Stolen frescoes to be returned

The Louvre museum in Paris will return five ancient fresco fragments to Egypt, the French culture ministry has said.

The Egyptians say the Louvre bought the Pharaonic steles in 2000 even though it knew they had been stolen in the 1980s.

This is interesting because it sets a precedent for other artefacts (and possibly human remains), albeit only ones that were looted or stolen.

In my view it only sets a precedent for human remains from other cultures. Archaeologists who dig up ancient British remains have as much claim to descent from those remains as anyone else. However, where indigenous remains from other cultures were looted without the permission of the indigenous people concerned, they should be returned.

In the case of artefacts from other cultures, if they were bought legitimately by the museum in which they reside, then the other country should buy them back. If they were not bought legitimately then they should be returned. In the case of the Elgin Marbles, they were removed when a foreign power was occupying Greece, and should be returned to Greece now that there is a suitable museum for them to reside in.

Red Lady controversy

Interesting, a repatriation case between two museums.

clipped from www.walesonline.co.uk AN Elgin Marbles-style campaign has begun to secure the return to Wales of the Red Lady of Paviland, one of the world's most important archaeological finds. The skeleton of the "Red Lady" complete with jewellery and a mammoth's head marker was discovered in 1823 at Paviland Cave on Gower. Later analysis showed the skeleton to be that of a man, possibly a chieftain, but the Red Lady tag stuck. It emerged that the bones, stained by red ochre, were the oldest ceremonially buried remains ever found in Western Europe. They go back to 24,000BC pre-dating Stonehenge by 20,000 years.