Book Review: Who Owns Antiquity?

Expedition, Volume 51 (Review by Praveena Gullapalli)

Thanks to Richard Vijay for sending this link. The book review dates back to summer 2009 but I managed to miss it! In the light of all the recent conversations re repatriation the book is still very topical and still manages to create a long of controversy.

Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage
by James Cuno (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008)

It is in PDF format.

The battle in James Cuno’s book pits museums against nation-states. He argues that the former are trying to ensure accessibility to our global ancient heritage, while the latter are trying to keep “antiquities” (ancient artifacts) out of the global public domain by insisting that they are national patrimony that should be returned (repatriated) to their country of origin. For Cuno, any relationship between nation-states and the archaeological past located within their modern borders is simply an historical accident (meaning repatriation requests are often untenable). Furthermore, he argues that nationstates have not effectively protected this archaeological past (by
stopping looting) and, therefore, the best solution to manage cultural heritage is to reinstate a policy of partage whereby countries share the material results of archaeological research.

As Director of the Art Institute of Chicago, Cuno is clearly an interested party to the current debate over museums’ ethical responsibilities to stem the illicit movement of archaeological artifacts and to repatriate antiquities.