How looted artifacts impede our understanding of history
'Many countries still have not acknowledged the harm that was done during colonialism,' says expert
The looting of cultural artifacts has a long history across the world.
From ancient Roman pillagers who cleaned out the city of Veii during their first conquest in 396 BC, to the British troops who took bronze art works from Benin in southern Nigeria at the end of the 19th century, the theft of these objects can have a devastating impact on the communities they were taken from.
"I think many countries still have not acknowledged the harm that was done during colonialism and particularly the resources both natural resources, cultural resources that were taken often violently from these other areas of the world," says Patty Gerstenblith, director of the Center for Art, Museum & Cultural Heritage Law at DePaul University in Chicago. In February, she delivered a talk at Ryerson University's International Issues Discussion Series about the history of these artifacts and the network of looted objects that still exists today.
In recent times, many museums and cultural institutions in the West have made efforts to return these stolen artifacts. Last year, the Smithsonian announced that it was returning most, but not all, of the 39 Benin Bronzes in its possession to Nigeria's National Commission for Museums and Monuments. Smithsonian officials will make a determination on the remaining artifacts once they have verified if they were stolen.
Rescue narrative
According to art historians, around 90 per cent of Africa's cultural heritage is believed to be in Europe.
These works continue to be held by Western institutions due to the prevailing belief that the best place for them is in these institutions.
"They [believe] that they have the financial resources, the technology, the knowledge to conserve the objects in the best way possible," says Gerstenblith. "I don't think that's necessarily the case."
Part of this long held "rescue narrative" is that artifacts in the West are always better taken care of, and things outside of the West are not. "But if we look at some recent catastrophes, for example, the fact that Notre Dame in Paris burned down due to an accident [we see that] the West is not perfect by any means," she says.
Floods and other natural disasters have also damaged collections of various types over the last several years, a situation that is only going to get worse with climate change coming, says Gerstenblith.
Another aspect to the rescue narrative is the idea that certain parts of the world are far more prone to armed conflict and violence than Europe and North America. But in many cases, Gerstenblith says, that violence was actually inflicted on those parts of the world by Western powers.
"So you can say, well, the things in the museums in Iraq in 2003 were looted, but that was precipitated by an invasion led by the United States," she says.
"You're creating this economic situation where people turn to looting as a way of earning a living. So It really does not make sense to blame them and say, 'Oh, these parts of the world have always been subject to violence,' whereas even Europe is not exempt from this type of armed conflict and violence."
What do we lose?
According to Gerstenblith, removing these objects from their original context can also impede our ability to fully understand them.
Primarily, she says, we lose the knowledge and understanding of the past that we would otherwise be able to gain. We don't know what else was with the object when it was looted, or what its cultural, religious or political significance might have been.
"You can appreciate the aesthetic value of a decontextualized object, but you can't do anything more than that," she says. "So when I look at an object which doesn't have its history, I can only bring to that object what I already know and what I really feel. Whereas if we have an object with its context, I can learn something new."
The other problem with decontextualized objects is that in many cases, it's hard to tell whether the object is authentic or not.
"I could be looking at a beautiful object and then it turns out it's not authentic. I call it corruption of the historical record because now something is being treated as the product of an ancient civilization, and it's not."
Working collaboratively
So what's to be done about artifacts of questionable provenance? Collaboration is crucial, says Gerstenblith. Instead of Western institutions perpetuating the theft of these cultural objects, she says, they should be working collaboratively and cooperatively with their countries of origin.
"It is through a collaborative arrangement that we can actually achieve understanding across cultures, across geography, across space and time," she says.
"And it is this kind of arrangement where we all benefit the most and the object will be the best taken care of."
*This episode was produced by Tayo Bero.
