Benin Bronzes Were Looted 123 Years Ago. Will They Ever Be Returned? | Hacker News Reader

Benin Bronzes Were Looted 123 Years Ago. Will They Ever Be Returned?

nytimes.com

42 pointspseudolus46 comments

I understand the idea that a stolen property have to be returned to its owner, but on the other hand I would suggest a third possibility. Maybe UK should be allowed to buy legally the objects instead to return them [1].

For a country with more than 200000 british-nigerian citizens paying due respect to Nigerian culture and history would send the right message to the population, protect all UK children against blatant racism and ignorance, and act as ambassadors of Nigeria in Occcident, a country with more people than Japan or Russia.

I would smile about the idea of the future 15Yo Sade, Seal or John Boyega being allowed exposure to something that is also part of their legacy in a free "Museum of Nigeria and Nigerian people" and develop a sense of pride about it.

[1] (Or maybe they could just scan the objects, made exact bronze replicas and spread them for countries with extensive nigerian population for the public benefit. That would end the dispute)

Transparency International reports that Nigeria is 146th (out of 180) in the global corruption rankings, while Britain comes 12th. These priceless cultural artifacts are safer in the British Museum.

Why does this matter? Britain stole them, just because they are "safer" in Britian doesn't mean they belong there.

No, but putting them back where they belong and seeing them disappear in 24hours is probably not a good solution either.

Personally I don't care at all about artifacts like this so the principal of the matter seems more important to me then the potential destruction of the artifacts.

It's their stuff to potentially get destroyed or go missing. If they would rather take that risk upon themselves then so be it.

What about stuff that you do care about? Would you go against your principles then?

I'm not aware of anything that would conflict with my stance. The point being that no object is more important than the principles here. The world will keep on spinning if all this stuff is destroyed. The bar for conflicting would be something that causes problems for our continued existence on earth.

Perhaps something such as a country "owning" a river and deciding to freely dump nuclear waste into it which in turn causes problems for everyone.

> If they would rather take that risk upon themselves then so be it.

I think that's an important point - they aren't being given that choice right now - if the British Museum decided to return all the Benin Bronzes then it's not inconceivable that Nigeria would leave them in the custody of the British Museum until it had a safe space to house them - or possibly loan them to the British Museum if there were doubts of the item's safety.

What makes you think that returning artifacts to the rightful owners will make them disappear?

The perception that the rulers of the country are a bunch of kleptocrats who are likely to be ousted by another set of kleptocrats in short order.

Generally however as long as the artifacts are in hands of a museum they're generally safe no matter how unstable the host government is. The only exception is when certain religious extremists gain power and go on an spree of cultural destruction like in Syria.

I've got bad news for you: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boko_Haram

If there's one thing we British know about, it's valuable artworks disappearing from their homelands under deals of questionable legitimacy.

I think we should confiscate all the money from those with money management skills mostly the poor, because they are going to squander it. We should give it to the rich because they know how to retain money and will do more good with it... That's your logic.

I agree that the Benin Bronzes should be returned to official custody of Nigerian museums. But concern that the museums are not capable of ensuring their safety can be very real: see for example the fire at the National Museum of Brazil in 2018 that irrevocably destroyed most of our records of extinct indigenous groups in the Amazon.

The concern is real but ultimately it does not matter. Fact of the matter is, arguments like this have been used to justify racism for a long time.

"They are Savage so they need our religion. They are savages so they need to put in the fields to work. They are savages so they don't need education. They are savages so their art should be displayed in our museum not theirs."

IMHO, the proper way for the British Museum to move forward would be to take the stance that repatriation of these looted artifacts is the explicit policy, and to define the process and necessary steps that need to happen for repatriation, be it the Rosetta Stone, the Elgin Marbles, the Benin Bronzes, etc. Repatriation should be a question of when, not if.

Unfortunately, I get the feeling that the British Museum doesn't have the same viewpoint--returning these looted artifacts would deprive them of their most valuable visitor draws, so they resort to any argument that will let them avoid repatriation. That viewpoint I very definitely do not agree with, and I do not condone in the slightest.

I agree; the Rosetta Stone should be returned by Britain to France, despite the fact they stole it more than 200 years ago.

Fires happen in important British collections too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glasgow_School_of_Art#Fires

A third of the worlds extant medieval manuscripts were destroyed by German artillery in Belgium in WW I and WW II. Both times the destruction was a deliberate punishment for Belgian resistence.

Clearly European savages cannot be trusted with their own history.

One of the related articles linked at the bottom of this article is https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/arts/design/germany-museu....

> [An] investigation by the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper found that many of the artifacts that will be on display in the Humboldt Forum, a huge new museum under construction in a rebuilt Berlin palace, had for years been stored in less-than-ideal conditions. The report featured searing depictions of flooded storage rooms and depots choked with toxic dust.

The irony of this is that European art pieces are probably rotting so we can display African potteries and rusty blades. For this reason alone we send all that stuff back (we keep the Egyptian stuff though).

What is theft? I’m sure the bronzes were made out of “stolen” materials. How far are we willing to go back to sort this out?

So, people of 11 countries can loot statues of St. Paul, Stonehenge stones or even the Crown jewels?

If they're so inclined and willing to withstand the military and political consequences? Yeah, they can.

Such is the world we live in

It is only correct and right that all these bronzes are returned.

The moral argument aside, I don't think the 'safety' argument holds either. For example, an artifact might be 'safest' if it's enclosed in a concrete box at the center of a mountain, but that would be of no use to anyone if it can't be seen. Artifacts like these belong to the people who created them, are most relevant to those people and their descendants, and therefore it is to them that they should be most accessible. For the average person in Nigeria, these artifacts might as well not exist if they're in the British Museum or elsewhere, since they will never be able to see them.

Finally, if the British Museum truly have been good stewards of these artifacts, their rightful owners might decide to loan some of them back, but that is wholly their determination and their choice to make.

I mean - the british museum did sell a bunch of these off to private collectors under the direction of an incompetent director in the 70's... so maybe where they are doesn't make them immune to corruption.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/mar/28/education.museums

I'm wondering what happened to the ones the director sold to his brother for "altruistic" reasons.

This is pure speculation, but I suspect the corruption there would be less likely to damage the artifacts - instead by delegating control of the plates to his brother the director was giving his brother a large amount of leverage to get a good position or decent cash payout out of the national Nigerian museum in Lagos mentioned in the article.

I'd be more concerned about those items going to private collectors, since they're probably safe for a generation and then likely to be scalped by the heirs for cash.

I mean what exactly goes into determining the corruption ranking anyway - does your museums receiving stolen stuff from other cultures count?

I suppose I accept that Nigeria is more corrupt but I think 12th is maybe outdated for Britain considering various Brexit things make me doubt the incorruptibility of basically every British political figure.

Looking quickly - Canada is 12th, US 23rd. I think Britain has to be a bit closer to US at least.

There's also quite a lot of European countries that are pretty close to Nigeria in rank, and I sort of feel that if stolen stuff ended being sent back to Russia's museums or some of the others it might be that they would be relatively safe.

As a Canadian, we... might be getting some undeserved good press on that front. Corruption isn't terribly blatant over here, but we haven't really had a major misalignment between the Ruling Class's and the population's incentives. It might get pretty blatant pretty quickly if we do.

My house has an excellent Security system. Let me steal all your belongings for "safekeeping".

I don't know where you get the idea from that corruption in Nigeria affects the safety of their very own artifacts. How is allowing the looters to keep the loot safer?

It is like saying that robbers can keep whatever they stole for as long as they can keep it safe.

Nigeria can choose to do whatever they want with their artifacts.

It's unclear who the rightful owners are. The most specific one would be the current oba, but Nigeria doesn't want them to go back to the oba. So it's kind of complicated. Nigeria seems fine with the loans, maybe because they know that gets them more of the bronzes than if they all went back to the oba. I think the best thing would be to have them back to the oba.

What is unclear/complicated here? This is between 2 countries, Britain and Nigeria. Not between Britain and a person. The oba is Nigerian. These artifacts are part of an entire country's heritage.

But they were private property at the time they were stolen by the British. A government doesn't generally have the right to take objects from citizens simply because they are culturally important.

In modern terms, that would be like somebody from Britain stealing Warhol's "Eight Elvises". Then, the US government demands they be given to the Smithsonian instead of back to the rightful owner.

This is a deeply patronising and offensive statement. The ancient Benin kingdom from which these artifacts were stolen still remains till today and despite corruption in the country, they have managed to keep all their remaining artifacts safe through the centuries.

Nigeria’s corruption problem is orthogonal to its ability to keep its sacred cultural artifacts safe. In fact due to deep cultural and religious reasons, the chances that Nigerians would rob the Oba (King) of Benin’s palace is near zero.

I say this with the full authority of being a native of said country and culture.

Sure, let the ranking #1 control has everyone else's precious stuff then.

Your money would be safer in my retirement account, where I wouldn't spend it on a <HarryHirsch expenditure I consider frivilous>.

That's not a great reason for me to justify stealing it, though.

This would logically imply that someone else should be entrusted with British treasures.

As a patriotic Nigerian I feel insulted by your comment, it is like justifying theft because the victim may likely waste the stolen stuff, so he doesn't deserve them.

I dunno, man, everything is left. When do you decide that property is property or left? Or put another way: If someone said that your property was stolen from his family 100 years, would you give it back?

This is a hard problem (see the conflict in Israel) and there’s not any good solutions.

I’m sure as a patriotic Nigerian you feel strongly about their return, but it’s also important to realize that the patriotism is artificial in the first place.

The problem with ancient material culture is that once it's gone, it's gone. We have an obligation to the scholars and peoples of the future to preserve material culture for their study and appreciation.

Maybe at some point we should declare that this kind of thing belongs to wherever it is now (and where it has been for over a century), and stop having proxy fights for people who died long before most of us were born?

Where do you draw the line otherwise? Did the Benin Bronzes came to be using exclusively peaceful, slave-free, violence-free, eco-friendly, certified-organic, gluten-free methods? If not, should the bronze be melted back into ingots and returned to its rightful place?

> Maybe at some point we should declare that this kind of thing belongs to wherever it is now

Therefore, by your logic, you are basically saying the following:

That you can steal $1 billion worth of something (say iPhones), and just wait out 150 years, and then legally claim that it is yours.

Do you agree with this?

I would think that the person/organization/country that you stole it from, would disagree with you.

Coincidentally, this appears to be the exact same argument that countries like Britain and France gives out, when it comes to their stolen war treasures. To which they call the spoils of war. And to add to their arrogance, they even stole a dog and called it “Looty”, and gave it to the Queen of England.

A rule like that would disproportionately benefit a handful of countries, like Britain gets to go around the world plundering artifacts from Greece, Egypt, Benin, India, and China and now it's declared no take backs.

I think the Stele of Hammurabi is interesting to consider through this lens. It was originally created in the 18th century BCE to glorify a Babylonian king in what is now Iraq. In the 12th century BCE, an Elamite king conquered Babylon and took it back to the city of Susa (in modern day Iran). It's hypothesized that this king is responsible for erasure of a large portion of the cuneiform text, presumably to make room for a never-incised inscription attesting to the conquering king's glory. The stela was rediscovered in 1901 by French archeologists working with the permission of the local Qajar rulers, restored, and put on display in the Louvre.

Should the stele go to the Iraqi government because they govern the area where it was originally created? Should it go to the Iranian government because archeologists discovered it at a site that's currently under the jurisdiction of Iran? Or should it remain with the French, who legitimately (at least, under the laws at the time) excavated it and took it to France?

Arguments about the cultural heirs of the object are hard here. The stela depicts King Hammurabi being given the royal symbols of the rod and ring by the sun god Shamesh. The code is written in Akkadian, a language which was nearly dead by the time of Christ. It invokes Marduk, the god of Babylon who was part of a larger pantheon that was long ago forgotten. It's most potent, culturally, as a symbol of a glorious ancient past, albeit one that is utterly alien to the people who live in that region today.

Assuming that the object belonged to the Iranian people, did the Qajar rulers have the authority to give it away to the French? At the time of the excavation, scholars in France were much better equipped to analyze and interpret the artifact than those in Iran and Iraq. Does that matter?

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