Stolen Japanese Art found and returned to Japan

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https://www.npr.org/2024/03/17/12390518 ... heir-attic

Some positive news at least. I'm glad the people of Japan had these returned to them.

It's good that a country that has the ability to protect cultural relics should get their own.

I think it's nice that the people who found these decided to do the right thing and return them to the country where they were stolen from instead of keeping or selling them.

I think it's wrong to steal priceless art and artifacts from other countries during times of war.

Western museums: *tugs collar as sweat drips form*

Yeah, good point. Though I think in some cases Western museums merely rescue art and artifacts from unstable regions with locals trying to destroy their own history. It's important to save these things for the purpose of education.

I think there's a tendency for them to frame things that way, even when it's not quite accurate.

I don't think the Greeks were ever going to damage all those pieces that Lord Elgin hoarded away in British museums. Likewise for stuff the French took from Egypt.

Same goes for all the stuff that was looted out of Iraq back in '03. Knowing a market for it existed contributed to why it was looted in the first place. No market, no incentive to loot it, no motive to remove it from the museum and risk damaging it. So long as the Americans and Brits didn't bomb or shell the museums their contents would have been safe inside.

I agree that it's important to preserve it. It's just not good to act like the people who it belongs to are incapable of preserving it and using that as an excuse to steal from the rightful owners.

That doesn't mean there aren't cases where works end up in foreign collections to save them so it's good to judge each case on it's own merits instead of adopting a black and white mindset.

Indeed, I agree with all of that. Each case must be judged without a black and white mindset.

And Museums are probably full of relics stolen from their rightful countries by colonists. That I don't doubt.

There is an argument that priceless relics are safer in western museums > returned to a country where they risk being stolen or re-sold.

In addition archaeological artefacts need expensive equipment for storage and maintenance. This is one concern I have for items dug up in India and south-east Asia as to their long term curation.

I agree with that. They probably are better off in museums.

Particularly items made of wood or organic matter, the technology in European and American museums is better equipped to house these. There is a push among native Americans to appropriate archaological items as "tribal" but like canoes that are more than several hundred years old would simply disintegrate unless they are placed into temperature/moisture/oxygen regulated spaces. Also what is found on tribal land doesn't automatically mean the item was made by their tribe. There is some controversy over archaological gatekeeping which doesn't make sense when the relics/remains dug up are likely nothing to do with the people identifying with a particular group now.