Preview

Cultural Artifact Research Paper

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
498 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Cultural Artifact Research Paper
Artifacts have been an important part of history forever. Some say that the artifacts should be returned to their homeland. They say this because the artifacts lose their context and a part of history when they are moved from their home. In reality, it is better to keep the artifacts in the museums. These artifacts should be kept in museums because the countries that own them may not be able to fund the protection the artifacts. Also, the artifact’s place of origin could be in turmoil, or the territory may be different country. These artifacts should be kept in a safe and secure place, away from thieves and other mishaps. In the article, “A Case of Antiquities for ‘Finders Keepers’” by John Tierney, says that “a country in turmoil can’t afford to excavate or guard all of its treasures.” They need to be guarded, but some of the countries that the artifacts are suppose to be returned to, cannot do that. So returning the artifacts to their country of origin, could result in the ultimate destruction of that artifact. Also, the artifacts place of origin may not be a country anymore. Where do you return it then? This is the question many people are asking. During Joyce Mortimer’s interview with James Cuno, James states a “territory …show more content…
Their reason is that the country has the right to enjoy the relic. Recently, many of these artifacts are being returned. As the article, “Visions of Home: Repatriated Works Back in Their Countries of Origin” by Rachel Donadio says “30,767 people visited the Aidone museum, and about 26,000 visited Morgantina, compared with 400,000 people who visited the Getty Villa in 2010, the last year the statue was on display there.” This proves the point that these relics are not being enjoyed by their country of origin. They were learned about and viewed more in a place that knows nothing about these relics. Thus, proving that they need to be kept in

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The author argues the illegal antiquities trade and how many archaeologists blame this antiquities trade for looting, claiming that many of this artifacts that are in the market are actually stolen. Sarah Parcak says “Human history is the greatest story ever told and the only way we can understand it fully is if we uncover it together. Sarah Parcak is trying to express the significance of finding common ground between countries to uncover history together. She believes looting is most likely to continue until diggers in Egypt and buyers abroad see antiquities not just as gorgeous objects but also as vital paths to learn about human…

    • 887 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When considering cultures in collision a museum is a fine example of a clash of positives and negatives. This can be a troubling idea for the curators and visitors of museums because their collective pursuit of further cultural knowledge is often pure. However, in constructing a museum more often than not items of important significance are transplanted from their original location to be viewed and studied by a foreign people in a foreign land. The concept of the “rightful owners” of history and artifacts is a complicated one that leads to many cultural collisions. This is because multiple cultures often lay claim to the same artifacts leading to conflict among the claimants. With all of these ideas in mind the process of selecting a piece of art from the Cornell Fine Arts Museum for analysis became far more difficult. In examining the thought-provoking piece Lonesome George by Juan Travieso a warning message is telegraphed loud and clear.…

    • 596 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The laws state that a piece of art that is found belongs to the country from which it was found, so the artwork that is smuggled out is often illegally sold. The evidence provided in this article helps make its argument strong. For example, the article talks about the sculpture of Hercules, and how the upper half was in a museum in Boston while the bottom half was dug up in Turkey, and the upper half of the sculpture was then believed to have belonged to Turkey (Art and The Truth: The Getty Kouros and Provenance). This proves that sometimes art truly does get stolen and smuggled out of its country of…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the article “Who Owns the Past” in passage three, paragraph fifteen, sentence two, states “But these laws rest on a couple of highly debatable assumptions; artifacts should remain in whatever country they were found, and that the best way to protect archaeological sites is to restrict the international trade in antiquities.” This shows that if an artifact is found in a country, it does not leave; whoever finds it will probably keep it or give it to a museum so it can be presented to everyone. In conclusion museums keep artifacts that belong to other people; but the people should get them…

    • 482 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Years later I visited with my school the Egyptian Museum in Turin which has, in my opinion, one of the best Egyptian collections I have ever seen. But when I was there I felt so sad, I felt like a thief because that pieces were not from Turin and neither from Italy and then it didn’t look so good as it could look in the pyramids, the real place where they…

    • 700 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over the past 50 years countless projects for preservation have existed as the sites have slowly decayed throughout time due to manmade destruction and natural causes. The destruction includes paintings experiencing exposure to light and buildings being worn away by weather conditions, water damage and erosion, bad excavation and reconstruction methods, theft, vandalism and even bombing from WW2.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Rogerian Paper

    • 1546 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The controversy of whether the Elgin or Parthenon Marbles should be kept in Britain, or returned to Greece, has been a frenzied dispute since the early 1800’s. Lord Elgin originally took possession of the Marbles to either salvage them from being further destroyed, or he bought them and re-sold them to the British Museum. Whether Lord Elgin, ambassador to the then ruling Ottoman empire, had the authority to handle the Marbles presents great confusion, “[a]s to whether Elgin had legal authority to remove the marbles, the Ottomans being the ruling power, as the British maintain… “The problem is not legal,” he [Mr. Pandermalis] decided. “It’s ethical and cultural” (Kimmelman).The British can return the Marbles to Greece, where they originally belonged, or Greece can be satisfied with the casts of the Marbles. Despite the casts of the real Marbles in the Acropolis Museum in Greece, there are still requests by the Greek government to return the Marbles from Britain. Lord Elgin’s decision to salvage the Marbles finds a way to appear as vandalism in the eyes of others. Britain has a strong argument as to why they should remain the owners of the Marbles, but because of Greece’s ownership of the Marbles before Britain, and their capability of protecting the Marbles in the new Acropolis Museum, it is perfectly understandable as to why Greece believes the Marbles should be returned.…

    • 1546 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Rosetta Stone Influence

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages

    When the stone was first discovered, it was immediately taken out of Egypt and sent to Britain. Egypt was stripped of one of its ancient artifacts. The Rosetta Stone is part of Egypt’s identity but it was taken away by foreign powers. In 2005, the British Museum present presented Egypt with a full-sized replica of the Rosetta Stone which was initially displayed at the Rashid National Museum. However, the British are unwilling to give up the original. Hundred years after the discover, the Rosetta Stone has created an unintended consequence of animosity between Egypt and Britain over an impact piece of ancient artifact.…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Parthenon Marbles

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The importance of an artifact—historically, culturally, or as a symbol of a nation’s power—and who should own it is central to the debate of returning artifacts to their countries of origin. The argument predominantly revolves around the marbles removed from the Parthenon by the British Lord Elgin. While the Greek government does not recognize the British Museum as the owner of the Parthenon Marbles, it can be said that they did acquire them by the proper means of the time. Other countries have asked for previously removed artifacts, such as the Rosetta Stone and the Hamilton vases, to be returned, but the requests have been declined (Waxman, pg. 270). The matter is more complicated than one would expect, as either side of the matter of restitution…

    • 836 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    This author encourages its audience to stay vigilant to the crime of labeling artifacts as art by simply placing them on podiums out for display. For example in the essay, Dean states, “Objects like African masks were often stripped of natural materials.” (Dean 26). Dean brings attention to the fact that today, many ancient artifacts are merely…

    • 934 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Machu Picchu

    • 1981 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Cited: Cuno, James, “Museums, Antiquities, Cultural Property, and the US Legal Framework for Making Acquisitions,” in Who Owns The Past Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and The Law, ed. Kate Fitz Gibbon. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005.…

    • 1981 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    2. Any speech that does not meet the time requirement or does not have a clear thesis and/or main points will receive a grade penalty.…

    • 366 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    When it comes to ancient art, it is immensely difficult to state that antiquities belong to a certain group of people or the world. In a contemporary example, antiquities have been cheaply smuggled by Westerners from Middle Eastern countries such as Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, and sold in the black market for millions of dollars. Due to the lack of international laws protecting the ancient arts, smugglers can hardly be classified as heroic or villainous people, thus raising several attitudes towards the entitlement of the ancient arts.…

    • 163 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Dominic Selwood said “The Greek government has never sued for the Parthenon sculptures in court because it knows Elgin did not “loot” or “purloin” anything.” On the other hand Vicky Pryce states “The Ottomans were an occupying power against whom the Greeks, with the help of many nations and individuals such as Byron, rose up to reclaim their land just 10 years later. That gives the purchase of the marbles no legitimacy.” But during the time of the Ottoman Empire was when this transaction happened, so Lord Elgin was legally allowed to take the marbles. Vicky Pryce came with a comeback and said “What belongs together should be together. Imagine if English people had to see St Paul’s without its dome or only half of Stonehenge. The marbles don’t make sense out of their natural setting.” Then Dominic Selwood argued with “for example, the National Archaeological Museum in Athens has a large collection of Egyptian antiquities. Should these be returned? Or are museums allowed to acquire pieces legitimately for exhibition to the public? Ultimately, in terms of provenance, there is nothing that puts the Parthenon sculptures into a special category.” There are other museums that have other arts that originally belonged to a different culture and those countries are not wanting their artifacts back from those museums. Over all Dominic Selwood and I believe that the…

    • 927 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The fact that marketers are selling looted Chinese antiques is not acceptable because they are forcing Chinese bidders to buy them back at a huge expense when the treasures were originally China’s. “A month earlier, a gaudy Qing-dynasty porcelain vase from the Summer Palace had been sold by a small English auction house to a Beijing-based bidder for US $85.9 million, including tax and fees – 50 times its estimate.” (Hadley, 2017) Even though the demands for overseas Chinese antiques are so high, Chinese bidders still have to spend unreasonably high prices to retrieve them. The Royal British Museum and merchants who possess Chinese artifacts both give pressure to China in the Chinese artifact trading market. China is continuously putting immense pressure on British Museums because British Museums hold a total of 230,000 pieces of Chinese antiques. If the British Museum could take action and return China’s antiques, foreign merchants will have no reason to keep selling Chinese artifacts. They will be forbidden in auction markets as long as Britain makes a fair decision for…

    • 757 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays