The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City said on Friday that it would return 14 sculptures to Cambodia and two to Thailand that were associated with an art dealer who was charged with trafficking looted antiquities in 2019. The return of the sculptures to their countries of origin would empty the Met's collection of art associated with Douglas Latchford, a dealer charged with smuggling looted artifacts from Southeast Asia, the museum said. The U.S. Attorney's office in the Southern District of New York indicted Latchford for supplying major auction houses, art dealers and museums with looted antiquities and falsifying documentation about where he obtained the art. Latchford died at his home in Bangkok in 2020, the New York Times reported. FILE PHOTO: People stand outside T...
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An ancient wooden sarcophagus that was featured at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences was returned to Egypt after U.S. authorities determined it was looted years ago, Egyptian officials said Monday. The repatriation is part of Egyptian government efforts to stop the trafficking of its stolen antiquities. In 2021, authorities in Cairo succeeded in getting 5,300 stolen artifacts returned to Egypt from across the world. An ancient wooden sarcophagus is displayed during a handover ceremony at the foreign ministry in Cairo, Egypt, Monday, Jan. 2, 2023. (AP Photo/Mohamed Salah) Mostafa Waziri, the top official at the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the sarcophagus dates back to the Late Dynastic Period of ancient Egypt, an era that spanned the last of the Pharaonic rulers from...
Read MoreThe debate over who owns ancient artifacts has been an increasing challenge to museums across Europe and America, and the spotlight has fallen on the most visited piece in the British Museum: The Rosetta stone. The inscriptions on the dark grey granite slab became the seminal breakthrough in deciphering ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics after it was taken from Egypt by forces of the British empire in 1801. Now, as Britain’s largest museum marks the 200-year anniversary of the decipherment of hieroglyphics, thousands of Egyptians are demanding the stone’s return. ’’The British Museum’s holding of the stone is a symbol of Western cultural violence against Egypt,” said Monica Hanna, dean at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport, and organizer of one of two p...
Read MoreThe exquisite golden tiara, inlaid with precious stones by master craftsmen some 1,500 years ago, was one of the world’s most valuable artifacts from the blood-letting rule of Attila the Hun, who rampaged with horseback warriors deep into Europe in the 5th century. The Hun diadem is now vanished from the museum in Ukraine that housed it — perhaps, historians fear, forever. Russian troops carted away the priceless crown and a hoard of other treasures after capturing the Ukrainian city of Melitopol in February, museum authorities say. FILE PHOTO: The 1,500 year-old golden tiara, inlaid with precious stones, one of the world's most valuable artifacts from the blood-letting rule of Attila the Hun, is seen in a museum in Melitopol, Ukraine, in November 2020. (AP Photo) The Russian inv...
Read MoreProminent Egyptian archaeologists have renewed a call for the return of the Rosetta Stone from the British Museum to Egypt, 200 years after the deciphering of the slab unlocked the secrets of hieroglyphic script and marked the birth of Egyptology. The archaeologists' online campaign has gathered 2,500 signatures so far and aims to "tell Egyptians what has been taken from them", said Monica Hanna, acting Dean of the College of Archaeology in the Egyptian city of Aswan. The Rosetta Stone dates to 196 BC and was unearthed by Napoleon's army in northern Egypt in 1799. It became British property after Napoleon's defeat under the terms of the 1801 Treaty of Alexandria, along with other antiquities found by the French, and was shipped to Britain. It has been housed at the British Museu...
Read MoreA U.S. museum has returned a valuable 1,000-year-old Christian manuscript to a monastery in northern Greece it was looted from by Bulgarian forces more than a century ago together with hundreds of other documents and artifacts. The 11th century gospel "Kosinitza Manuscript 220" was formally presented Thursday at the Eikosiphoinissa Monastery, in a ceremony attended by Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elpidophoros of America, and officials from the Museum of the Bible in Washington. According to the Archdiocese of America, the Greek manuscript is one of the world’s oldest handwritten gospels, and is believed to have been made in southern Italy. It was donated to the museum in 2014 after being bought at auction. Museum officials subsequently identified it as one of the manuscripts sto...
Read MoreCultural ministers and representatives from 150 countries committed to expanding efforts to return historical artifacts to their countries of origin, according to a declaration released on Friday, following a UNESCO conference in Mexico City. Major museums, auction houses and private collectors have faced growing pressure in recent years to repatriate priceless works of art and other antiquities from Latin American and African nations, among others, which argue the goods were often taken unethically or illegally. FILE PHOTO: Seized items are displayed during an announcement of the repatriation and return to Cambodia of 30 Cambodian antiquities sold to U.S. collectors and institutions by Douglas Latchford and seized by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan, New York City, U.S., Aug...
Read MoreMuseums in New York that exhibit artworks looted by Nazis during the Holocaust are now required by law to let the public know about those dark chapters in their provenance through placards displayed with the stolen objects. At least 600,000 pieces of art were looted from Jewish people before and during World War II, according to experts. Some of that plunder wound up in the world’s great museums. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a law in August requiring museums to put up signs identifying pieces looted by the Nazis from 1933 through 1945. A 15th century work from the Netherlands, "Crib of the Infant Jesus"—a 1974 gift from Ruth Blumka to the Metropolitan Museum of Art—is shown on exhibition at the museum Thursday, Sept. 1, 2022, in New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) The ne...
Read MoreA Berlin museum opens fully to the public this week with a very modern take on the display of cultural items from around the world and the debate over demands for some of them to be returned to their homelands. The east wing of the Humboldt Forum contains items from the city’s Ethnological Museum and the Museum for Asian Art. It will display some 20,000 objects, among them dozens of Benin Bronzes that were stolen in Africa during colonial times — as well as an exhibit explaining to visitors how most of them are soon to return to Nigeria. Benin Bronzes, that were stolen in Africa during colonial times, are displayed in Berlin, Germany, Thursday, Sept. 15, 2022. The Humboldtforum museum opens fully to the public this week with a very modern take on the display of cultural items from a...
Read MoreLondon's Horniman Museum said on Sunday it would return 72 artefacts, including 12 brass plaques known as Benin Bronzes, looted from Benin City by British soldiers in 1897 to the Nigerian government. Created from brass and bronze in the once mighty Kingdom of Benin in what is now southwestern Nigeria from at least the 16th century onwards, the Benin Bronzes are among Africa's most culturally significant artefacts. A square bronze pendant or ornament, one of the objects that London's Horniman Museum says was looted from Benin City by British soldiers in 1897 and will be returned to Nigeria's government, is pictured in this undated handout image. Horniman Museum and Gardens/Handout via REUTERS They were seized, along with thousands of other items, in a British military incursion, a...
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