JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Photo: Egyptian antiquities at the Louvre

Two views on the ownership of antiquities:

From a journalist: “Loot is an ugly word. Derived from Hindi and Sanskrit, it emerged in British India, where it no doubt proved useful in describing some of the more sordid transactions of empire. In the 20th century, it was applied to Jewish art collections systematically plundered by Hitler and, later, to electronics pilfered from shop windows during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Most recently — and perhaps most provocatively — it has been wielded against well-to-do American museums whose pristine specimens of ancient civilizations have with shocking frequency turned out to be contraband. It is this latest application of the term that interests Sharon Waxman in “Loot,” a broad survey of what she calls “the battle over the stolen treasures of the ancient world”. . .” NYT review of Loot.

From the director of the Art Institute of Chicago: “The emotional, ‘national cultural identity’ card played by some proponents of nationalist retentionist cultural property laws is really a strategic, political card,” (James) Cuno writes. “National museums are important instruments in the formation of nationalist narratives; they are used to tell the story of a nation’s past and confirm its present importance. That may be true of national museums, but it is not true of encyclopedic museums, those whose collections comprise representative examples of the world’s artistic legacy.” In other words, the present attempts by nations such as Egypt, Italy, Greece, Mexico, and Cambodia to hold on to their archaeological legacy prevents the acquisition of archaeological artifacts by “great encyclopedic museums,” and this is bad for two reasons: the looting will continue anyway, and the museumgoing public will be denied the sight of inspirational works of art. . .” TNR review of Who Owns Antiquity?: Museums and the Battle Over Our Ancient Heritage