British Museum in private talks over returning foreign artefacts
Repatriation requests have come through ‘confidential diplomatic channels’ not letters or media appeals
THE British Museum is holding private talks with foreign governments about the return of four items in its collection, The Telegraph can disclose.
It said it could not reveal which objects had been discussed as communications with the states in question were “ongoing”.
A document seen by The Telegraph shows that since 2015, the museum has received 12 separate formal requests for the return of items.
Of these, four were made by overseas administrations through “confidential diplomatic channels” rather than through published letters or media appeals.
The museum is prevented by law from permanently returning any objects except in extremely limited circumstances – such as if they contain human remains or were looted by the Nazis during the Second World War.
Its trustees have in recent years agreed for items to go back to their countries of origin on the basis of “longterm loans”. Such an agreement was reached earlier this year with the Manhyia Palace Museum in Ghana, over a collection of gold pieces that have been called the country’s “crown jewels”.
Ghana requested the return of the regalia, originally the property of the Asante king, in 1974, and was told months later by the museum that it would be “legally impossible” to do so.
Last year it was reported that George Osborne, chairman of the museum’s board of trustees, had negotiated a deal with Greek officials to loan the Elgin Marbles back to the country.
The museum would not confirm that it had flat-out rejected any of the 12 formal requests it had received in the past decade. It did state that the Rosetta Stone, taken from Egypt in 1802, was not one of the four items privately requested for return.
It had been speculated that the stone could be returned after the museum dropped the “Rosetta Project” name from its £1billion renovation plan last summer. In August, a Chinese newspaper demanded that the museum give back all its country’s relics, after it emerged that a curator had been responsible for a spate of thefts from other parts of its collection. The museum confirmed that it has not yet received any formal return requests from the Chinese government.
At least two other nations have made private repatriation requests in the last financial year.
Requests for the repatriation of objects are received and handled by the museum’s trustees, who are legally responsible for its collection.
They must sign off on all loan agreements, even if they are arranged by the director of the museum.
Items that have been formally requested for return since 2015 include 133 sculptures from Amaravati in India, a Moai statue from Easter Island and an unspecified number of antiquities from Nigeria known as the Benin Bronzes.
These items can be named as the governments requesting them have chosen to do so publicly, rather than through private communications with the British Government. They are listed on a section of the British Museum website called “contested objects”, along with the gold relics recently loaned back to Ghana. Nowhere on this site does the museum acknowledge that it has received formal repatriation requests that are not disclosed to the public.
In a document seen by The Telegraph, released after a freedom of information request, the museum recognised that there is a “public interest” argument for it to disclose which items it has privately been asked to repatriate.
This was “because of the current public debate about the origins of some historic collections and the question of whether certain objects should be returned to their place of origin”, it said.
However, the museum decided against this as to do so “would have a detrimental effect on its relationship with the states in question at a time when communications are ongoing”.
‘Disclosing the items the museum has been asked to repatriate would have a detrimental effect’