After alleged thefts from the British Museum, a curator explains the challenges of keeping collections—and U.K. laws preventing repatriations.
After alleged thefts from the British Museum, a curator explains the challenges of keeping track of collections—and the legal limitations on returning cultural material to source communities.nearly 2,000 objects from the British Museum over the course of several decades. The items included gold rings, bracelets, necklaces, and earrings, mainly from ancient Greece and Rome.
I was the only Black curator at the British Museum during my nearly three years there as project curator of archaeological assemblages. Mywith the historic Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, and I joined the museum’s Equality and Diversity Steering Committee, working with colleagues to change the institution from within.
One of the biggest challenges for museum staff comes from donations and bequests—items private collectors amass and give to the museum. Like materials from auction houses, it can be difficult to establish how donors assembled their collections in the first place. In 2005, the trustees of the British Museum sought legal clarification over the potential return on moral grounds of artwork looted during the Nazi era. The courts ruled against return, citing that the trustees are bound by Parliamentary law. But, four years later, Parliament passed the, which granted the trustees of various museums across much of the U.K., including the British Museum, the power to deaccession objects stolen during the Nazi era.
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