some cash.
But no, the reality is both Jones and Belloq were out to screw them: Jones by directly robbing them, and Belloq by first scamming them and then robbing them. Both were being imperialist and the Hovitos were the victims.
Temple of Doom had way more questionable scenes in it with the banquet, the heroic British soldiers at the end and… Short Round. Did they really have to name him that?
Although the cultists were based on a real group and I actually saw something that looked like the heart thing in an Indian movie, so maybe that’s based on something real as well.
I doubt it.
There are 1.4 billion people. I think there’d be a stereotype about them doing black magic if it was an ever prevalent thing.
To be fair to the movie, it isn’t trying to say all Indians worship dark gods. It’s just depicting a cult that happens to be in India.
When I said “something real”, I just meant a preexisting idea in India. The movie was Baahubali. There was a scene where the villain was trying to reach his hand into the hero’s chest in exactly the same was as the cult leader in Temple of Doom.
The heart thing is not unique to India?
It’s a very common thing to take the heart out by villians everywhere.
More that the hand was open and the figures being pressed directly into the skin, as if he was going to grab the heard directly without cutting it open first. It’s not something you see often as there’s the sternum in the way. I don’t know if there’s some Indian myth it’s based off of or maybe some other piece of Indian cinema. It was a very specific scene, but it’s 5 hours to go though, so I’m not going to be able it quickly.
Yeah, but if the tribe made those traps that still work perfectly after hundreds of years, imagine how advanced they must be by now. Dr Jones was probably within miles of a hidden techno utopia and never had a clue.
scandalized stare
edit *innocent stare I meant
Countries and borders are an arbitrary concept created during the peace treaty of Westphalia.
Those relics belong to dead people.
Attributing modern concepts of borders to Westphalia is a Eurocentric worldview. What, you don’t think they had the concept of statehood and sovereignty in Asia for at least a few thousand years prior to this?
Hot take: all artifacts should be located in the most geopolitically stable area possible
Hotter take: un peacekeepers should protect world heritage sites with weapons-free orders
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As an American, we should be shipping our arts out of the country before the current regime decides it’s subversive to the regime and burn it. Especially any art made by minorities, opposition or in places that might get bombed(any coastal city).
And that would be for the Individual Americans to decide, or the institutions.
It wouldn’t have been plundered.
You are assuming that the artifacts such as those held in the British museum solely represent “saving culture” but they also represent the lingering colonial mindset. They weren’t taken away to preserve, they were taken as plunder. LITERALLY.
6:40 <- mark, watch the whole thing if you have the time.
Imagine if Nigeria and other african countries invaded your country, forced you into indentured servitude, spread propoganda and took all the art/artifacts to their country and used the excuse that your president is a fascist douche turd and because of that none of you are worthy enough to handle it. You just can’t be trusted with your own art and then never returned it even after things got objectively better.
Countries and borders are an arbitrary concept created during the peace treaty of Westphalia.
Stealing this foolproof argument for when I next apply for a UK visa to go to British Museum. Thanks!
Countries and borders are an arbitrary concept
Very Lemmy comment haha
When I was in grad school, the philosophy of science students would egg me on with things like: “I’ll buy you a beer if you can prove the electron is real”. I’d like to think I’m carrying on their tradition in science memes.
Those relics belong to dead people.
No, it belongs to a community. Does something stop belonging to a people if the original creators die? No.
That way nobody owns any land, because it belongs to the amoeba.
Returning the artifacts is meant to be a good will gesture, and a sort of a reparation (in lieu of the actual reparations) for all the horrible colonial era crimes that were propagated not more than even 100 years ago.
I think I get the gist of what you’re saying but they’re very much not arbitrary. They’re a direct manifestation of a state’s ability to exert control.
We agree entirely.
Without the ability to exert control and therefore reinforce the definition, borders are as arbitrary as any other law. They are created by people, enforced by people, and if we change our mind then they can go away. It’s not some intrinsic property of the planet.
While I’m ranting, the definition of a relic or artifact is equally arbitrary. As well as the definition of a people. And ownership. At any point in history, these definitions will be different. Right now we’ve defined it in such a way that we’ve decided that it is socially acceptable to return relics to people who live inside geographic areas where the relics originated from. This is also arbitrary.
But as long as people, decide to exert force to reinforce this definitions, there is true as any other law.
Well I’m British so… fuuuck that!
It should belong to the country of origin, but it could also be shared and tour around museums across the globe so an even greater number of people can check it out. They do this with art pieces. Why not cultural artifacts, too? Is not everyone entitled to learning about anything, including someone else’s culture?
I would assume there would be arguments around transporting them increasing the chances of it breaking. It would really only make sense to move these back to their country of origin and have them remain there to minimize potential points of failure. The rarer the artifact itself (another rusted out sword or plain clay cup versus a one of a kind manuscript whose pages have become incredibly delicate) the less their respective owners are going to want it to be moved.
Instead, we should be allowing more people the ability to travel and take time to go explore other cultures in their country of origin instead of trying to transport priceless artifacts across the globe.
Why are there pyramids in egypt?
Because they were too big for the british museum.
Karen Allen, the perfect example of aging naturally and radiating beauty.
Petite brunette women with green eyes have always been my thing. I realised recently that is entirely due to Karen Allen.
She isn’t even specifically my type, but her smile in this Indy 4 promo foto
was just absolutely captivatingShe has a beautiful smile.
Britannia Jones and the stolen museum artifacts.
The museum could pay rent per item to the country the artifacts originate from? Bad idea?
