A recent scandal involving the theft of more than 2,000 artifacts from the British Museum has stirred a global outcry, intensifying demands from countries such as China and Egypt for the return of relics looted by colonial powers and currently held by the UK museum. The incident has led to a crisis of trust in Western museums and has reignited discussions about the repatriation of stolen cultural heritage.
The demand for the return of Chinese relics plundered by the UK has gained significant momentum, with over 210 million views on the topic on China’s Twitter-like platform, Sina Weibo. Chinese netizens have expressed their outrage and are calling for the British Museum to return the artifacts that rightfully belong to China. Hartwig Fischer, the director of the British Museum, announced his resignation amidst the controversy, acknowledging that the museum did not respond to a theft warning issued in 2021.
Cultural experts argue that the museum’s lackadaisical management and disregard for the artifacts are key reasons behind the growing petitions for repatriation. One netizen pointed out that perhaps the museum’s negligence stems from the fact that it has very few relics that actually originate from the UK. The British Museum currently holds a total of 23,000 Chinese relics, of which about 2,000 are on long-term display, including paintings, prints, jade, and ceramics.
Historically, the looting of cultural artifacts by colonial powers has been a contentious issue. The Second Opium War (1856-60) culminated in British and French troops pillaging the Old Summer Palace, or Yuanmingyuan, in Beijing. The stolen art and cultural artifacts subsequently found their way into museums and private collections across Europe.
Huo Zhengxin, a professor of law at the China University of Political Science and Law, highlighted that the loss of cultural relics represents a conscious or unconscious plunder by colonial powers throughout history. An estimated 10 million artifacts were stolen from China from the first Opium War (1840-42) to the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression (1931-45). Some of China’s oldest surviving paintings on silk and inscribed bronze ritual vessels are part of the UK museum’s collection.
Wang Zhongjie, a relic repatriation expert, expressed skepticism about the British Museum’s claim that it has no list of lost items, stating it is hard to believe that no Chinese relics were part of the stolen batch. Wang warned that the lost relics may very likely be lost forever and cannot be replaced.
The demands for the return of looted relics are not limited to China. Nigeria, Greece, and Egypt have also joined the chorus of nations calling for repatriation. Greece has been demanding the return of the Parthenon Temple’s marble sculpture, while Abba Isa Tijani, director general of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments, questioned the safety of keeping relics in Western museums. Tijani noted that Western countries and museums have been claiming that it is unsafe to keep Benin’s bronze artifacts in Nigeria, yet they themselves have been involved in theft, which he described as “truly shocking.”
Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s former minister of state for antiquities affairs, has been advocating for the return of Egypt’s Rosetta Stone from the British Museum for years. He stressed the need for museums to stop acquiring looted, stolen, or otherwise illegal artifacts in the 21st century.
The outcry has not been limited to international voices; there has also been domestic criticism of the British Museum. UK’s Labour MP for Streatham, Ribeiro-Addy, publicly condemned the museum’s lax response to the suspected theft. She expressed her dismay at the museum’s failure to assess and catalog its collection to determine the extent of the theft.
The theft at the British Museum has exposed the British attitude towards colonial misdeeds, according to a Sina Weibo user. The incident has sparked a renewed focus on the repatriation of looted relics, an issue that continues to be a point of contention between former colonial powers and the nations from which these invaluable artifacts were stolen.
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