Thread by @TheOnionGod

1/ Following the thread about the Rosetta stone, a number of questions were asked about the “robbery” of antiquities from Egypt and Mesopotamia by the British and French. So here's a #thread about colonialism, antiquity laws and cultural heritage. >>

2/ >> The beginning of this story is in 1798 when Napoleon decides to make a journey to Egypt. Napoleon is joined by a delegation of French researchers from a variety of fields, including archaeologists. This is actually the first archaeological foreign excavation expedition. >>

3/ >> That means, these are archaeologists excavating in a country which isn't there own, before Napoleon's expedition to Egypt this never happened. In this framework, the Rosetta Stone, about which I have already written, was first studied. >>

4/ >> That was the moment the the world of 19th century archeology changed, the whole world became an excavation field.
This is the period when Layard excavated in Nineveh, and found Ashurbanipal's library which included the Epic of Gilgamesh. >>

* Gilgamesh flood Tablet, #11.

5/ >> The question is, was it robbery or not? On the one hand, no, because there was no law forbidding it. This was a colonial world, imperial, the attitude was; "If I conquered, it's mine".
A regulation relating to antiquities in the Ottoman Empire was amended only in 1884. >>

6/ >> The Ottoman Empire antiquities were defined as property of the Constantinople museum. Based on the Ottoman regulations, the British amended their own antiquities regulations (1929, 1935) on which the Antiquities Law of Israel from 1978 is based. >>

7/ >> In November 2018, French President Macron announced that items taken by the French from Africa would be returned to their countries of origin. This decision is significant to all the museums and cultural heritage institutions in the world. >>

8/ >> This decision has become a milestone in the struggle of other countries to return their items. The British Museum has 50,000 archeological items from Egypt & 100,000 from Mesopotamia, but is currently refusing to discuss the returning items to their countries of origin. >>

9/ >> The joke about the British Museum among archaeologists and people dealing with cultural heritage is that if it will return all the items all that will be left is an empty building.
Despite all this there is another point that has to be addressed. >>

10/ >> The battles between the various factions in the Middle East led to the destruction of a number of sites. Among them are Ein Dara and Palmyra, both in northern Syria, Tadmor was bombed intentionally by ISIS and Ein Dara following Turkish shelling of ISIS forces. >>

11/ >> Today there are claims that maybe the colonialists saved finds.
It is important for me to emphasize, in my opinion there is no justification for a country, to take another country's cultural heritage from them, each nation has enough of its own.

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