While Britain has shown little inclination to even seriously consider restitution of the Kohinoor or other cultural artefacts taken from India, several European countries have begun doing so, with the Netherlands emerging at the forefront. While doing so, all sorts of challenges pop up.
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.
Ayọ̀ Akínwándé examines restitution, spiritual provenance, and the unresolved tensions between royal authority, state power, and museum-making in Benin City. The conflict between the MOWAA and the Benin Court goes back to the colonial days.
[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.
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.
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.
[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.
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.
For more than fifty years, my father quietly assembled one of the most significant private collections of Nigerian and West African art ever held in a family home. Carvings. Bronzes. Masks. Ritual objects. Works that carried centuries of history, belief, and mastery.
As Africa enters 2026, its museums stand as vibrant guardians of the continent’s layered history, from ancient pharaonic legacies to the scars of colonialism and the triumphs of independence. Amid global conversations on cultural restitution, with artifacts slowly returning from European institutions, new and revitalised venues are reshaping how Africans and the world engage with the past.
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.’
[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 2025, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston (MFA) achieved two significant ownership resolutions. First, the museum was asked to rescind and return the long-term loan of Benin Kingdom artwork to the private collection of Robert Owen Lehman. Both of these resolutions speak to the facts that (1) restitution does not have to be a zero-sum game, and (2) museum restitution has expanded beyond what the letter of the law dictates.
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.
[ 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.
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.
To exhibit taonga is not simply to interpret the past. It is to enter a living relationship with an ancestral presence. Museums do not own taonga. At best, they are temporary caregivers, and increasingly, digital co-stewards.
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.
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.
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 British Museum is sending 80 prized treasures abroad in a push to "decolonise". The artefacts will be sent to a prominent institution in India as part of a new "collaborative approach" with Britain's former colonies. It comprises treasures from ancient civilisations not typically found in Indian collections.
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?
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.”
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 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.
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.
During work with our project 'People, place and plunder' about diaspora groups and Restitution, writes Swedish scholar Staffan Lundén, we have come upon two articles which are almost certainly written by AI.
Senegalese economist and thinker Felwine Sarr called for a deep reconsideration of the museum, its history, its functions, and the narratives it upholds as African artworks dispersed across Western museums gradually return to the continent. Africa should rethink museum models.
Africa has renewed its most assertive push yet for historical justice (including restitution), as ministers, jurists, and diplomats gathered in Algiers for a landmark conference on the criminalisation of colonialism.
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.
[ 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 an address delivered in Algiers, the Caribbean Community (Caricom), unveiled a comprehensive ten-point plan calling for concrete reparations for the crimes of colonialism. This intervention strongly underscored the necessity of a unified, coordinated effort between Africa and its diaspora to confront centuries-long injustices, restore historical rights, and secure meaningful mechanisms for recognition, compensation, and restitution.
Restitution activist Mwazulu Diyabanza explains why he is taking the law into his own hands. His actions are a calculated act of civil disobedience, executed for maximum political impact without engaging in violence or damaging property.
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.
[ 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 Dutch ] On 24 November 2025, a limited number of people was allowed to see the 260 skulls from DR Congo in the Royal Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels. The diaspora had pressured for the visit Some quotations around this article behind a paywall.
An 18th-century Joseon Buddhist painting, the 'Ten Kings Painting,' which had been held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the Met) in the United States, has been returned to its home at Sinheungsa Temple in Sokcho, Gangwon Province.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
The agreement represents the first major case of art restitution involving works created by an enslaved person in the U.S. — a process traditionally associated with families seeking the return of art looted by the Nazis in World War II.
[ 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.
[ 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.
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.
Elias Feroz interviews Dan Hicks: Monuments, museums, and cultural institutions were often created in the image of “militarist realism,” presenting colonialism and enslavement as eternal. Undoing this legacy is not erasing the past but combating a pernicious ideology.
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'.
In an address at the 2025 Conference of the African Bar Association (AfBA) in Accra, Chief Charles A. Taku of the AfBA Reparations Committee, made an impassioned appeal for what he termed “The Accra Declaration” — a continental demand compelling Europe and the West to pay reparations for the centuries of slavery, colonialism, and cultural theft inflicted upon Africa and its peoples.
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.
Oba Ewuare II today, during a courtesy visit to the Government house spoke explicitly on the proposed plan to build Benin Royal Museum which the past Governor of the state, Mr. Godwin Obaseki converted to EMOWAA and later MOWAA.
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.
[ 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.
Colonial powers have long used museums to collect, display and contain the suffering of subjugated peoples, transforming trauma into spectacle and erasure into curation. Armenia, like so many small nations whose history was stolen, remains entangled in this architecture of memory.
At the G20 meeting, South African Minister for Sport, Arts and Culture, Gayton McKenzie, champions cultural restitution and digital equity at the G20 summit, advocating for a fairer future. Each G20 member state should have a restitution committee.
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.
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 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.
Over 4.250 respondents from Zimbabwe, Ghana, Ethiopia, South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Nigeria and Mali participated in a survey, expressing that return of artefacts is an essential party of reparations to the continent.
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.
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.
“The university regards these historical facts with the utmost gravity, reflects on them with sincere remorse, and hereby expresses our heartfelt apologies.” A process of repatriation has started.
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.
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].
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?
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 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 Director of the Museum of Black Civilisations in Dakar Mohamed Abdallah Ly reflects on the urgent need to decolonize cultural institutions, the symbolism of absence, and the politics of restitution. He also discusses efforts to reconnect the museum with diaspora communities and reimagine its role in Africa’s cultural and intellectual future.
Seven years ago, two men found a bronze Ming Dynasty Buddha statue on a roadside in WA's Shark Bay region, Australia. Tests confirmed the Buddha had been buried for 150 years and is probably linked to the beginnings of WA's pearling industry, which was pioneered in part by Chinese people. The two men want it to be handed over to the Chinese government as a symbol of peace and diplomacy.
Alliance Française Kampala has launched a month-long program, Ethics of Loaning: Strengthening the Discourse on Restitution in Uganda, aimed at involving communities in discussions on the return and ethical management of cultural heritage.
[ 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.
[ 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 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.
[ 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 ] 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 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.
Centuries of plunder, forced labour, and extraction built the wealth of Europe while impoverishing the Global South. The debt owed is not symbolic; it is measurable, moral, and political. Reparations are not charity—they are justice long overdue. Restitution of colonial collections is part of this.
More and more colonial looted art is returned to the country of origin by European countries and museums, yet millions of precious sculptures, masks and bronzes still remain in the hands of the former colonizer. In the Netherlands alone, hundreds of thousands of artifacts are involved. Why? 'They claim that we can't take care of it ourselves.'
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.
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.
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.
First Nations leaders talked about the need to develop a national repatriation strategy for artifacts, cultural items and ancestral remains at the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) annual general assembly in Winnipeg.
Palmanova paid USD$17,340 for the object. But when it was sent by Fedex to Melbourne, it was seized under the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act. And now, the High Court found the artefact was subject to forfeiture, because it is protected.
[ 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.
Two pou - ornate carvings - that have been in the South Australian Museum's collection for more than 130 years are now destined for New Zealand after a ceremony in Adelaide on Tuesday.
Does the appointment of Bénédicte Savoy indicate a change in the French museum establishment on the issue of returning artifacts that were wrongly taken during the colonial period?
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.
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.
[ 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'.
Social media is helping drive trade in skulls, bones and skin products as UK legal void risks new era of ‘body snatching’. Paul Boateng (Labour Party), who will meet the culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, next month to appeal for a change in the law, has raised specific concerns about the trade in remains of ancestors from Indigenous communities.
Reclaiming stolen artefacts: Africa’s landmark museum at the heart of global discussion about restitution.
Senegal’s Museum of Black Civilisations is asserting Africa’s right to secure its cultural heritage and tell its own story.
American firm KoBold Metals' desire to scan the Congolese geological archives is causing embarrassment in Belgium, which holds a large collection inherited from the colonial era. A project for the digitisation of said archives for research purposes backed by EU funding is already underway.
Dan Hicks writes: Genuine transparency will require the V&A channelling its resources into creating a truly comprehensive public database of the artefacts, images and archives that it holds.
Nearly five centuries after Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés signed it and decades after someone swiped it from national archives, a priceless manuscript page has been returned by the FBI to Mexico.
Officials from Canadian Heritage have confirmed the federal government has neither the means nor the ability to acquire any of the estimated 4,400 items in the Hudson Bay Company’s (HBC) collection of art and artifacts.
Paul Dailey (Guardian Australian columnist) writes: Bodies and body parts have long been part of collections of imperial plunder over the years – but museums must understand that attitudes have moved on.
Eight years after French president Emmanuel Macron pledged to return African heritage to the continent, his government has adopted a bill facilitating the deaccession of cultural items plundered from former colonies. The text will be submitted for a vote in the senate on 24 September.
The Indian government has secured the repatriation of ancient gem relics linked to the Buddha’s remains, two months after it halted their auction in Hong Kong. Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, said the return of the Piprahwa gems after 127 years was “a joyous day for our cultural heritage”.
In March 2025, Open Restitution Africa co-hosted a two-day gathering with the University of the Western Cape at the Iyatsiba Lab in Cape Town, bringing together African restitution practitioners, researchers and activists to reflect on how lived experience is shaping policy across the continent.
Leading academic, Gloria Bell, argues that the Vatican is not only stalling on Pope Francis’ promises of restoring the looted artifacts — but continues to falsely 'refer to everything in their collection as a ‘gift.’
[ in German ] Identity politics, right-wing agitation, financial constraints, restitution: museums and exhibition venues are now under pressure in many ways. A status report. Has the post-restitution era began?
[ in Portuguese ] A delegation from Nagaland in north-east India travels to the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford to negotiate the return of remains and artefacts taken during the colonial period.
High-profile figures, including the former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, have written a letter criticising what it claims is an “accelerating” campaign to return the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum to Greece.
France's parliament approves returning to Ivory Coast a "talking drum" that colonial troops took from the Ebrie tribe in 1916, in the latest boost to the repatriation of colonial spoils.
In a step toward preserving and rediscovering Sri Lanka’s colonial intellectual heritage, the government has greenlit a groundbreaking research project focusing on Dutch-era palm leaf manuscripts of Sri Lankan origin.
Hudson’s Bay Company, North America's oldest company, faces bankruptcy and wants to auction objects amassed from its founding in 1670, but it includes many important pieces of Canada’s First Nations and colonial heritage.
Thomas Fues writes: In an historic breakthrough for German restitution policy on colonial contexts, Cameroon’s official Restitution Committee has agreed upon the return of colonially appropriated cultural heritage in September 2025. Four German museums are involved.
The remains of a woman, described as a “non-European skeleton,” were given a full funeral service by Highgate School, the fee-paying secondary in Highgate Village. No relatives could be found.
An institution is asking its visitors for their view: The Manchester Museum is running a public consultation about the future of Asru, a woman who lived in Thebes, southern Egypt
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), today returned two works of art from the Benin Kingdom to His Royal Majesty Omo N’Oba Ewuare II, Oba of Benin, in a ceremony at the Nigeria House in New York City.
On March 14, the remains of eight Mirning ancestors were returned to their country and buried. The ancestors lived between the late 1800s and 1979, and their remains had most recently been stored at the West Australian Museum.
Indigenous artefacts will be returned to their ancestral home on Mornington Island in Queensland's Gulf of Carpentaria. More than 3,000 kilometres away in Victoria, Baw Baw Shire staff uncovered the 37 articles in storage.
The international seminar Critical Studies on Provenance, History, and Cultural Heritage focused on the role of provenance research in cultural heritage and repatriation efforts. Organized with several Indonesian universities and professional associations, the event highlighted how tracing the origin of cultural artifacts is essential for repatriation claims—particularly in light of Dutch colonial history and recent returns of Indonesian objects.
Gov. Greg Gianforte last week finalized Montana’s two-year budget, which contains several new investments for Indian Country, including a historic increase in funding for tribal colleges and money devoted to repatriation efforts.
A royal shrine from the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), believed to have been removed from Korea nearly a century ago during Japan’s colonial rule, has returned home. Known as Gwanwoldang, the wooden structure was officially transferred to Korea through a bilateral cultural collaboration marking the 60th anniversary of normalized diplomatic ties between the two countries.
The path to true restitution requires more than symbolic gestures, demanding that Britain repeal its obstructive laws, France accelerate its glacial restitution process, and all former colonial powers establish transparent frameworks for repatriation.
Nigeria has received 119 Benin Bronzes from the Netherlands — the largest physical repatriation of looted artefacts since the 1897 British invasion of the Benin Kingdom. According to an expert, some of the pieces date back to between the 14th and 16th century.
The Japanese civic group, Movement for the Repatriation of Chinese Cultural Properties, urges the Japanese government to return looted Chinese cultural relics, the Chinese Global Times reports. Japan conducted archaeological surveys in China during wartime and later transported their "findings" to Japan under the guise of "academic research."
Quoting the recently deceased Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o on decolonisation of the mind, Kwame Opoku critically analyses a recent interview in The Times with Nicholas Cullinan, the new director of the British Museum.
The Albanese Labor Government has welcomed the return of 10 First Nations ancestors from three Japanese collecting institutions. A joint ceremony was held in Tokyo. This is the first ever return of ancestors from Japan.
A delegation of Naga elders and leaders, along with representatives from the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR) and Recover, Restore, and Decolonise (RRaD), gathered at the Pitt Rivers Museum (PRM), University of Oxford, to initiate the repatriation of Naga ancestral human remains.
South Africa is determined to repatriate the remains of its people taken abroad during the colonial era and those who died in exile as anti-apartheid activists, the culture minister Gayton McKenzie says. Including those of the Khoi-San, who are regarded as among the country's "first people".
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 a five pages long joint statement, eight archaeological organisations from across the UK said a “cross-sector consultative forum” should be established to enable a wide range of viewpoints to be heard on any proposed changes to human remains legislation and practice.
Southern Africa is spearheading a transformative shift in the restitution discourse. This shift means reframing restitution as an act of healing, justice, and empowerment for communities still grappling with the enduring scars of historical dispossession.
According to the Greek newspaper Kathimerini, the Greek Government and the British Museum have made substantial headway in discussions regarding the Parthenon Sculptures.
[ 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).
Remains taken by Japanese researchers from a tomb in Okinawa Prefecture in the early 20th century have been returned, sources said Thursday. + comment Nathan Sydenham
A first activity will be the hosting of a Memorial Service to honor 19 individuals whose crania were taken from New Orleans in the 1880s and sent to Leipzig, Germany.
Pope Francis promised to return artifacts to communities in Canada, but several years on, they remain in the Vatican’s museums and storage vaults. Recently, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney discussed the return in a meeting with Canadian Catholic Cardinals.
Experts in Basel have found four plant collections belonging to the two naturalists Fritz and Paul Sarasin that were thought to be lost. Until now, scientists had assumed that these pocket herbaria were destroyed in Berlin during the Second World War.
Minister of Culture Fadli Zon announced significant progress in repatriating Indonesian cultural artifacts from the Netherlands after bilateral talks with the Dutch Colonial Collections Committee (CCC) in Jakarta.
Tamara Lanier, who sued the school in 2019 over daguerreotypes of her enslaved ancestors held in its museum, called the outcome “a turning point in American history.”
In The Art Newspaper, Ben Luke wonders whether museums are ‘guilt tripping’ their visitors and concludes they aren’t doing enough.
Engaging with the difficult histories behind objects has deepened my experiences at cultural institutions — and the fact it is different for everyone is a good thing.
[ in Portuguese ] A 15-point action plan is the most tangible proposal put forward by the working group in a report on “sensitive heritage” at the University of Coimbra. Among the actions consists are “identifying and systematizing all the ‘sensitive heritage’ of UC”, the adoption of principles on dealing with them, legislation for restitution and the repatriation of a skull collection to Timor Leste.
In a historic handover event at the Fowler Museum in California, USA, a collection of 11 objects of deep cultural significance were unconditionally returned to the Larrakia Community of the Northern Territory in Australia.
Half of the 11 returned objects to the Larrakia community in Northern Australia first arrived at the Fowler Museum in 1965 through a large donation from the Wellcome Trust.
In Benin, a 'kataklè' – a ceremonial stool, and the final piece of the royal treasure of Abomey – has been returned by Finland, 133 years after being looted by French troops and later transferred to the National Museum of Finland. It began with an investigation by a Radio France International (RFI) journalist.
The Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art returned the remnants of the Zidanku Silk Manuscript, estimated to be more than 2,300 years old, from its collection and formally transferred them to China's National Cultural Heritage Administration.
The director of the British Museum, Nicholas Cullinan, has ruled out any move towards allowing restitution from its collections as he focuses instead on fostering global collaboration.
British Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy: “In the arts and creative industries, Britain and India lead the world and I look forward to this agreement opening up fresh opportunities for collaboration, innovation and economic growth for our artists, cultural institutions and creative businesses." (Not a single word about restitution)
The Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston returned 27 Benin objects to Robert Lehman, from whom it had received them on loan. Kwame Opoku: The museum's attempt to keep up an ethical image is not convincing.
Why and how is filmmaking important to the search for justice and efforts to right historical wrongs? Because filmmaking, as an art, is partly responsible for didactic, historical portraiture.
[ in French ] France Culture interviews historian Benjamin Storashares about some of the issues with the restitution of documents and objects that were looted during the 1950's war of independence of Algeria.
La Galigo, an Bugis text, is poetry, written on palm leaves in Bugis language and is considered to be the most voluminous literary work in the world. But the majority of the manuscripts are stored in Leiden University, The Netherlands.
According to the Japanese government, the remains of three Ainu Indigenous people that were kept at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland will be returned.
The repatriation of African art is gaining momentum, but a number of highly important and symbolic pieces remain in the hands of the continent’s former colonisers.
In an unprecedented move for a United States arts institution, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, will return a promised gift of Benin Bronzes to collector Robert Owen Lehman and close the collection’s dedicated gallery on April 28.
On May 6, just days before Buddhists around the world celebrate the holiday of Vesak, Sotheby’s Hong Kong will put relics of the Buddha — what Sotheby’s calls the “Piprahwa Gems of the Historical Buddha”— on the auction block.
Pope Francis died on April 20 at 88, marking the end of an epoch for the Catholic Church and the beginning of its search for the next spiritual leader, who will also become proprietor of the Vatican’s library and vast art collection.
Two centuries to the day after France imposed a crippling debt on Haiti in exchange for its independence, a UN forum has heard calls for the restitution of what has long been described as a “ransom” extorted under the threat of force from the Caribbean nation that still bears the scars of colonialism and slavery.
The British Museum must not succumb to pressure to return the Benin Bronzes to Africa, as the case for their restitution is 'weak', Sir Trevor Phillips says.
The Natural History Museum in London hosted a formal ceremony on 10 April 2025 with Traditional Custodians from Queensland communities to mark the return of 36 First Nations ancestors.
France will repatriate the skulls of King Toera and two Sakalava warriors to Madagascar, marking the first return of human remains under a new French law passed in 2023.
Resistance hero Ras Desta Damtew was executed by Italian fascists in 1937, after which some of his belongings are believed to have been stolen. Now his grandchildren and the Ethiopian government are fighting to bring them home.
The Mexican Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Culture, through the Legal Advisor’s Office and the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH), welcome the restitution of 915 cultural artifacts belonging to the nation's heritage.
The Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) has established a committee to investigate what part of the current collection has a connection to the former colonies or slavery past. Based on this investigation, the committee will issue a recommendation at a later date.
With the deaccession policies of Britain’s national museums so diametrically different from Britain’s larger number of regional and university collections, learning how museums unencumbered by national legislation are dealing successfully with the same legacies of inequality and trauma is revealing.
The African Union (AU) has said that the Year of Reparations 2025 is about economic liberation and ending Africa’s systemic wealth drain. Onyekachi Wambu writes: 'Restitution is a key part of the agenda. it has been explicitly mentioned in all the AU related reparations meeting I have attended.'
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order targeting the Smithsonian Institution, which operates more than 20 museums and research centres visited by millions yearly in Washington DC and New York City. It also affects the Smithsonian's restitution policy. J.D. Vance will lead the purge.
After more than 170 years at the Scottish University of Aberdeen, the remains of a young Aboriginal man who was killed on his Country have returned home.
Adéwolé Faladé, PhD candidate in History at the Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, highlights and analyzes the traces left by the 26 repatriated artefacts by France to the Republic of Benin in 2021.
Julien Volper argues that the Netherlands practises double standards when it comes to restitution. On the one hand, the country returns 119 Benin objects to Nigeria. On the other, it was reluctant to return to Belgium parts of a 16th-century altarpiece by Pasquier Borman, stolen from a church of in Boussu (Belgium) in 1914, and it cut back its international assistance to the global south.
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 British Museum has welcomed a new slate of trustees, including Dr. Tiffany Jenkins, an academic and author staunchly opposed to returning stolen antiquities like the Parthenon Marbles.
A ceremony took place in the Leiden World Museum around the restitution of the heritage of the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo tribe. It is the first time the Netherlands has returned objects to the United States. „The healing process can now begin.”
Until 25 May 2025, the Louvre Abu Dhabi unveils 'Kings and Queens of Africa: Forms and Figures of Power', an exhibition celebrating 350 works of African art and majesty, most of them on loan from Musée Du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac. Is this a manner to postpone their restitution?
The Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre and The Hunterian at the University of Glasgow have announced the repatriation of a rare shell necklace from The Hunterian collection in Glasgow to its home in Tasmania.
The display of human remains in museums has long been a contentious issue. Earlier in March, the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Afrikan Reparations (APPG-AR) published the report Laying the Ancestors to Rest. Returning African human remains is time- and money-consuming. With the ongoing budget cuts, it becomes harder to return them.
