ANTIQUES SHOWDOWN

A string of seashells made into a necklace more than 200 years ago was returned to Tasmania last month after 30 years of wrangling by the Huntarian collection, part of the University of Glasgow and Scotland's oldest public museum.

The 1.5-metre necklace was made with two types of shells from the Bass Straits islands between Australia and Tasmania by an unknown aboriginal craftswoman. She chose carefully which of the midnight blue shells to use and how to thread them to achieve the desired effect. The finished article would have been a valuable commodity. But whether it was stolen or traded we shall probably never know.

However, the necklace has become one of the latest cultural artefacts to be plucked from the display cases of British museums and returned to the original owners - or at least their descendants. Necklace-making is the oldest continually practiced craft in the Bass Straits and may date back to the arrival of the first aboriginal settlers more than 40,000 years ago, long before they were cut off from mainland Australia at the end of the last ice age. Now it is back home, it will help new generations of necklace makers study and perfect their craft.

A request for the necklace's return was first turned down in 1994 on the grounds that there was no evidence of subterfuge or sharp dealing when it was acquired during "first contact" by the first Europeans to visit the islands.

It was only 30 years ago but attitudes have changed and the buzz word now in museums is repatriation. The rush to return items stolen by the Nazis during the Second World War started a chain reaction that has ultimately impacted almost every museum in Britain and many more across the western world.

If you are concerned that display cases will be left empty, don't be. For every item removed there are dozens, sometimes hundreds, that have never made it out of the storeroom.

Dan Hicks, author of the newly published study, Every Monument Must Fall, says attitudes have recently begun to change dramatically. Hicks, professor of world archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, was called in to investigate the origins of a silver-mounted human skull being supped from and used for toasts by academics at Worcester College, Oxford.

He discovered the skull had been bought at Sotheby's by August Pitt Rivers in 1884, the same year he founded the museum. Tests revealed the skull's female owner had grown up in the Caribbean and died around the year 1790, give or take 20 years. In 2015, the object was retired to a store room - never to be drunk from again. It would be returned if anyone knew where to.

Prof Hicks said: "There are emerging and urgent questions about the restitution of ancient human remains. In many cases we don't know who these people were because eradication of their identity was part of the process."

A remarkable number of museums and other institutions hold preserved human remains - from tattooed Maori heads to the shrunken heads from South America which fascinated generations of school children.

Prof Hicks added: "No one sensible is suggesting that this conversation is about returning everything. It's case by case. In the UK we have the problem of the national museums which are not allowed to return objects, but the majority of items are in 30 to 40 regional collections around the country."

By Dr Mario Trabucco della Torretta, Archaeologist

Repatriation of illicitly trafficked cultural items is a routine matter for our museums, and the 1970 UNESCO convention has been a marked improvement in the way the art market

Works. What is less beneficial is the proliferation of repatriation claims based on botched historical narratives, often ideologically motivated, and invariably unaccompanied by the relevant justificative evidence.

When these repatriations are performed, the museums responsible cease to be the scientific establishments we all cherish and pay for, and become mouthpieces for political propaganda. Take the case of the Elgin Marbles, whose famous 'theft' remains unproven. Yet, the lack of solid scientific ground does not prevent unstudious activists from promoting the claim, nor does it stop a foreign government from sponsoring psy-ops on British soil aimed at convincing our legislators to change our laws.

Restitution does not test just our legal framework, but also our moral compass: look at the Benin Bronzes, claimed by the heirs of the very rulers who created these wondrous works of art with the metal they received in payment for the slaves they were selling.

Should we be handing back to the heirs of a slaver the fruit of his crime? Would we have the same uncertainty if the heirs of Nazi officials were claiming the gold confiscated from the prisoners of Dachau? Sometimes the picture is even more muddled. Would the Louvre have to send the Stele of Hammurabi to Iraq, where it was created, or to Iran, where it was excavated? Cultural objects move, acquire new meanings, have a life of their own, and the reasons that brought them to our museums are just as worthy a page of history as the moment of their creation.

We should respect this cultural fact, endeavour to understand its ramifications, and

disseminate this knowledge within our museums. "Retain and explain" is infinitely more virtuous than "take the knee and ship back."

Parthenon Marbles:

There is a powerful case for the return of the sculptures to Athens where they began life 2,500 years ago. They were removed by Thomas Bruce the 7th Earl of Elgin who claimed to have acquired them from Greece's Ottoman overlords. However no permit has ever been found in the archives of the Ottoman empire and the stories told by Bruce and his agents to subsequent parliamentary enquiries were confused and contradictory.

Bruce sold the marbles to the British Museum in 1816 to get himself out of a financial hole. The Elgin Marbles, as they formally became known, have been a star attraction for 200 years - filling a purpose built gallery and enchanting visitors.

A deal is supposed to have been done between Labour and Greece's new government but nothing has been announced and they are still in the leaky gallery. While the gallery is being rebuilt in the next few years, they will move to a temporary new home and this may be the time to relocate them for good. Whether that will be to London or Athens or a combination of the two is anyone's guess.

Cambodian statues:

Cambodia's ancient temples were plundered during the seventies and eighties and as recently as the 2000s when the country was torn apart by civil war. Instrumental in the trade was a London based antiquities dealer Douglas Latchford who died in 2020.

An estimated 100 statues found their way into the care of the British Museum with a smaller number going to the V&A. Cambodia has demanded their return but lacks the space to accommodate them and the resources to restore the damaged temples where many think they belong. The statues have never been put on display by either institution and we only know of their existence thanks to a long-running investigation by the BBC.

Benin Bronzes:

Thousands of historic bronze castings were looted from the palaces of Benin, now part of Nigeria, by British forces in 1897. The looting was supposed to be a formal punishment imposed by the colonial power but turned into a chaotic free for all. According to Dan Hicks, curator of world archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, which recently repatriated its collection of bronzes to Benin, they ended up in 185 institutions around the world as well as in hands of private collectors.

Aboriginal spears:

In April, four Aboriginal fishing spears went on display at the University of Sydney's Chau Chak Wing Museum. The primitive spears little more than pointed wooden sticks were ephemeral objects that probably only survived the past 255 years because they were "collected" by the crew of Captain James Cook's ship Endeavour during his first visit to what became known as Botany Bay.

They had been returned to the Gweagal people by Cambridge University's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Cook took 40 spears which were distributed to various locations on his return to Britain. Elders of the tribe never forgot nor forgave the theft of the spears and it took generations of campaigning to finally see their return. The four given back last month may be among the last survivors.

Masai ornaments:

For those who believe museums should hang on to their collections there is some good news. A delegation of Masai community leaders from Kenya and Tanzania have decided not to reclaim items stolen from their ancestors.

Five items of personal adornment on display at the Pitt River Museum in Oxford will be left there after seven years of negotiation. Tribal tradition says such objects can never be sold or given away and the delegation concluded they could only have been taken from their owners by force. However, the agreement to leave the objects in the museum has been agreed with the five families from whom they were taken. The deal was commemorated with a tea ceremony in Oxford in October.

Hindu deity:

A bronze statue of a Hindu god has been cleared for take off from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The 500-year-old statue of the deity Tirumankai Alvar holding a short sword and a round shield was bought at auction by the museum in 1967. Ten years earlier in 1957, it had been photographed in situ at a temple in Tamil Nadu.

The 60cm-tall statue was one of four looted from the temple which found their way to the US. The whereabouts of the other three are unknown. It was recognised from a photograph by a researcher who alerted the Indian High Commission in London. The museum, part of the University of Oxford, has agreed to the request for repatriation.

Mold Gold Cape:

Calls are growing for Wales's most important archaeological treasures to be returned to the Principality. They include the 4,000-year-old Mold Gold Cape which was discovered in the small north Wales town in 1833. A masterpiece by a Bronze Age craftsman, it is currently a star attraction in the British Museum's collection of prehistoric art. Other items whose return is being sought by Welsh politicians include a unique Celtic iron firedog.