Repatriation

Parthenon Marbles: is a breakthrough in sight?

Plus, Afghan culture in crisis and Kiki Smith’s New York murals

Hosted by Ben Luke. With guest speaker Sarvy Geranpayeh. Produced by David Clack, Aimee Dawson and Henrietta Bentall
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The Netherlands returns more than 200 pre-Hispanic artefacts to Mexico

In all, 223 pre-Hispanic objects have been repatriated to Mexico by the Dutch government, largely through the power of social media

Secret talks between British Museum and Greece to return Parthenon Marbles in 'advanced stages'

If a deal is finalised, the contested sculptures are expected to be returned to Greece in early 2023, and will be displayed at the Acropolis Museum in Athens

National Museum of Scotland to repatriate looted totem pole

The museum will transfer the totem pole to the Nisga’a Nation of British Columbia

Canada’s museums urged to overhaul practices to empower Indigenous peoples

Country’s museums association says institutions must involve Indigenous people in “every element” of their work

Massachusetts museum repatriates Wounded Knee Massacre artefacts to Lakota and Sioux nations

The Founders Museum, a small institution housed in a library, returned a variety of tribal objects to their rightful owners in South Dakota

Alleged Native American scalp seized from auction house specialised in Confederate and Nazi memorabilia

Authorities received an anonymous tip regarding an object listed for sale on the auction house’s website and described as a Mescalero Apache scalp

Manhattan district attorney returns 187 artefacts tied to disgraced dealer Subhash Kapoor to Pakistan

The objects associated with Kapoor, along with another five pieces returned to Pakistan, were cumulatively valued at $3.4m

Three decades ago, US museums were told to report all Native remains in their collections—so why are they still there?

American institutions have catalogued 208,698 entries since the law went into effect in 1990—but less than half of those holdings have been repatriated

Stolen statue linked to antiquities trafficker Doris Wiener repatriated to Cambodia

The sandstone vishnu statue was stolen from a seventh-century temple and smuggled to Manhattan in 1995, when it was sold to a private collector

Anthropologist opposed to Indigenous repatriation sues university for alleged threats to her free speech

Professor Elizabeth Weiss has filed a lawsuit against San José State University claiming she was disciplined for expressing her view that repatriation favours religion over science

Trove of Benin bronzes in US museum collections repatriated to Nigeria

The National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African Art and the Rhode Island School of Design Museum marked the return of the sculptures with a ceremony in Washington, DC

London's Wellcome Collection returns remains of death camp victim to Denmark

Research carried out in 2019 helped identify the remains as Preben Holger Larsen, a 26-year-old artist and member of the Danish resistance

FBI returns 2,000-year-old Roman mosaic discovered in Los Angeles to Italy

The mosaic, which features a portrait of Medusa and had been cut into 16 pieces, was returned to Rome by the FBI’s Art Crime Team

‘Return Rosetta Stone to Egypt’ demands country’s leading archaeologist Zahi Hawass

The former Egyptian antiquities minister leans into the current restitution conversation, calling again for the return of three prized antiquities from European museums

The Metropolitan Museum returns two looted artefacts to Nepal

The two works, given to the museum in the 1990s, were looted from temples in Kathmandu according to recent internal provenance research

National Museum of Scotland urged to return First Nations totem pole stolen by Canadian anthropologist

The pole was stolen in 1929 and, if returned, would be only the second totem pole to be repatriated to a First Nation by a European institution

US museums and Indigenous tribes receive $2m grant to boost repatriation efforts

The National Park Service has awarded grants totaling $2.1m to 20 museums and nine tribes

Oxford and Cambridge universities approve returning 213 looted Benin bronzes to Nigeria

Charity Commission could veto the decision to repatriate objects from Ashmolean Museum and Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology

Pope Francis addresses forced assimilation in Canadian tour amid calls for repatriation of Indigenous artefacts from Vatican Museums

Francis delivered a speech in Maskwacis as part of a week-long visit to apologise for the role of the Catholic church in the cultural genocide of Indigenous communities

Copies of the Parthenon Marbles—carved by a robot—to go on show in London

Project by Oxford’s Institute for Digital Archaeology fuels debate about restitution of controversial sculptures

Artefacts long held by the Smithsonian will go on view at new Mi’ kmaw cultural centre in Nova Scotia

The $50m centre is scheduled to open in 2025 and showcase works on long-term loan from the National Museum of the American Indian

Canadian First Nation calls for portion of controversial $789m museum budget to be spent repatriating Indigenous artefacts

The province’s enormous expenditure to rebuild the Royal British Columbia Museum should include funding repatriation efforts, the Tseshaht First Nation says

Leaked report reveals Harvard holds remains of nearly 7,000 Indigenous and 20 enslaved people

The unfinalised report is being developed by a steering committee formed last year to address repatriation concerns at the Ivy League university

What has happened to France’s grand plans to return Africa's heritage?

Five years ago President Macron took the museum world by surprise when he announced a then-revolutionary restitution plan. Now the country’s politicians are at odds about how to implement it

Britain's Royal Albert Memorial Museum returns artefacts to Siksika First Nation

Exeter museum has held various objects belonging to the 19th-century Blackfoot leader Chief Crowfoot since 1878

Smithsonian adopts new ‘ethical returns policy’ to handle artefacts with problematic histories

The new policy, adopted by all Smithsonian museums on 29 April, will allow each institution to tailor it to their particular collections and provenance considerations

FBI repatriates smuggled artefacts, artworks and other objects to Peru

The returned objects include artefacts from the collection of amateur archaeologist Donald Miller, the subject of a high-profile raid in 2014