via Firstpost, 03 April 2023: Editorial on the recent repatriations of artefacts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art linked to shady antiquities dealers. It focuses on India, but very well applies to Southeast Asia as well.
For very obvious reasons, the fact that in 2022 US authorities confiscated 29 antiquities from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art collection—from ancient India, Italy, Greece and Egypt—has not been very widely publicised. After all, it would eliminate the moral high ground that western museums and collectors take of ‘preserving’ ancient treasures, implying these are better off in their vaunted premises and vaults than in their countries of origin.
So the news last week that the Met will return 15 more such illegally acquired antiquities to India should be responded to with a robust “About time” riposte rather than a polite “Thank you” for this belated display of conscience. The myth that those antiquities are acquired works of ‘art’ rather than stolen objects of veneration has been allowed to persist for far too long. There is no legal method by which at least Indian antiquities could have been acquired and/or sold.
It is also not surprising that it took a New York Supreme Court order on 23 March 2023 to seize ‘stolen property’ for the Met to generously announce a week later its intention to return 15 Indian artefacts. The release of the results of an in-depth probe by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and its media partners into the role of shady antiquities traffickers in the acquisitions by the Met, clearly also had a role to play in this sudden burst of generosity.
Source: Why trafficking antiquities should be deemed a crime against humanity
