Loot: The Battle over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World was written by Sharon Waxman and discusses the ongoing debate involving the western museums and the homelands of ancient artifacts. Architecture, sculptures, pottery and many other forms of ancient art have been “looted” to bring back to museums in the Western world.
The Elgin Marbles are the most known example. The Earl of Eglin excavated parts of the Parthenon’s Architecture in 1802 and brought it back to house in the British Museum. Many people belive that because they were purchased at the time, England legally owns them. They also believe that becuase they are in a museum, they are being preserved much better than they would be if they were still at the original site. Many, including myself, also believe that the point of a museum is to educate the world about other cultures and customs, so leaving these artifacts in their original locations, limits the amount of information exposed to the rest of the world.
Many of the artifacts that have been scattered over the western museums, however, have been illegally obtained. People like Zahi Hawass, the secretary-general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, have been fighting for years to get these artifacts back into their original countries. The infamous head of Nefertiti (Egyptian Museum in Berlin), Rosetta Stone (British Museum), the Zodiac Ceiling of Denderah (Louvre), Statue of Hemiunu (Hildesheim, Germany), and the Ankhaf Sculpture (Boston Museum of Fine Arts) are all objects that Hawass is after.
“For centuries the West had plundered the treasures of the ancient world to fill its great museums, but the countries where ancient civilizations originated have begun to push back, taking museums to court and prosecuting curators.
Sharon Waxman brindgs us inside the high-stakes conflict, as Egypt, Turkey, Greece and Italy face down the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum, the British Museum, and the J.Paul Getty Museum to force the return of these priceless objects.
Waxman shows how a few determined characters may yet strip these museums of some of their most cherished treasures, and she lays bare the stakes for the future of cultural exchange.”
-Sarah Clinton
Comments are closed.