The provenance of a Chinese honorary tapestry – which disappeared from China in 1901 and became part of the collection of Mission Museum Steyl under circumstances that are not entirely clear – has been investigated. The SVD missionaries played a role in fuelling the Boxer Rebellion.
Rachel Gatehouse and Jin Gao examine UK heritage institutions’ repatriation practices through a new database of repatriated items from 2010 to 2022. The dataset records 491 items across 29 case studies, returned to 7 countries, with most material consisting of human remains from London-based national museums, particularly the Natural History Museum. The list, created by Tamara Newton, is publicly accessible.
[in Dutch] Since 1902, the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam has had a diamond stolen from Indonesia. It has been formally requested back and that request will probably be granted. But who in Indonesia owns the diamond? The government, or the Sultan descendants, journalist Saskia Konniger wonders?
A rare pre-Hispanic human skull decorated with a turquoise mosaic is now under the protection of Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), a year after its repatriation from the Netherlands. INAH is in discussions with the Yucu Saa Community Museum in Villa de Tututepec, Oaxaca, which has expressed an interest in safeguarding and exhibiting the skull.
For decades, the descendants of the Senegalese Muslim mystic, scholar, and military commander Omar Saïdou Tall have been trying to retrieve the “treasure of Ségou” (looted in 1890) from the French state. The new French restitution law offers new hope.
Five years after the return of 26 objects from the royal treasures of Dahomey, Benin has submitted a new restitution request to Paris for 35 colonial works and archives. This action is based on a French framework law that came into effect in May, designed to facilitate such transfers.
The Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum (RJM) in Cologne transforms into a place of encounter and exchange about questions such as: What does return mean when there is no way back? What kinds of relationships can emerge from exile, displacement, and loss? What happens when connections are destroyed—and how can new forms of belonging and togetherness take shape?
[in German] Thomas Fues argues that the handover of six Maka ancestors in Freiburg University has not brought the breakthrough for the German-Cameroonian reappraisal of the colonial heritage that many had hoped for.
“We deeply regret what was done at the University of Freiburg in the guise of science. Unfortunately, we cannot undo the injustice and suffering committed by researchers in the past. But we will do everything we can to help heal the wounds and return the ancestors to their homeland.”
[in French] Donatien Dibwe dia Mwembu (Uni Lumbumbashi, DRC) explores the question of the restitution of cultural objects looted from communities in his country. With two case studies he establishes a dialogue between written and oral sources.
Edna Arisbet Roque García's PhD project analyses restitution governance and the role of imperial museums in the foreign policy of states, with Germany as the main case study. The project demonstrates to what extent the restitution governance involves dialogue of interests, negotiation between states, and even the management of political repercussions. This is compared with the situation in Austria and in Switzerland.
In 'Towards Decolonising Dutch Museums: Provenance research, participatory methodologies, and Indigenous tattooists', Talisha Schilder critically reflects about museums, after doing provenance research with Sylvester (Iban), Talisha (Dutch-Indo), Pai (Bidayuh), and Yanto (Punan) at the depot of the University Museum Groningen. Her conclusion: the inclusion of Indigenous tattooists in provenance research is an important step towards decolonising museums.
[in German] The merchant Theodor Francke (1830-1896) ran an ivory bleaching plant in the 19th century. Imported ivory from colonial trade networks was bleached here and processed into piano keyboards, for example. Francke GmbH was also involved in the trade in looted art such as the Benin bronzes. An exhibition at Museum Tempelhof in Berlin has the story...
In the Marejesho Research and Information Centre in Moshi, Tanzania, 150 representatives of different communities in the Kilimanjaro and Arusha regions focused on the Marejesho initiative's history (from mobile exhibition to provenance research project), current research goals, restitution and repatriation efforts, and findings about cultural belongings and ancestral remains in German museums. With some remarkable conclusions.
Ireland has never had a formal mechanism for determining restitution or repatriation claims. However, this may change with the recent publication of a report from the Advisory Committee on the Restitution and Repatriation of Cultural Heritage. Ronan Bergin thinks it is a 'refreshing advice:
On 1 July 2026, Bolivia Archaeology National Museum (Munarq) reopened its doors with the permanent exhibition ‘Eternal Roots, Living Legacies,’ an exhibition that highlights the connection between pre-Hispanic customs and current traditions of the Andean country. It also has a section about repatriation.
[in German] In a festive ceremony, the Governor of the Erongo Region, Nathalia /Goagoses, accepted the "Usakos Railway Workers' Collection" collection on behalf of the Republic of Namibia. A Swiss railway engineer and his wife collected them between 1903 and 1905 in a context of colonial violence.
Drawing on his broad research, Chipangura explores how ethnographic museums holding African collections are confronting the enduring consequences of colonialism. His presentation moves beyond familiar debates on restitution and repatriation, asking a more fundamental question: What are museums for, and whom do they serve?
[in French] Vicky Victoire Muke (Kinshasa Uni) shares a new preliminary study devoted to the colouring materials of the costumes and heritage fabrics of the Democratic Republic of Congo, based on the inventory records of the Musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac. His questions: How did you dye a kuba loincloth a century ago? Where does the deep red of mbuti adornments come from? And why is mangbetu black called "earth pigment"?
Emiline Smith argues that the 3,000-year-old Iranian gold discs, which American actress Zendaya showed at a London photocall for Christopher Nolan’s forthcoming adaptation of The Odyssey, are emblematic of a market that has spent decades quietly dismantling ancient objects for parts.
How are colonial violence, looted cultural assets and partnership projects related? This exhibition sheds light on the eventful history between the Cameroonian city of Tibati and Bremen. The focus is on current questions: What is the status of the projects? What is the significance of the restitution of colonial objects and how can a common future be shaped?
The most important is the Quran of Samory Touré, one of Guinea's leading figures of resistance against the French colonial conquest. It is Guinea's first restitution request since 1968.
Adrian Plau of the Wellington Trust that recently returned Jain manuscripts to the Jain community in GB, argues: Restitution is not a remedy for the past alone – it’s about the future we can create together.
In her article 'From Cultural Hub to Crime Scene: British Museum Refuses Repatriation of Thefted Colonial Loot', Sierra Kinsey-Lawton argues that the British Museum is currently facing intensified pressure over the scale of its unprovenanced non‑European collection, following an internal review that found that more than 40% of those objects lack sufficient documentation to establish legal ownership.
[in French] Vicky Victoire Muke (Kinshasa Uni) writes: This is a first effort to the heritage costumes of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as they appear in the online collections of the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA – AfricaMuseum, Belgium). It is intended as a situational resource, intended for anyone wishing to familiarise themselves with the diversity of costumes, loincloths and adornments preserved in these collections.
During a ceremony and an ecumenical service in the University Church of Freiburg, Freiburg University prepared for the repatriation of ancestors of the Maka community from Cameroon. The human skulls are part of the Alexander-Ecker collection, anatomist from Freiburg in c. 1860.
How did the colonial matrix of power continue to shape the modern world? The question is central to the exhibition Postcolonial?, presented by the House of European History in Brussels from 17 April 2026 to 14 March 2027. This book combines contributions from the people behind the exhibition.
Okechukwu Uwaezuoke argues: The homecoming of Yinka Shonibare’s work from the 2024 Venice Biennale “Monument to the Restitution of the Mind and Soul” to Benin City seemed to complete one historical circle while quietly opening another debate.
In this podcast, Jessica Coldrey asks Miriama Bono to share her insights on the interconnectedness of land, culture, and ocean in Polynesian perspectives. She discusses her work in museums, repatriation efforts, and the importance of storytelling in preserving heritage. So far, 20 objects came back, be it most of them on a six years loan.
[in French] French authors Alexandre Decroix and Asena Poyrazer write: Despite an increasingly important presence in the public debate, the term "restitution" is misunderstood. In contrast to the "new relationship with Africa" promoted by Emmanuel Macron, the issue of the restitution of African cultural property betrays a colonialism that is still very much alive. France retains tight control.
An exhibition at the Slovene Ethnographic Museum confronts the colonial imbalance of Tanzanian artefacts being more accessible to Europeans than Tanzanians, asking who truly holds the right to tell the nation’s history.
Zimbabwean archaeologist Mutyandaedza Bright argues: The global movement to repatriate African cultural heritage has gained unprecedented momentum. While much attention has been given to whether objects should be returned, far less attention has been paid to an equally important question: Are local communities prepared to receive them? Yes, they are, but strengthening institutional capacity is essential.
The Marejesho Research and Information Centre is building on the long-standing efforts of the communities in Kilimanjaro and Arusha to examine German colonial history and its consequences, and specifically to search for and reclaim the ancestral remains of the leaders who were hanged on March 2, 1900 in Old Moshi on the orders of German colonial officers.
[in French] Radio Télévision Suisse looked into the sale of human remains in the program 'Vraiment' de Cécile Tran-Tien. She finds skulls, skeletons and even fetuses on the open market and reveals the extent of the trade in human remains via Ricardo, Vinted, Instagram...
The conversation around restitution just got a major jolt of momentum. Musée Guimet of Asian Arts in Paris, where Chinese artifacts make up roughly a third of the collection, has set a groundbreaking precedent: if any of its Chinese relics are definitively proven to be looted, they will be sent back to their country of origin within 24 hours.
Ganga Rajinee Dissanayaka writes: When I conduct my work as a provenance researcher, reconstructing how some piece of Kandyan art from Sri Lanka came to be in a museum in Amsterdam or Berlin, I am engaging precisely these traditional archival documents, and I am repeatedly realise that they were created for the purposes of ruling us, not remembering us.
[in French] Two Mesoamerican manuscripts, the "Codex Borbonicus" kept at the National Assembly and the "Codex Azcatitlan" at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BNF), are the subject of a bill tabled in the Senate on June 9, 2026 by Mathilde Ollivier and several of her fellow senators, which would organise their restitution to the United Mexican States. Is this thanks to the new restitution law?
On 29 June 2026, at the National Museum in Lagos, three Swiss museums formally returned 18 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, alongside a bronze bracelet and four archaeological monoliths seized during criminal investigations. Lawyer Kai Loon Loh analyses what makes the Swiss approach distinctive, and why it matters for cultural heritage law and practice.
This article describes the sensitive historical and cultural contexts of the collection and gives a special place to the significance and relevance of these artefacts for the Mapuche today, and their integration into cultural and social processes in relation to historical events and provenances.
The Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, the Botanischer Garten and the Botanisches Museum, together with the Ethnologisches Museum and the Zentralarchiv der Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (SPK),and the Archives Nationales du Togo and the University of Ghana are jointly investigating the contexts of acquisition of collections from the German colony of Togo, and neighbouring Ghana.
Hansjörg Dilger writes: Ethnographic collections can be understood as affective forces: relational entities that connect people, institutions, histories, and more-than-human worlds, while shaping contemporary debates about care, collaboration, and restitution. (open access)
That the Netherlands will return 2,000 stolen objects to Ghana, is - according to the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) - a premature conclusion. For claims of looted colelctions, the normal Dutch procedures will have to be followed. The catalogue with the objects is a first step. See RM* of 21 June 2026.
'Law no 2026-351 of 9th May 2026 on restitution of cultural property which has been illicitly acquired' is a step forward and shows, at the same time, that many in France are not ready to accept their colonial past and continue to deny their brutal history in Africa.
Ghana is set to receive over 2,000 cultural artefacts from the Netherlands, while Germany has also identified items linked to the Kpando traditional area for return, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa during the “Accra Next Steps” discussions on cultural restitution. The move forms part of ongoing international efforts on cultural restitution and Ghana’s push to recover artefacts taken during the colonial era.
Dutch museum collections contain ethnographic objects originating from Suriname, many of which were acquired in a colonial context. This search guide provides information on the most common ways in which these objects ended up in collections in the Netherlands and other countries in the Global North. [In English and Dutch]
Daisy Sanderson concludes: Social media is helping drive the sale of skulls, bones and modified human remains, Legal loopholes leave much of the UK market beyond regulation. The on-going sale is a continuation of the trade in the colonial times.
Natural history specimens from former colonial territories reflect both the scientific curiosity and the power imbalances and violence of the era. Often acquired alongside human remains or cultural objects, they raise questions about the responsibilities of natural history museums. This volume explores these questions as they concern the collections of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin.
[in Dutch] Based on a November 2024 advise of the Council for Culture, the Dutch Minister for Culture has adopted a new policy on dealing with archives, which are the property of the Dutch State, but are considered shared heritage with their regions of origin. Two restitution requests have been submitted already.
Livia Solaro investigates how a museum—especially one with a problematic past, such as an ethnographic institution—can critically confront its colonial heritage while keeping the public informed and actively involved in the process.
A Glasgow auction house founded by TV presenter Anita Manning has been criticised for offering human remains for sale. Human bones, including a skull, were due to go under the hammer on Friday, but Great Western Auctions withdrew the item for sale after being contacted by BBC Scotland News.
This book, edited by Regina F. Bendix and Jonatan Kurzwelly explores the complex and contentious transition from this legacy to the contemporary imperative of rehumanisation and restorative dignity. It recognises that restitution offers a necessary, yet only partial, redress to the profound disruptions of the past.
ThomasFues writes about a recent report by the Culturebene portal in Cameroon that the government there is getting serious about the repatriation of human remains and cultural belongings from Germany. It is reported that Culture Minister Bidoung Mkpatt has granted the Maka community permission to recover the remains of their ancestors that were looted in 1905.
[ In Dutch ] The French parliament has passed a law that makes it easier to return at least 150,000 pieces of art stolen during the colonization. "In France, people prefer not to talk about historically disturbing topics." an interview with art historian, Bénédicte Savoy
How do museum-exhibitions enable visitors to critically engage with the complex histories of colonial collections and reflect on their potential (re)distribution? The Wereldmuseum Amsterdam’s Unfinished Pasts: Return, Keep, or...? brings this question into curatorial focus. Pao-Yi Yang assesses how its interpretive design both deepens and complicates the viewing experience.
An independent commission has revealed that the Dutch Royal Family possesses one thousand objects from the former colonies. Although most were ‘donated’ at the time, a few dozens of objects are booty of war and were taken by colonial officials and soldiers during military confrontations.
Eberhard As Seen By Amit is a composite film documenting a life of work. It draws on footage from Eberhard Fischer’s many ethnographic films, alongside images shot by Dutta in India and more recent sequences filmed by Fischer himself at his residence in Switzerland. “Through his eyes, I began to see my own heritage with a clarity and depth I never knew.”
Kate Fitz Gibbon writes: The restitution of Asante-linked instruments from Los Angeles to Ghana exposes the limits of standard repatriation narratives, particularly when provenance is uncertain and human remains are involved. Rather than resolving historical injustice, the case highlights competing claims, ethical ambiguities, and the need for negotiated, context-specific outcomes.
Earlier, the French government supported a bill allowing for the remains of people who were exhibited in colonial-era “human zoos” in Paris to be returned to their ancestral lands in French Guiana. Now senators have also declared their support for the law. It meets a long-standing demand of Indigenous communities in France’s overseas territories, acknowledging a dark chapter from the country’s past. The association Moliko Alet+Po has played a crucal role.
[in French] With the law on the restitution of cultural property adopted, CNRS researcher Catharine Titi questions, in Le Monde, the legal and archaeological issues related to this question through a reflection on the fragments of the Parthenon at the Louvre. France could draw inspiration from the examples of the Vatican, Italy and Germany.
[in French] Session: Does the emergence of a legal framework for the restitution of African cultural property play a sufficient role in the reparation enterprise following colonization?
During his visit to Kenya, French President Emmanuel Macron said the process of returning African artworks looted during the colonial era had become "unstoppable". But, despite a growing number of restitution requests, France has returned only a handful of artefacts to its colonies.
Samuel Bachmann (Bern Historical Museum) argues: If museums are to confront their – and Switzerland’s – coloniality, they require a new mandate: one that questions their interpretive authority and addresses fundamental questions about why, and for whom, cultural heritage is preserved, researched and communicated.
The 'Oceania and Indonesia' holdings in Altenburg (approx. 350 objects) and the entire ethnographic collection (approx. 250 objects) in Meerane will be examined. The initial check follows a research project on the Africa collection in Altenburg and the recommendation by ethnologist Ms Dolz from the State Ethnographic Collections of Saxony for Meerane.
The Chola Plates , historical objects originating from India held by University Libraries Leiden (UBL) have been handed over to India at the occasion of India's PM Modi's visit to the Netherlands. The restitution of this heritage follows the advice of the Dutch (national) Colonial Collections Committee.
The Wellcome Collection in London has committed to returning around 2,000 sacred manuscripts to the Jain religious community as part of a “landmark” restitution framework agreement. As a result of the agrrement, the manucripts will stay in the UK.
The Kings Own Royal Regiment Museum Trust presented ancient relics of Emperor Tewodros II of Abyssinia at the University of Cumbria in Lancaster o the Ethiopian Heritage Authority (EHA).
[in French] In October 2025, the Louvre lost several jewels among the Crown Jewels. FranceInfo found out more about how the security system was foiled and who sponsored the theft.
Mahlet Mehdi writes: The return of Empress Tiruwork Wube’s hairpin to Ethiopia underscores how much remains unresolved. Most artifacts taken from Magdala remain abroad. Legal frameworks offer limited recourse. Private markets remain opaque. And restitution continues to depend on chance discovery, rapid response, and negotiated compromise. The hairpin is less an endpoint than a case study.
Yrine Matchinda examines in her disseration *Presence and Absence of Cameroonian Religious Objects in Colonial Collections of German Museums (1884–1919): Cultural and Religious Implications for Communities in Cameroon* how the musealisation of sacred/religious objects affects cultural identity, collective memory, and intergenerational transmission within communities of origin.
Plunder stolen from Ireland and stored in museums of former colonial powers should be returned. But there is no list of what is held abroad in ‘post-colonial museums’. Culute Minister also said that restitution cannot be a one-way street.
Minister Patrick O’Donovan said there was a “compulsion” on former colonial powers to return “loot” taken from people against their will.
The Natural History Museum in London has formally returned seven ancestral remans to Japan as part of a ceremony this week. The museum hosted the Japan Government’s Minister for Ainu-related Policies and representatives from the Ainu Association of Hokkaido.
According to Parisian lawyer, Celia Chauffray, the new French restitution law does not change the rules of evidence that continue to weigh on requesting states, does not ratify any additional international conventions, and does not affect the due diligence obligations of dealers and collectors.
The conference 'Museums as Monuments to the Colonial Troops?' brings together historians, artists, curators and artists to examine the artefactual history of colonial warfare in three former German colonies: Togo, Kamerun and German East-Africa.
Until its restitution in November 2025, Ama O Ghe Ehen, a 18th-century bronze plaque depicting a mudfish, was held in the colelction of the Museum de Fundatie in the Dutch city of Zwolle, since its acquisition in 1937. This symposium explores the process and implications of this return, and what restitution might mean in the context of this plaque.
Ahmed Mohammad examines Germany's new Coordination Council for Returns of Cultural Property and Human Remains from Colonial Contexts — weighing what it genuinely achieves against the structural challenges that remain. The council's limitation is that it remains unclarified whether it will issue binding rulings or operate in an advisory capacity. The question of human remains is where this limitation is sharpest.
The main objective of this project is to create an interdisciplinary network of researchers working on the history of ancestral remains collections in museums in Germany and France from Central and Southern Africa, with a particular focus on provenance research.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has called for the return of the priceless Koh-i-Noor diamond from the UK. The 105-carat diamond is part of the Crown Jewels but its ownership has been disputed by India, who claims that it was stolen during British rule. Mamdani was born in Uganda but has Indian roots.
Roundtable about: From Collection to Collaboration: Revisiting the Colonial Philippine Collection of Heinrich Rothdauscher (1851–1937) at the Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich
[in German] The Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (SPK) in Berlin is to return hundreds of skulls to Cameroon, Togo, Ghana and Nigeria. The origin of the human remains has been researched for several years. "If at all possible, the human bones should be able to return to where they came from," said foundation president Marion Ackermann.
This is about Yemen. About how an American foundation oversaw the exploitation of Yemen’s archaeological inheritance in British-occupied South Yemen during the early 1950s. About Yemen's policy to recover belogings that were lost in the colonial days. And it answers the question why, when and by whom Yemen was colonised.
The landscape of cultural property restitution has undergone a fundamental transformation over the past three decades. What was once a world governed by gentlemanly agreements between dealers, collectors, and museum curators has become a forensic battleground where digitized trafficking archives, scientific testing, and aggressive legal enforcement determine the fate of objects. This document provides a comprehensive analysis of the current state.
The Restitution Law, approved by the French parliament, evokes all sorts of reactions. RM* summarises them in a few posts. In this post, the Chinese Global Times writes that while countries around the world have been progressively engaging in the repatriation of cultural relics, Japan stands out as a negative example.
The Restitution Law, approved by the French parliament, evokes all sorts of reactions. Most are explaining the law and positive in tone. In a previous post, an opponent of the law had his say. In this post, Saeed Saeed, journalist in Abu Dhabi, points to practical consequences for countries such as Algeria, Jordan, and Egypt.
The Restitution Law, approved by the French parliament, evokes all sorts of reactions. Most are quite similar (and positive). Senegalese philosopher Souleymane Bachir Diagne has serious doubts about it.
Paul Stewens writes: Brazil and Germany have concluded an agreement to deepen their cooperation. The Joint Declaration covers a broad range of topics, with at the end the biggest dinosaur repatriation news in years: the decision to return the fossil of Irritator challengeri to Brazil.
The fact that cultural possessions, which were brought from China at the beginning of the twentieth century, are spread throughout Europe and the US is proven by the Skušek Collection in the Ethnographic Museum of Ljublijana. Ivan Skušek had served in the Austro-Hungarian navy and was in a Chinese prison from 1917-1920, had several dozens of boxes filled Chinese art objects. The circumstances under which he had acquired such a mass of Chinese art are not yet completely clear.
In recent years human remains in museums have been the subject of increasingly critical attention, both within the museum sector itself and in public debate. This raises a large number of ethical, legal, and practical questions for European museums. 'Museum meets University' organises this meeting at the crossroads of academic museology and museum practice.
Anthropologist Nancy Munn studied the Warlpiri people from 1956 to 1958. Now, with the repatriation of her collection to Australia, a younger generation is reunited with its ancestral heritage.
While Germany appears keen to expedite the conclusion of the negotiations with Namibia concerning the genocide committed against the Ovaherero and Nama communities between 1904 and 1908, the Namibian position reflects that the matter remains unresolved. Namibia continues to advocate for a comprehensive reparative framework grounded in five key elements: restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, guarantees of non-repetition, and satisfaction. Sarah Negumbo, the Director of Namibia Library and Archives Service, provides further insight into the historical, legal, and ethical dimensions underpinning these demands.
The Mambesak Group was active in Jayapura from 1978 to 1984. After the murder of Arnold Ap in 1984, the group, mostly students from various regions in Papua, disbanded. This film tries to articulate the traces of the ideas of Arnold Ap, leader of the Mambesak Group, as mediators between their generation and the traces of their ancestors and Papuan culture. With firm statements about coloniality and restitution.
The French parliament has unanimously adopted on 13 April a framework legislation for the deaccession of cultural items plundered from former colonies. Nine years after President Emmanuel Macron pledged repatriation of African heritage, the new law finally opens the way for the return of items illegitimately taken by force. The bill was initiated in 2023, but it has been delayed by political instability and changes of government as well as the sensitivity of the subject.
Thomas Fues (Dekolonial Erinnern) is monitoring all restitutions from German museums and universities to former colonial regions. Wherever possible, with a source. In 2026, Māori taonga („Pou of Hinematioro“) was returned to New Zealand by the University of Tübingen.
[in French, in English] The French government will support a bill on the return of Kali'na ancestral remains to French Guiana. They had been exhibited in a "human zoo" in Paris and kept in a museum in Paris since the end of the 19th century. A Kali'na Association had been asking for them since 2024.
The Expertise Center for Restitution (ECR) of the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Resistance Museum Amsterdam present Robbery Art Ontrafeld, a lecture series that focuses on the less exposed aspects of loot art and restitution.
Historians associated with the NIOD present recent research and surprising insights and enter into dialogue with the public, led by moderator Yuki Kho.
Lia Iannarilli and Malaika Bunzigiye conclude: The story of looted art from the Democratic Republic of the Congo is inseparable from broader struggles of political sovereignty. By holding on to these items, European powers are holding on to the narrative of their colonial rule. In a world shaped by imperial legacies, the decolonial project must be both material and symbolic. To repatriate art is to repatriate power.
The V&A’s collections include around 90 objects from Ethiopia. The majority of these are in some way associated with a British military expedition to Ethiopia from 1867 – 68 against Emperor Tewodros. The museum also holds a selection of Ethiopian paintings from the 1940s. Restitution is out of the question. A provenance report.
[ in Dutch, in French] That this issue has received increasing attention is partly due to two important issues, namely the question of the restitution of works of art looted by the Nazis to relatives of victims of the Holocaust and the question of the restitution of cultural heritage objects illegally acquired during colonization by Western countries. Three Wednesday afternoons.
Laura Petersen argues that authors and artists have also taken up a responsibility for restitution. Deploying the literal translation ‘making-good-again’, this book focuses on the ‘making’ of law, literature and visual art to argue that restitution is a practice which is found in different genres, sites and temporalities.
[in English, in German] For the reconstruction of more than 90 % of human history, there are no other sources than archaeological ones. The ethical questions that arise in connection with the excavation, investigation, and exhibition of this central source group have been the subject of intensive study in English speaking countries for decades. Remains of colonial regions are part of this. How are these questions dealt with in Saxony Anhalt and other German speaking places?
Makana Eyre thinks that the exhibit at The British Museum, “Hawaiʻi: a kingdom crossing oceans,” poses questions that have historically been uncomfortable for museums. Many items, though certainly not all, are sacred, intrinsically linked to ceremony, community, even Hawaiian sovereignty.
The lechwe skin cloaks are a rare remnant of Batwa people's traditional intellectual, cultural and social worlds. They were recently rediscovered in a museum collection in Stockholm, Sweden. These belongings were slated for digital repatriation, along with +/- 100 other belongings, through a collaborative project between the Women's History Museum of Zambia, and the National Museums of World Culture, Sweden.
Late in 2025 , it was announced that five sets of Ainu ancestors' remains were to be repatriated to Japan from the Natural History Museum in London. This follows repatriations in 2017 (Germany), 2023 (Australia) and 2025 (Scotland). Inside Japan, the University of Tokyo has apologised to the Ainu community for collecting ancestral remains without their consent. The Japanese government, working with the Ainu Association of Hokkaido, supports the repatriations. How can this increase be explained?
[in German, partially in English] In Germany, the federal, state and local governments decided to establish the "Coordination Council for Returns of Cultural Property and Human Remains from Colonial Contexts". The secretariat will be located at the Federal Foreign Office.
The chair, which will be launched on 22 June 2026, will address issues related to illicit trafficking, restitution and the management of collections originating from colonial contexts.
Mirjam Shatanawi gives an overview of Islamic collections in the Netherlands, focusing on their presence in museums, libraries, and archives. It provides a critical overview of how these collections have been shaped, preserved, and interpreted, with particular attention to the enduring influence of colonial perspectives on Indonesian Islamic traditions. Examples will be given of objects from Java, Sumatra and South Sulawesi.
An important moment! Congolese and Belgian experts presented their recommendations for the future of institutional provenance research at an open forum: ‘The current framework is insufficient.’
On 25 February 2026, the Togolese cabinet approved a draft law to establish a restitution committee. The committee will seek to repatriate tangible and intangible cultural heritage, as well as human remains and archives from colonial contexts. The bill refers to over 8,000 „objects“ currently held in foreign museums. They predominantly come from northern Togo.
South Africa has reburied the remains of 63 Khoisan people, among southern Africa's oldest indigenous communities. The remains were part of museum collections in the Hunterian at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and at the Iziko South African Museum in Cape Town. The remains were laid to rest at a historic monument near Steinkopf, in the Northern Cape province, during a ceremony attended by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
In addition to private and institutional collectors, natural history traders have historically been important sources of specimens and information for natural history museums in the past. However, the history and significance of the natural history traders is still little known and researched. One such naturalia trader with worldwide trading partners was the long-established Hamburg company of the J. F. G. Umlauff family.
In March 2024, Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) filed a formal restitution claim on behalf of the Nigerian government for 14 Benin artifacts held by the Ethnographic Museum at the University of Zurich (UZH). The University of Zurich has decided to honor this claim. "Signing the property agreement is not just a legal act, but the recognition of colonial injustices", Zürich's lord mayor, Corine Mauch, said.
The PAESE project (Provenance Research in Collections from Colonial Contexts in Lower Saxony) ran from 2018-2022. As part of the next phase, PAESE 3.0, we are updating and expanding this database. They do so recognising that the data concern the people, communities, and descendants from the regions where these *objects* come from.
The preservation and exhibition of human remains in museums is a painful open wound for many descendant communities. Any museum that stewards such human remains, like Museum Vrolik (the anatomical museum of Amsterdam University), must respond to its racist and colonial inheritance. The result can be seen in this exhibition. The exhibition is based on the results of years of research, including origin, ways of acquisition and suppliers.
The remains of an unknown Aboriginal man taken to London in 1900, have been returned to Country in Sydney. A reburial was held for ‘Uncle’, conducted by Indigenous elders at Berowra Creek.
In new episode of podcast "Decolonial Memories", Flaubert Djateng, coordinator of the civil society organisation Zenu Network in Cameroon, talks about remembrance work on the German colonial era in his country.
[in Dutch] On the occasion of the International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy in Antwerp is organising an event on postcolonial history and culture: we will enter into a dialogue on African cultural heritage in Western institutions.
[in French] Congolese and Belgian experts presented their recommendations for the future of institution-based research at an open forum: "The current framework is insufficient". The provenance search is relevant, but it must neither condition nor delay the restitution. Today, Belgium and the DRC must move forward with concrete actions.
This DARCA decision aid is designed to support trustees of cultural institutions in coming to a decision about whether they might be under a moral obligation to return a cultural artefact in their possession.
The grandson of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I avoids confrontation and uses patience and strategy in oder to retrieve stolen objects from public and private parties in Great Britain. It is part of a wider demand for historical justice that continues to resonate across the African diaspora.
Descendants of Zimbabwe freedom fighters executed and beheaded in southern Africa by colonial British forces in the 1890s have called on the Natural History Museum in London and the University of Cambridge to help them find their ancestors’ looted skulls.
Exclusive Guardian study finds UK museums hold more than 260,000 items of remains, often in sacrilegious ways. MPs and archaeologists protest: It is a shameful legacy of colonialism.
The aution included 40 archaeological pieces and were auctioned during a live sale on 27 February 2026, at Maison Millon in Paris. The Culture Ministry started legal procedures and used diplomatic channels to seek a return. In the meantime the lots have been sold for 1,2 million euro.
[in French] The PROCHE project, implemented by the Royal Museum for Central Africa, is part of the 2022 Belgian law on the restitution of colonial collections. It aims to retrace the conditions of acquisition of the museum's so-called "ethnographic" and musicological objects, in close collaboration with Congolese institutions and cultural actors.
The Ashmolean Musuem of the University of Oxfoird has returned a 16th-century bronze to the Government of India following research into the object’s provenance and liaison with Indian authorities.
This article by Elias Aguigah, Yann LeGall and Jeanne-Ange Wagne (TU Berlin) is part of The Restitution of Knowledge project. It documents the history of ‘plunder’ of former African colonies and addresses its legacy in ethnological collections, with a focus on loot from so-called 'punitive expeditions', this time in the Grassi Museum für Völkerkunde in Leipzig (+ an addition about Togo loot in Stuttgart).
[in French] This issue of Relations Internationales, edited by Anne Sophie Gijs, Matthieu Gillabert and Serge Jaumain offers a range of interesting articles about restiution issues, museums, diaspora groups and communitie sof origin, mostly in Switzerland and Belgium and in African countries as Cameroon and DR Congo.
[in French] Yasmina Zian, Aline Bosuma, Alexandre Chevalier and Laurent Licata make critical remarks about Belgium's decolonisation of museums effort. Belgium keeps control over decisions and there is a lack of a balanced dialogue with the DRC.
Prof. I Nyoman Aryawibawa emphasized that lontar manuscripts are invaluable sources of traditional knowledge with significant historical, philological, and cultural value. This donation is considered a strategic step in strengthening the faculty’s academic functions, particularly in supporting research, teaching, and community service based on local cultural heritage.
The Tangué is a ship’s beak carved from wood and placed on the bow of the ship of the royal Bele-Bele family. This mystical and sacred belonging symbolises power, particularly the ultimate authority of the King over the water tribes of the Douala kingdom, and is an integral part of socio-cultural and spiritual practices. n 1884, it was stolen by German military. Currently, it is in the Museum Fünf Kontinente in Munich.
‘Extraordinary’ golden lamb’s head pillaged in 1874 from what is now Ghana remains hidden in officers’ mess. The glistening golden ram’s head would seemingly be worthy of any museum, but it remains hidden within the regiment’s mess at Larkhill in Wiltshire.
Ganga Rajinee Dissanayaka discovered at a conference in Europe that Benin Bronzes, Egyptian antiquities and African collections were discussed. But Asia was unmentioned. And then when a colleague from Indonesia brought up the topic of Southeast Asian collections, the moderator nodded graciously and then moved on to another topic. Decolonisation, it appears, is an African story.
[in English and in German] The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) transfers custody of three ancestors to the Molelia family of Tanzania. They now have sole control over the remains. Howe ver, immediate repatriation to Kibosho is not possible because it requires the approval of the Tanzanian government, which has not yet responded to the SPK’s offer to return the remains.
[in Dutch] In museum De Fundatie in Zwolle, Nigerian artists shine their light on an antique plaque of a mud fish. The fish was stolen from Benin City at the end of the 19th century, and it will return to that city next summer. 'The mudfish is symbolic of the flexibility of the Edo people.'
France has officially returned the sacred Djidji drum to Ivory Coast. It is among 148 cultural belongings claimed by the Africab country in 2018. The text of the special law is included.
Jennifer Howes writes: Amaravati Stupa was the first Buddhist site in India to be systematically excavated by the British. Its first colonial excavation in 1816–17 led to 51 sculptures being removed from the site by amateur antiquarians. Some of these were sent to museums, but most of them were transported to the market town of Machilipatnam, where they were used to construct an eccentric marketplace monument.
Lewis McNaught writes: Britain’s Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will review the exclusion it imposed on national collections that prevents them from returning cultural objects on moral grounds. The review provides an opportunity to reverse an unwelcome inconsistency in the UK Charities Act 2022.
Thomas Laely writes: The debate on the repatriation of (in)tangible cultural heritage and belongings has developed a broad dynamic in recent years. This sudden activism raises questions. What is its background, what are the goals behind it, and how are they to be achieved? Is it primarily about African or rather European interests?
Repatriation is urgent and important work and should be recognised as one of the UK museum sector’s top priorities. It is widely acknowledged that a lack of funding and capacity are two of the main reasons that more museums in the UK do not engage with repatriation, writes Amy Shakespeare.
Dan Hicks talks at the Society of Antiquaries of London (Burlington House, courtyard of the Royal Academy) about the return of ancestral human remains through the case of the Worcester College skull cup.
[in French] The 60-page guide is meant for directors and scientific officers of museums in France, and public collections under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Culture. The guide focusses on Nazi-looted art works, human remains, colonial collections and the ongoing illicit trade in art and antiquities.
The Louvre will restore Empress Eugénie’s crown, which was damaged during the $102 million heist in October 2025. Experts found the diamond-and-emerald crown deformed, but most stones remain intact after violent theft.
The restitution project, undertaken in Namibia from 2019 – 2024, was centred around 23 cultural belongings, which were selected from a collection of +/-1400 cultural belongings in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, on the basis of their rarity, ability to travel well (fragility, arsenic poisoning etc), cultural, historical and aesthetic significance, as well as their connection to the history of Namibian fashion.
Tracing the course of Britain’s wars with the Asante alongside the course of its plundered relics, Barnaby Phillips weaves a thrilling and poignant tale of imperial ambition and African resistance. Travelling from the Gold Coast to the museum galleries, officers’ mess rooms and aristocratic homes of Britain, The African Kingdom of Gold confronts us with urgent questions about the legacy of Empire and, in particular, how our museums should respond.
During negotiations in the 1960s about a new relationship, DR Congo claimed the archives with information about its rich natural resources. Belgium was not prepared to do so. The documents, housed at the AfricaMuseum are now being sought by DR Congo and KoBold Metals, a Bill Gates-backed mining and artificial intelligence company that struck a deal last year with Kinshasa to digitise them.
Around 1900, the Isanzu chief and seven of his bodyguards were arrested and hanged and/or beheaded, and their bodies were not returned to Isanzul and given for burial. Currently, they are in the University of Göttingen. Since the emptying of graves, there have been significant periods of drought and famine in the area. The Isanzu people believe that these environmental calamities are as a result of their human ancestors being dishonoured.
Restitution debates – the question of whether a cultural object should be returned from a museum or other collection to a person or community – often begin with a deceptively simple question: who owns an object?
Barnaby Phillips: The decision by the university’s Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology to return looted Nigerian treasures leaves larger institutions increasingly isolated. Which museum will be the next one? Uwa Igbafe: This case reflects a gradual transition from legal acknowledgement to the actual transfer of artefacts.
In the last hundred years, France has restituted only twenty-nine looted artefacts to Africa (26 to Benin, 1 to Senegal, 1 to Côte d’Ivoire, 1 to the Malagasy Republic). At this rate, how long will it take France to return the other 96 971 looted African artefacts in France? Kwame Opoku points to an African scholar and his troubling support who actively enables the Louvre/Musée du Quai Branly to retain, among others, the statue of Gou, the Vodun divinity from Benin, in Paris.
[in English, in Mozambiquan Portuguese] The five texts in this richly illustrated issue nr. 9 of Troubles dans les Collections trace how new local contexts in Mozambique and global debates have resonated in the country since the restitution debate gained heightened visibility. Civil society actors play a crucial role in raising the restitution issue.
Lucky Igohosa Ugbudian writes: Switzerland has witnessed curators playing an increasingly significant role in the restitution debate surrounding Benin artworks. The looting of these cultural objects in 1897 led to the illicit global circulation of these objects. The forceful trafficking of these items, alongside international laws and conventions, prompted Nigerian and Pan-African groups to demand restitution.
The Kingdom of the Netherlands has formally handed over an inventory of Ghanaian cultural artefacts held in Dutch collections, marking a major step toward the restitution of objects looted during the colonial era.
The French Senate on Wednesday adopted a draft legislation to facilitate the return of artworks and other prized artefacts looted during the country’s colonial era. This new procedure could help address requests already submitted by various countries, including Morocco, Mali, Algeria and Benin.
This open access publication presents the results of a research project which is probably unique in this form: In the course of only two years, the provenances of approximately 1100 sets of Human Remains from the territory of the present-day nations of Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda were examined. Editors are Charles Mulinda Kabwete and Bernhard Heeb.
[in French] On 7 February 2026, an open forum at the AfricaMuseum in Tervuren follows on two public events that took place in December 2025 in Kinshasa where researchers, heritage institutions and partners from both countries engaged in discussions on various themes in connection with provenance research and restitution of cultural heritage.
[mostly in French] Based on research in the DR Congo, Vicky Van Bockhaven explores a tension within contemporary museum and cultural policies, focusing on the decolonisation of colonial collections and associated knowledge production. These initiatives often remain under the control of Western institutions, leaving the concerned countries and communities unequally involved.
[English version, German version] Cultural heritage of the Nso in Germany - Episode with Dr Bulami Edward Fonyuy (Cameroon) by podcast Decolonial Memories (on all major platforms). In the podcast, Dr Bulami calls on the German government to play a long-term role in the healing process between the two countries, going beyond the restitution of colonial loot.
The handling of human remains from colonial contexts presents museums, collections and research institutions with complex professional as well as ethical challenges. According to a survey conducted by the German Contact Point, approximately 46% of the unmodified human remains recorded in German museums and university collections cannot be clearly attributed to a specific geographical origin.
[in French, in English] Since the 1990s, new forms of discourse and mobilization have emerged to question Belgium’s colonial past and postcolonial present. Journalists, researchers, archivists, community activists, artists, members of the African diaspora, former colonists and their descendants, national and political players, etc. have contributed to putting the issue of colonial legacy on the public agenda.
The British Museum’s attempt to frame its decision to ‘share’ a few colonial-era artefacts with the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS) in Mumbai as a move to ‘decolonise’ its collection has been ridiculed by art historians as a ‘con’. There’s only one way to show contrition: return the stolen goods.
[in German] Parts of the collection of the closed, missionary Werl museum "Forum der Völker" in Germany are under suspicion. Three collections may have originated from colonial looting. The German Lost Art Foundation sees a need for further research.
The V&A’s collection includes nearly 200 Ethiopian objects – from metalwork and textiles to photography, manuscripts, and paintings. One of the most exciting outcomes of this research, Molly Judd writes, was uncovering records for objects that had effectively become hidden within the collection.
According to Ruby Satele, a PhD candidate from Sāmoa at the University of Vienna, rematriation involves not only the return of ancestors, but also practices of care while they remain in storage. Her research combines strong theoretical thinking with practical action to challenge power imbalances and promote greater justice in museums and universities.
For decades, the demand for colonial reparations in Africa was treated by Western capitals as a rhetorical exercise — a radical plea from the fringes that could be safely ignored or pacified with vague “expressions of regret.” By the end of 2025, however, that era of Western comfort officially ended in Algiers.
To commemorate years of diplomatic relation—and sure, with an eye to continued trade—France and Mexico exchanged two ancient manuscripts: the Codex Azcatitlán, and the Codex Boturini.
[in English and Greek] Leading British legal experts have questioned the legality of the UK government’s decision to bar the country’s national museums from deciding independently on the repatriation of cultural objects.
[in English and German] One of the mortal remains of three people of Indigenous Australian descent in the University of Cologne’s Anatomy Center, which were planned to be returned on 4 December 2025. was discovered during the preparations for the return to have been replaced.
In 2022, the Republic of Indonesia submitted an official application for the collection’s restitution after which the Dutch State Secretary for Culture requested the Colonial Collections Committee to provide advice on this request. In 2025, the Netherlands transferred it to Indonesia. This Blog offers a reflection.
Between 1896-1916 today's Burundi was a German colony as part of what was known as ‘German East Africa’. Not only in colonial historiography, but also in provenance research, Burundi has been largely underrepresented and, similar to Rwanda, stands ‘in the shadow’ of the reappraisal of the material cultural heritage of present-day Tanzania.
On December 3, 2025, the Pavillon des Sessions at the Louvre reopened its new layout, now called the Galerie des Cinq Continents or Gallery of the Five Continents. In Maria Pia Guermandi’s opinion, the layout continues to express a Western vision that claims to ‘elevate’ other cultures by granting them admission to the sancta sanctorum of European art.
Archaeologist and journalist Mariam Gichan wonders why complicated legal hurdles are sufficient to explain why the fossil hasn’t returned to Tanzania and whether “complicated” becomes a convenient reason for inaction.
[ in French ] The exhibition draws on more than eighty photographs from colonial archives, mainly held at the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren. But far from a simple presentation of heritage, Boma La Première offers a critical reading of these images.
More than 1,790 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander ancestral remains have been repatriated from 11 countries over the past 35 years. An unknown number remain abroad. Eight major museums can apply for up to $100,000 a year in federal funding to support the return of ancestors and cultural objects.
[ in French ] The AfricaMuseum in Tervuren, Belgium, changed from a ‘museum for colonial propaganda’ and a ‘museum of avoidance’ into one that ‘multiplies voices on colonial history and its persistence’, says historian Yasmina Zian.
‘Time for Papua’ brings different perspectives together: from refined wood carvings and korwar figures to prauw prows and recent film works. You see how creators make history tangible, how objects form relationships, and how a dynamic perception of time clashes with imposed boundaries and economic interests.
This restitution of 107 objects is being recognized as exemplary due to its transparent process and the collaborative approach between the institutions involved. The artifacts, once held in private and public collections in Switzerland, have now been formally transferred to the National Museum of Abidjan.
A new gallery at the Manchester Museum displays thousands of African artefacts, aiming to spark discussion on colonial-era looting and restitution. The initiative seeks public input on the origins and returns of these items, amid growing calls for repatriation of looted cultural heritage.
The Wereldmuseum collection includes 3,647 objects that contain ancestral human remains. Particularly harrowing are the 26 premature and newborn babies preserved in fluid. Together with members of various communities, Manuwi C. Tokai created an altar in the Wereldmuseum Amsterdam to serve as a place of remembrance for the ancestors held in the museum’s collection.
Emeline Smith writes: Long-term loans to former colonies are not restitution. They do not acknowledge historical wrongdoing, nor do they restore agency to source communities. The loan program is a rebranding exercise that preserves colonial power structures while pretending to dismantle them.
[ in Dutch ] Heritage organizations preserve and make accessible archives, publications, and objects that tell interesting or moving stories. At the same time, these same collections often contain heritage that reflects painful and poignant histories. This heritage raises questions or even comes under fire.
Heba Abd el Gawad writes: There is a point at which professional detachment becomes impossible. As a member of a community of descent as well as a curator, when I enter the Horniman store, I am not simply surveying collections. I am standing in the presence of my own kin. I encounter my Egyptian ancestors in spreadsheets, acid-free boxes and collection management plans.
[ in French ] In the 19th century, the concept of "Asian art" gradually gained prominence in the European market, driven not initially by collectors, but by dealers, the true intermediaries between Asia and Europe. This phenomenon took root in a context of forced opening of Asian territories: the Treaty of Yedo (1858) with Japan, the Treaty of Tianjin (1858-1860) with China, and the Treaty of Saigon (1862) with Vietnam.
[ in Dutch ] After five years, research project Pressing Matter, which dealt with the restitution of colonial collection pieces, ends. De Volkskrant talks to initiator Wayne Modest about the project and its influence on the World Museum.
The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations (APPG-AR) is calling for a ban on the public display of human remains without consent.
The group also recommended the establishment of a framework for museums to transparently audit their collections of human remains across the country as part of a briefing at the House of Commons last week.
Naturalis Marcel Beukeboom: “We will take time to think of a new story to tell. That story will most likely include references to the evolution and early humans, and may also address colonialism and perhaps even the influence of Dubois. But without his collection, and with everything we have learned, this will be a different story.”
Andreas Roth shows, the real story of the coral regalia does not fit the postcolonial narrative some want to attach to these artefacts. They do not provide a precedent for the return of Benin Bronzes.
David Abulafia writes: The history of the Rosetta Stone is not simply an Egyptian history. The inscription in three scripts, hieroglyphic, the less formal hieratic script, and classical Greek, is humdrum.
Rodney Westerlaken writes: The return of the Dubois Collection: principled restitution, unresolved policy questions: – At what point does scientific heritage become cultural heritage? – Which criteria should govern this classification, and by whom are they determined? - How can restitution frameworks avoid becoming normatively expansive without sufficient conceptual precision?
[ in English and in German ] The Museum der Kulturen Basel is systematically examining its collection for coloniality and highlighting the central importance of collaborating with communities in the Global South.
In April 2026, officials from the Japanese government and the Ainu Association of Hokkaido will travel to Britain to receive four of the five sets of remains, the government said Friday. The locations where the four sets were excavated are known.
Four important objects from the Dubois collection were handed over to Indonesia on Wednesday 17 December. The handover ceremony took place at the National Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta, which will exhibit the objects.
The Indonesian phrase pasang surut — “the tide in and out” — evokes the continuous movement of people, objects, and ideas across the seas that once linked Europe and the Indonesian archipelago. These currents shaped the emergence of colonial collections but also suggest the possibility of renewed circulation: of knowledge, accountability, and dialogue.
[ in French ] What does decolonization mean when power relations remain unchanged? Anne Wetsi Mpoma invites us to rethink decolonization as a political, epistemic and restorative process — where art becomes a space of resistance, reappropriation and symbolic justice.
Barnaby Philips discovers one more return of a Benin object from the Netherlands and further analyses what went wrong in Benin City: Two days before the aborted viewing of the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA), Oba Ewuare II visited his ally Monday Okpebholo, the governor of Edo State. ‘Please stop the opening of the MOWAA.’
Leah Niederhausen and Nicole L. Immler joined forces with Markus Kooper (Hoachanas Community Library & Archives) and Talita Uinuses (Captain Hendrik Witbooi Auta !Nanseb Foundation) and listened to, archive, and amplify Nama knowledge (Namibia) on and experiences with restitution, reparation, and historical (in)justice.
All too often, the literature on the restitution of colonial cultural objects tends to focus on the public international law (PubIIL) aspects of the debate. With a few notable exceptions, the PubIIL and private international law (PIL) dimensions of the debate are rarely considered together. This article makes the case for a coordinated approach.
Western museums are returning the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, but a state-of-the-art museum to display them is still a long way off. Alex Marshall saw hundreds of Benin Bronzes while reporting this article in Benin City and Lagos, Nigeria.
In January 2023, an online seminar was held to investigate the Vatican collections, their legal structure and how repatriation might be possible to countries and communities of origin. In particular we looked at the principle of ‘inalienability’ which governs the collections under Vatican civil law, Alexander Herman writes.
[ in German ] The Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz will return spiritual objects from Kpando containing human remains to Akpini People in Ghana, and spiritual objects to Australia. Currently, they are in the Ethnological Museum in Berlin.
[ in French ] Marie-Anne Léourier administered a questionnaire focused on these questions to visitors of the permanent collections area of the Quai Branly – Jacques Chirac Museum (MQB).
The Georg Steindorff Collection, comprising 163 objects, is a central, yet complex, component of the Egyptian Museum-Georg Steindorff at Leipzig University. The “loss” for Georg Steindorff’s family was placed at the forefront of this restitution of Nazi-looted art, while the original, broader loss of heritage for the country of origin (Egypt) due to colonial practices was sidelined.
Open Restitution Africa has published a case study that is centred around 119 cultural belongings from the historic Benin Kingdom. This collection includes intricately cast bronzes, carved ivories and terracotta. They serve dually as both historical artefact and active carriers of spiritual and cultural knowledge, many of which remain relevant in Benin cultural and religious life today.
The Royal Ethiopian Trust announces the acquisition and planned repatriation of a 19th-century gold hairpin belonging to Empress Tiruwork, wife of Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia. It is one of thousands of artifacts seized by British troops following the battle of Magdala in 1868.
Findings suggest that whilst there is strong support for retaining objects, namely under the guise of guaranteeing access for all peoples, there is also opposition from volunteers who feel that the British Museum is morally obliged to return objects.
[ in Dutch ] Collaborative research between heritage institutions in Europe and heritage communities outside Europe offer a unique opportunity to democratise the production of knowledge about the past, the present ,and the future, writes Katrijn D'Hamers (p. 72 ff).
The documentary Elephants & Squirrels by Swiss filmmaker Gregor Brändli chronicles a Sri Lankan artist’s discovery of looted artefacts in Basel and her mission to return them to Sri Lanka, exposing Switzerland’s uneasy reckoning with its colonial entanglements.
[ in Dutch, in French ] The MAS in Antwerp investigated the provenance of three important cultural objects from its Congolese collection. How did they end up in Antwerp, and what do they mean to Congolese communities today? The results are published in the new publication "On Origin and Future" and incorporated into the permanent exhibition.
The Catalan project "(Tr)African(t)s. Museums and collections of Catalonia in the face of coloniality" has recently created a travelling exhibition titled “To whom does history belong? Struggles for the decolonization of museums". This exhibition “invites us to reflect on the role of museums in colonial history and to rethink heritage from a critical perspective."
A £1.1million Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) standard grant has been awarded to an international team of scholars, archivists and filmmakers for a project on African film heritage restitution.
The Art of Status: Looted Treasures and the Global Politics of Restitution examines the relationship between looted art and international status, by focusing on the debates about acquisition and restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, Benin Bronzes, and a never before written about collection of Nazi-looted art housed in the National Museum of Serbia.
[ in Dutch ] Time is running out to return the hundreds of human remains collected by soldiers, missionaries and others in Congo, says historian and anthropologist Lies Busselen. The combination of archival and fieldwork in Belgium and Congo continuously encourages us to reflect on the colonial past.
Andrew Matthijssen of the Vendue House informs the authorities in Vanuatu that it withdraws the skulls from auction and will suggest to the owner(s) of the skulls to return them to Vanuatu.
In an email, in the hands of RM*, to the Vendue Huis in The Hague, the Netherlands, the Vanuatu Cultural Centre (VKS) and the National Museum of Vanuatu, the national authorities responsible for the safeguarding of Vanuatu’s cultural heritage, demand the immediate withdrawal of ancestral remains from sale.
[ in French ] It was in 2021, after 129 years of plunder by France, that the royal treasure of Abomey was returned to Benin. The restitution of this piece of history is part of a campaign launched by Benin in 2016 to make its heritage the cornerstone of its cultural influence.
The auctioneers of the Venduehuis in The Hague, the Netherlands, offer four ancestral skulls from Vanuatu. Evidence that the trade in ancestral remains continues. On line auction, until 24 November 2025
This article examines how an eighteenth-century decision to bureaucratize gift exchange continued to disrupt long-standing South Asian protocols of reciprocity and regard well into the twentieth century.
The aim of the project is to reveal and connect all collections of material made in Africa that are held in 32 Scottish museums, including lesser-known as well as better-known ones, and to connect these collections with relevant and interested diaspora and descendant communities.
[ in Spanish ] The work of the two expert committees created by Ernest Urtasun, Minister of Culture, to "overcome and challenge the Eurocentrism" of these two institutions, has concluded after six months with the delivery of two projects outlining concrete guidelines for renewing their museographic narratives.
The UK Government is to implement a change in law that will make it easier for museums in England and Wales to restitute objects from their collections on moral grounds. But national museums will be excluded from new rules.
Have a look at the way Vatican News reported about the return of 62 objects to Canada. No indigenous representatives or objects visible. Only Roman-catholic dignitaries. It is a fairly literal translation of the article.
Twelve historical artefacts have been formally returned to Ethiopia after being kept by a German family for more than 100 years. The artefacts were y collected in the 1920s by Germany's then-envoy to Ethiopia Franz Weiss and his wife Hedwig.
[ in Dutch] Due to the death of Otto van der Mieden on February 1, 2024, the founder and director of the Puppetry Museum, the museum is closed and the collection is being deaccessioned.
It is well known that Australia's police perpetrated violence against First Nations throughout the colonial period, but their role in supplying Indigenous ancestral bodily remains and cultural heritage objects to domestic and overseas museums is little understood, nor too is whether they exceeded or abused their powers in doing so.
[in English, in German] Thomas Fues sees many positive elements in the Joint Guidelines. which the federal government, the states and local authority associations adopted on 14 October 2025. They have some good guidelines but challenges remain as well.
Ghana's Asante king has welcomed the return of 130 gold and bronze artefacts from the UK and South Africa some of which were looted during colonial times and others bought on the open market. 'These artifacts belong where their meaning was born'.
The Vatican is working with the Canadian Catholic Church to return 62 Indigenous objects, says Gilbert Whiteduck . He is the education director and former chief of the Algonquin community Kitigan Zibi Anishinābeg, in western Quebec.
Yesterday, RM* published an item about the repatriation by museums in Great Britain of shrunken heads to Ecuador. Lewis McNaught explains that this is easier said than done. Given the particular cultural contexts of tsantsas (both making and taking), the need for further research and analysis have been agreed. According to him, no repatriation requests have been made to date and given the number of different groups involved, any future process is likely to be extremely complicated.
Julien Volper, acurator at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren, Belgium), is writing here in a personal capacity: The Dutch restitution of Benin objects, earlier this year, was motivated by Dutch self-interest, both of the government and of the museum that has to let go a collection.
The opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum comes with renewed calls for restitution: the famous Nefertiti bust, in Berlin since 1913, and the Stone of Rosetta, in London since 1801. Differing points of view.
Several UK museums considering the future of “tsantsas” – also known as shrunken heads – in their collections following a visit by representatives of Shuar people from Ecuador, from whom the items originated. The delegates engaged with 68 human and seven animal tsantsas during their visit, along with other Shuar cultural objects.
The theft of the Louvre’s crown jewels has increased calls for the museum to be more transparent about the colonial origins of the treasures it displays. Their routes to Paris run through the shadows of empire, an uncomfortable history that France has only begun to confront.
It is the final conference of Pressing Matter, in partnership with the Research Center for Material Culture (RCMC) and the Wereldmuseum. Min theme: Rethinking the Restitutionary Moment: What Next? On 27 and 28 November in Leiden. On 26 November, Achille Mbembe will speak in Amsterdam.
The cultural goods – a carved wooden stick, a divination basket, and a bovine astragalus amulet - were originally owned by the Nkuna royal family of Limpopo and used in ritual and spiritual ceremonies dating back to the 19th century. They were taken in 1899 by Swiss missionary Dr. Henri Junod. The royal family had begun negotiations in 2016.
[ in Dutch ] Last Saturday, the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) opened in Cairo. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was also in attendance. The world's largest archaeological museum displays more than 100,000 art treasures from Egyptian history, but one important piece is missing: the bust of Queen Nefertiti. It has graced the walls of Berlin for over a century.
There is growing debate around the ethics of displaying human remains. Against this background, the Museums Association (MA) has reviewed its Code of Ethics, and questions around storage and display of human remains are a key aspect.
[ in German ] Berlin Postkolonial, Decolonize Berlin, and Flinn Works welcome the update of the “Joint Guidelines on Dealing with Cultural Property and Human Remains from Colonial Contexts.” Clearer procedures and the establishment of unconditional returns are steps in the right direction. At the same time, the guidelines fall far short of a human rights- and international law-based understanding of restitution and repatriation.
[ in English and in German ] The main focus is on cultural belongings from four Cameroonian communities, the Bakoko, Bamum, Duala, and Maka, whose heritage was absorbed by these institutions during the German colonial era (1884-1919). This should also become a basis for future restitutions.
[ in French ] The Study and Research Centre for Administrative and Political Sciences (CERSA) organizes a conference entitled “Restitutions of cultural heritage: trends, challenges, perspectives” on November 14, 2025 in Paris.
[ in French ] The French government intends to go further with a bill that could become a landmark law in this area. What are the terms of the bill, and why does it potentially represent a historic turning point? Catharine Titi writes....
Former Tanzanian lawmaker and environmental activist Riziki Saidi Lulida argues: 'It was taken from Lindi, from our soil. They carried it piece by piece for more than a hundred kilometers, and some of our people died doing it. But no one in Lindi has ever benefited.'
The British Museum has hosted a lavish fundraiser at 2,000 pounds ($2,668) per ticket, dubbed the "Pink Ball," in the room housing the Parthenon Marbles, igniting fierce criticism and reviving long-standing debates over cultural ethics and colonial restitution. Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni condemned as 'provocative indifference'. Here follows a comment by Global Times reporter Chen Xi.
The stolen jewels are also products of a long history of colonial extraction. The sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, pearls, and other gemstones they contained were mined across Asia, Africa, and South America.
[ in German ] The 2025 Guidelines promote dialogue with societies of origin and descendants, interdisciplinary provenance research, and proactive roles for museums, while they acknowledge the cultural, spiritual, and epistemological singularities of each case. They expand on communication channels for restitution requests, specifically notably requiring the consent of the state of origin, and call for a need to streamline procedures and call for an expert advisory body to be established to support restitution efforts. Further details on governance and the body’s specific mandate remain to be defined.
This kick-off seminar, led by Pietro Sullo, discusses the legal status of colonial artefacts from Africa held in European museums, clarifying whether there is a duty to repatriate them. The research hypothesis is that European states have a legal duty to return colonial artefacts acquired without the consent of the communities of origin.
The colonial collections in public museums and the private sector in Italy are not less substantial than elsewhere in Europe. Italy has made some significant returns. Nevertheless, this blog argues that the country is much better at reclaiming its own stolen relics than at accepting the consequences of the investigations into its colonial collections.
The decolonisation of museums worldwide is an unstoppable process. Spain aimed to join the wave of museological decolonisation. In the case of the Canary Islands, this practice presents a series of peculiarities related to their unique historical process.
The German state Baden-Württemberg acknowledges its historical responsibility and is committed to provenance research in order to identify and return colonial cultural goods that were acquired unlawfully. The start was in 2019, when Hendrik Witbooi's Bible and whip were returned to Namibia.
Cultural leaders of an indigenous Ecuadorian community have called for the repatriation of a collection of shrunken heads in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford [GB].
[ in Spanish ] The exhibition recovers key moments from the decades of 1880 and 1990, when the first restitutions of human remains and the demands for patrimonial return to our context were produced.
The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow, through the implementing agencies, Iziko Museums of South Africa and the South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA), and in partnership with the Northern Cape Reburial Task Team, have jointly announced the repatriation of ancestral human remains to South Africa.
When tourists tread the halls of Sri Lanka’s national museums or glance over the plaques at sites of historical significance, they are reading stories of the past. But whose? Sri Lankan ethnographer Ganga Rajinee Dissanayaka wonders who made that judgement of what is worth saving, worth memorialising, worth forgetting?
The British Museum has announced that it will be holding a charity ball on 18 October 2025 to collect funds to further, inter alia, its international partnerships. This makes Kwame Opoku having a closer look at it.
This special exhibition is dedicated to a long-overlooked collecting practice: The collection of objects by Catholic and Protestant missionary societies – primarily during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The public display of artefacts looted by British colonial forces at the new Museum of West African Art was supposed to be the crowning glory of a decades-long restitution effort. What went wrong?
[ in Portuguese ] The exhibition "The Photographic Impulse. (Dis)arrangement of the Colonial Archive" proposes a decolonial reading of the images and scientific objects from geodesy and anthropology expeditions carried out in territories colonized by Portugal.
In this Spark Session Made Naraya Sumaniaka presents his thesis work, which recentres community agency by examining how digital spaces enable participation and contestation using the newly established Colonial Collections Datahub and TikTok as case studies.
This project explores the colonial framework that has shaped our understanding and knowledge of historical objects, focusing on the Lombok Treasures looted from Cakranegara Palace in 1894. Adopting a decolonial perspective, this project reframes these heritage objects as living entities endowed with knowledge and cultural significance, rather than mere relics.
Christian missionary collections have contributed much to the development of the exhibitionary complex, but have received significantly less notice than imperial states using violence to acquire collections, and subsequent demands for restitution.
[ in Dutch ]'Dutch' fossils soon to be seen again in Indonesia: 'Young people here only know the Javaman from textbooks'
Indonesia will soon receive thousands of fossils that are still in museum Naturalis. It is a historic moment for his country, says Indonesian paleontologist Sofwan Noerwidi.
On 26 September 2025, the Dutch government returned 28,000 fossils, including the famous skullcap, a molar, and a thighbone (the so-called Java Man), to Indonesia following an official claim submitted by the Indonesian state in July 2022. They were part of the collection of Naturalis Biodiversity Centre in Leiden. With this, the government followed the advice of the Colonial Collections Committee. Now that the dust about this massive return has begun to settle, it is time for some reflection. I consider the acceptance of the advice of the independent Colonial Collections Committee groundbreaking in several respects.
[ in Dutch ] Looted art is a hot issue in the art world. This therefore seems like a good time to return ten pleurists who are now in the Rijksmuseum to Belgium, writes parliamentary lobbyist Marcelo Mooren in this opinion piece.
[ in Dutch ] At the Indonesian Ministry of Culture, they can't count on their luck. The Netherlands returns an important archaeological find to Indonesia. It concerns the skullcap of Dubois, named after the Dutch finder Eugène Dubois. This proved in 1891 that other humanos had existed, which Dubois called the Javamen.
[ in Dutch ] The restitution process of the Dubois collection took an unusually long time. The responsible advisory committee and Naturalis point out the complexity of the case, experts make sharp accusations against the museum.
[ links are in Dutch or in English ] Today, Dutch Minister Moes (Education, Culture and Science) presented a letter to Indonesian Minister Fadli Zon (Culture) announcing this decision. The so-called Dubois collection is now managed by Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the city of Leiden.
[ in English and in German ] Experience to date suggests that the portal has so far been little used by actors from the contexts of origin and other countries of the so-called Global South and their diasporic communities. To shed more light on this issue, we surveyed both the DDB as the provider and German and international researchers as (potential) users in writing.
Hugh Johnson-Gilbert and Alexander Herman write: It has long been the view in the UK that national museums are restricted by law from repatriating collection objects. But will legislation passed three years ago, the Charities Act 2022, point the way ahead?
Kulasumb Kalinoe (East Sepik area, Papua New Guinea; currrently James Cook University, Australia) focuses on the collection and removal of cultural material from Papua New Guinea (PNG) during the colonial era. She discusses views among the Papua New Guinean diaspora in Australia on museums and PNG collections, and argues that cultural heritage issues must be addressed before the work of decolonisation can begin.
Windsor Castle’s splendour hides a legacy of colonial loot, from Tipu Sultan’s swords to the Koh-i-Noor, raising debates on restitution and justice, Jan Muhammad Shaikh writes.
‘The most valuable Buginese manuscript of La Galigo, is held at Leiden University Library’ in the Netherlands, the university proudly communicates. It has come from Makassar on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. For the Bugis who live there, it is an essential part of their history. But they have no access to it. A local group with academics, heritage professionals and activists in Makassar has begun to discuss its future. For them the repatriation of meaning is crucial. And this is only possible if the Dutch recognise their responsibility.
Muhammad Nishat Hussain writes: The 100th anniversary of the first formal excavation at Harappa (Punjab, NE Pakistan) is more than a commemoration of a century-old dig. It is an opportunity to reimagine how Pakistan studies and safeguards its past. Since the 1970s the country has tried to regain lost treasures. In vain.
Rohan Fernando emphasises the colonial roots of India’s great contemporary museums and the role of the British in rediscovering India’s past. Muhammad Nishan Hussain [University of Lahore] takes an opposite view and sees them as a tool of colonial control.
BREAKING: Three shrunken heads of South American persons and one hand of a mummified person from Egypt are currently offered by Hannam's Auctioneers, The Old Dairy Norton Farm, Selborne, GU34 3NB, Hampshire, UK.
Nigeria should establish a bilateral negotiating group with Germany on reparations to pay for its crimes against humanity, comprising the indigenous peoples of Nigeria and other African nations. Not as charity, but as a binding act of justice and a guarantee that such atrocities will never be repeated.
Join us on Sept 16 | 16:00–21:30 | Kulturhaus Brotfabrik - World Premieres of Eternos Retornos and other films, with installations by Repatriates, and a dinner ritual inspired by the counter vibration physics of the headdress. This is more than art. It is a call to return what was taken.
In 2021, the University of Aberdeen returned a looted Benin object to the Oba of Benin, becoming the first UK institution to agree to an unconditional return. Neil Curtis [University of Aberdeen] outlines the process of giving back a pillaged object without a repatriation request being made.
[ in Dutch ] The objects come from a private collection of the descendants of doctor and amateur archaeologist Dr. Hans Feriz. In her will, his daughter had stipulated that the objects collected by her father in the past would be returned to the countries of origin.
In 2013, the AfricaMuseum near Brussels closed its doors and embarked on a major redesign. The architectural changes must have felt less challenging than the long overdue re-evaluation of the holdings and their presentation. Jeremy Harding reports.
[ in French and in English ] Claimed for decades by Antananarivo, these bones had been taken as trophies by French colonial troops after a deadly attack in 1897 in Ambiky, the former royal capital of Menabe. 'Their absence was an open wound on our island'.
The objects, comprising spears, spear throwers and a club, were collected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and have been held in the museum’s collection for decades.
There has been a lack of academic focus related to how public facing or ‘live interpreter’ volunteers are strategically utilised to support the delivery of museum decolonisation, as well as the implications this has for volunteering.
This workshop marks the conclusion of the interdisciplinary provenance research project "Human Remains from Colonial Contexts: Provenance Research in the Anthropological Collections of the University of Göttingen and MARKK Hamburg".
The past decade has seen a worldwide tendency to re-examine human remains found in old museum collections. To obtain a full picture of the life history of the individuals under consideration, an anthropological study might be mandated, although this approach is not yet systematic.
According to Darius Spierman, France has begun a significant process of confronting its colonial history. This includes the recent return of human remains to Madagascar and a draft restitution bill.
For several years, Bristol Museum and Art Gallery and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) have been discussing returns of cultural heritage to Australia. This event will reflect on those discussions with community members and AIATSIS staff.
