Keeping Their Marbles: How the Treasures of the Past Ended Up in Museums - And Why They Should Stay There

by Tiffany Jenkins

The fabulous collections housed in the world's most famous museums are trophies from an imperial age. Yet the huge crowds that each year visit the British Museum in London, the Louvre in Paris, or the Metropolitan in New York have little idea that many of the objects on display were acquired
by coercion or theft.

Now the countries from which these treasures came would like them back. The Greek demand for the return of the Elgin Marbles is the tip of an iceberg that includes claims for the Benin Bronzes from Nigeria, sculpture from Turkey, scrolls and porcelain taken from the Chinese Summer Palace, textiles
from Peru, the bust of Nefertiti, Native American sacred objects, and Aboriginal human remains.

In Keeping Their Marbles , Tiffany Jenkins tells the bloody story of how western museums came to acquire these objects. She investigates why repatriation claims have soared in recent decades and demonstrates how it is the guilt and insecurity of the museums themselves that have stoked the demands for
return. Contrary to the arguments of campaigners, she shows that sending artefacts back will not achieve the desired social change nor repair the wounds of history.

Instead, this ground-breaking book makes the case for museums as centres of knowledge, demonstrating that no object has a single home, and no one culture owns culture.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Museums, Art History, Art, Cultural, Museology

384 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 2016

Reviews

[Rini · Rating 1 out of 5]

As an anthropologist, yes, I have many opinions about this book.

Jenkins almost villainizes native communities for daring to request the return of their cultural artifacts or human remains.

Most of Jenkins arguments end up countering themselves later in the book. Artifacts should stay in museums because their meaning changes over time and out of their original context anyway — but you also can’t remove artifacts from the museums because then their meaning will change!

Jenkins never states once why museums, in her opinion, should hold final authority over the narratives of artifacts — only that it’s not right for source communities to have that final say. She just comes off as ignorant, selfish, and very ethnocentric.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still using this book for my thesis, but I completely disagree with her arguments.

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Argh, this book gives me such mixed feelings. Tiffany Jenkins is an unabashed supporter of keeping the Elgin Marbles, and many other items in collections like that of the British Museum which come from other countries. She lays out several arguments for this, including the fact that some of these items would have been destroyed if they weren’t in the UK, either now or when they were first collected. She also argues that no contemporary culture can really claim direct descent from the people whose artefacts and remains are now displayed, and that the British Museum (or insert other museum with a comparable collection here) is an ideal place to study and understand these artefacts. The British Museum, she points out, allows you to see objects in their historical context, and make connections between them.

She also argues that some of these items were legitimately bought or obtained originally, so that should still hold now — even if those sales were forced by the poverty of the people in question, by colonial pressure, etc, etc. That’s such a weak argument, I just dismissed it straight away: how can we know those choices were really free choices, now? Best to assume they were not, and accept whatever moral obligation that puts us under. We’ll be right more than half the time, I would guess.

Jenkins is notably particularly against returning bodies to their putative modern equivalent cultures, because of the loss of scientific data that entails — that, she argues, is more important than the fate of bodies whose former owners surely don’t care about it now! I find this a callous and dismissive point of view, because it demands that everyone else see the world the way she does, and ascribe no value to physical remains. She wants to totally disregard what people may have intended in having their bodies interred in particular ways: science is all. And I’m not with her on that; personally, I don’t think it’ll matter to me what happens to my body once I’m dead, but I’d fight you if you wanted to exhume my grandfather without my family’s permission for an indefinite period of time, even for science, and even more so if you wanted to display his remains. They’re human remains: I think we lose something of our respect for the living when we fail to remember that the dead were once alive and had their own wishes.

I don’t disagree with some of the goods Jenkins ascribes to museum collections, though. There is a scientific value in the remains and artefacts from long ago, and particularly in fields I’m very interested in myself, genetics and the history of disease. In the end, is that worth more than people? Not to me — but I feel that me and Jenkins would be at an impasse on this anyway, since I’m sure she would argue no disrespect is intended, no judgement of worth inherent in the decision.

I love museums, I do. I’m glad I’ve seen the real Rosetta stone, the real statues of dead kings, the actual cups or plates or coins that someone used long ago. Replicas and facsimiles aren’t the same in terms of their emotional impact. But still… there are people who are closer kin to the long-dead artisans and craftsmen who made all those items or were buried with them, and they deserve a chance to have that feeling too, in Greece or wherever else.

So I come to no conclusion on repatriation. Probably it’s something that should be considered on an individual basis, with careful evaluation of all the facts, with one exchange not necessarily setting precedent for another. These are discussions we need to have.

(Don’t ask me about the exhibition of dead bodies of whatever degree of antiquity, unless you want an impassioned and incoherent rant. I’m profoundly uncomfortable at the display of people who died in pain and confusion, such as the casts of bodies from Pompeii; to me, it’s an intrusion, and tourism a sick excuse.)

All in all, this is an interesting read: I don’t agree with Jenkins, and I feel that some of her arguments tend to the insensitive (just as probably some people think that my concern for people of other cultures in the face of scientific facts is just my bleeding heart liberalism speaking), but it’s worth reading even if you expect to disagree. Honestly, I went in wanting her to convince me we should keep the Elgin Marbles and everything else, for selfish reasons, but left the book feeling that it really would just be selfishness, with no better reasons winning out.

Reviewed for The Bibliophibian.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jenkins tackles an increasingly vexed issue here not just about the repatriation of artefacts (and the Elgin marbles are probably the best known example) but about the role and purpose of museums and the 'culture' they contain. She is impassioned, cogent, incisive in parts but also dogmatic in places where her arguments become polemic.

The first section is perhaps the least strong, retracing some well-worn stories of how museum artefacts were frequently objects given away, taken or stolen often under western colonial structures. The second section explores the role and ownership of 'culture' especially over the last 40 or so years when theory has changed the ways we think about the past, about 'history', and the objects embedded within these frameworks.

The third section is the most polemic and this is where Jenkins' voice is the most strident: she raises some important issues and questions but she also makes strong statements that are problematic. For example, she states that cultural artefacts are 'not the source of our national or ethnic identities'. It might be the case that artefacts are not the *sole* source of national identities but to make such a bald claim as a defence against repatriation seems overly simplistic and does not do justice to the complexity of the issues involved.

Again, she tries to take museums out of their social, cultural and ideological matrix and return them to some kind of pure state of being, untouched by the world in which they are temporally and geographically located: so, 'the object should be at the centre of the museum, not you and me'. But surely an object only accrues meaning through its interaction with 'you and me', whether we are academics, curators, researchers, interested visitors or tourists? To talk about the object 'itself' seems to be like advocating a sterile library of beautiful books which are not allowed to be opened and read.

Jenkins lists the questions that she believes museums should exist to answer and the last one is 'what did these treasures mean'? But the past isn't merely something that has already happened, something done and over with, it also stretches forward into a series of 'pasts' and each generation's present will become the past of the future. To merely locate objects and their meanings at some single point in history seems to be deadening them, making them over and done with: surely we also have to ask 'what do these treasures mean to me, to you, today'?

So this is an interesting read which gives a complicated account of the issues at some points but also over-simplifies at others: this is Jenkins' view - we don't have to agree with her.

[joseph · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fount this to be a fascinating presentation of the issues involved in the history and purpose of museums. I was really struck by the story about the discovery and subsequent translation of the cuneiform tablets from ancient Babylon - the translator realized he was the first person to read the epic of Gilgamesh in centuries and finding another historical retelling of a universal flood - what an amazing discovery of shared cultural traditions in the ancient world.

[Sofia Stamati · Rating 1 out of 5]

Total garbage

[Tim Preston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, short, easily readable, thought provoking book.

It contains a few factual mistakes, as is to be expected, as its subject concerns the whole of human history, and prehistory. It is relevant to museums and art galleries round the World.

Museum collections, built up since the 18th Century, are under attack from modern progressive opinions. There are arguments over how exhibits should be presented, but especially whether those like the 'Elgin' marble statues from the Parthenon in Athens, the Rosetta Stone from Egypt and the Benin 'Bronzes' (actually mostly brass) from what is now Nigeria, all now in the British Museum in London, should be returned to their countries of origin. The title of this book refers to the Elgin Marbles, and to Tiffany Jenkins' belief, that they should stay where they are.

This is unfortunately so politically divisive that what many people will think about these questions, and this book, can be predicted by what they think about other subjects that logically have nothing to do with it.

If you believe Israel is evil, 'trans' women are women and voting for 'Brexit' should be classed as a psychiatric disorder, then you will see this little book as a shameful apology for brutal Western colonialist looting, and almost devoid of merit. Probably no argument will change your mind.

On the other hand, if you believe criminals should be hanged and flogged and throw away the key, Jacob Rees Mogg should be Viceroy of India and Political Correctness has gone mad, then you will welcome this book as a much needed dose of clear thinking, and want to reply to demands for the Elgin Marbles to be sent back to Greece:

'Nurr! "Finders keepers" you hairy olive munchers!'

I am closer to the latter view, but would be more polite to our Hellenic hair-endowed oleaphile friends.

The word 'Museum' is from the Ancient Greek 'Mouseion', a temple to the 9 Muses, deities thought to inspire the various arts.

While nobles and kings had long collected art, historic manuscripts, fossils and curiosities, public museums were invented in 18th Century Western Europe, often by private philanthropists. They usually displayed objects arranged by chronology or school, to aid comparison, rather than, as a private collector might, by personal favourites.

The 18th Century added the word 'Museum' in its modern sense to the dictionary, but also the word 'vandalism', to describe the ideologically driven destruction of art associated with royalty or the Church during the French Revolution. However, after an initial burst of madness, the French Revolutionaries came round to valuing historic paintings and sculptures to the extent that they not only preserved those that had belonged to the Bourbon Kings (which became the nucleus of the Louvre's collection) but helped themselves to art treasures of countries they conquered as well.

The Rosetta Stone, with parallel inscriptions in Greek and Ancient Egyptian, crucial in deciphering hieroglyphs, taken from Egypt by the French, was, after the French defeat, with the agreement of Egypt's then Ottoman rulers, transferred to the British Museum, where it remains.

Strangely, amid modern demands to repatriate works of art that once belonged to African kings, no one calls for the descendants of the Bourbon dynasty to be given their paintings back.

In the 18th and early 19th Centuries, the first European museums preserved many objects that would otherwise have been lost. Native-made artifacts collected by explorers like Captain Cook in the Pacific preserve evidence of cultures just before they were transformed by contact with Europeans. Otherwise, native stone and wood tools might have been thrown away once Western traders brought more effective metal ones.

The Parthenon (temple of Athene Parthenos or 'Athena the Virgin') at Athens in Greece was quarried by locals for stones to build their houses. Early tourists chiselled pieces off ancient temples and monuments as souvenirs. In Egypt, ancient mummies were ground up as reputed cure-alls for diseases. Neither the locals nor either country's Turkish rulers (Greece and Egypt were both part of the Ottoman Empire then) cared enough to stop this.

The concept of a 'national heritage' only became possible with the spread of nationalism in the 19th Century.

Once Greece was independent, initially under a Bavarian King called Otto, its new German king encouraged interest in Greece's ancient heritage to give a sense of identity to the new country and legitimacy to his new monarchy, as heirs to a glorious distant past.

Elsewhere in the Ottoman Empire, British scholars and collectors of antiquities, archaeologists as they were becoming, played a key role rediscovering ancient civilisations like Assyria, Babylon and the Sumerians, and deciphering their languages. In 1872, George Smith at the British Museum, translating a clay tablet from the Ancient Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the first person to read it for 2,000 years, realized that he was reading a story so similar to that of Noah and the Flood in the Bible that the two must have a common origin. Smith was so excited he ran around the room throwing his clothes off.

Lord Elgin took the Parthenon Marble sculptures, now called the Elgin Marbles, to Britain at the beginning of the 19th Century, with the permission (albeit sometimes retrospective) of the Ottoman authorities then ruling Greece.

Decades later, Elgin's son took part in another controversial seizure of foreign art when in 1860 British and French troops plundered and burned the Chinese Emperor's Summer Palace in reprisal for the torture and murder of British and Indian troops. The justification was that this punishment hurt the Chinese Emperor personally. The alternative, a monetary indemnity, would lead to heavier taxes on the impoverished Chinese peasants.

Fortunately for Western museums, so far, Chinese leaders have not made demanding return of historic Chinese artifacts a priority.

Perhaps because they lack workable solutions to hard practical economic and social problems, left-wing activists have in recent years diverted much of their energies into soft cultural issues, one being Museum collections. At the same time, more educated and urbanised members of tribal peoples, at risk of losing touch with their roots, seize on such issues as a way to assert identity. Non-Western governments demand return of artifacts, either because they care about them or to gain prestige by winning something at the expense of the West.

Such demands are often logically incoherent.Thus, Turkey demands return of artifacts created long before the present Republic of Turkey existed, by the previous Greek and Roman cultures that the Turks expelled or destroyed. Yet the Istanbul Archaeology Museum in Turkey still holds artifacts taken in the 19th Century from countries across the then Ottoman Empire, which it has not offered to return.

Critics focus on real or imagined injustices of how Western collections acquired artifacts, but ignore the injustices by which they were created. Thus, the Parthenon, including the marbles, was the product of ancient imperialism, built with money the Athenians forcibly extorted from other city states that had been their allies but were reduced to being their subjects. The Benin Brasses were created from profits the kings of Benin made by selling fellow Africans as slaves, those whom they did not use as human sacrifices.

In politically correct obedience to the traditions of native peoples as to how historic artifacts of their tribes should be displayed, museums in Australia, New Zealand and North America now adopt some very politically incorrect practices, such as forbidding women, especially if pregnant or menstruating, from viewing artifacts.

There are calls for museums to proceed in such matters in consultation with 'communities', which may in practice mean a vocal minority of politicians and activists, who may have political motives, and do not necessarily represent the views of those for whom they claim to speak.

Nigerian philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah wrote:

'Most of Nigeria's cultural patrimony was produced before the modern Nigerian state existed. We don't know whether the terracotta Nok sculptures, made some time between 800 BC and 200 AD, were commissioned by kings or commoners; we don't know whether the people who made them and the people who paid for them thought of them as belonging to the kingdom, to a man, to a lineage or to the gods. One thing we know for sure, however, is that they didn't make them for Nigeria.'

The authoress Tiffany Jenkins believes that historic art and artifacts should be seen as the common heritage of humanity. Less important than whether an Ancient statue is 'rightfully' the property of Greece, Turkey or Britain is therefore where it will best be cared for and seen and appreciated by the most people, including being seen alongside other exhibits from around the World with which it can be compared and contrasted to aid understanding.

Modern political correctness is a recent phenomenon. We cannot know how long it will last or what will one day replace it. Consequently, I see artifacts potentially shipped back and forth across the globe every couple of decades as values change. This is a reason to be cautious about giving in to emotional and nationalistic calls for returns now.

Mistakes I found in this book:

-It refers to the antiquities collector Belzoni using 'dynamite' to blast his way into the pyramid of King 'Khephren' in the early 19th Century, although dynamite was not invented until around 50 years later. The King's name was formerly transliterated 'Chephren', now, with increased understanding of hieroglyphs, 'Khafre', but never, as far as I know, Khephren.

-It refers at one point to the early 19th Century British 'Prime Minister Robert Jenkinson' and elsewhere to 'Lord Liverpool', as though they are different people. Actually they are the name and title of the same individual.

-Athena is described as the 'Goddess of War'. Actually, she was the Goddess of Wisdom, although she did influence battles. The God of War was Ares. Ms Jenkins does not mention that for those who want to see it, there is a full-sized detailed replica of the Parthenon as it would have been when originally built, with giant gilded statue of Athena, and casts of the Elgin marbles, in Nashville, Tennessee.

-Ms Jenkins says that without African fossils gathered by palaeontologists we would not have the 'Out of Africa' theory of human origins. Actually we would: Charles Darwin proposed it in 1871 in 'The Descent of Man' because our closest relatives, the great apes, are in Africa. At the time, there was not even one known African hominid fossil to support the theory, although many have since come to light.

-At one point she refers to 'Tahir Square' in Cairo, actually Tahrir Square.

I would expect that the publisher, Oxford University Press, with all the prestige of Britain's Second Best University behind it, should have had the knowledge to spot these points before this book was published. However, they are criticisms of detail only and do little to detract from the interest and importance of this book.

[Dani · Rating 1 out of 5]

Imperialist garbage

[elizabeth h · Rating 3 out of 5]

unfortunately for the author, even good writing and research can’t make british imperialism attractive to an art student

[Evelynkeirstead · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book really informative and it has certainly made me look at museums and their collections in a different way however I found the author’s condescending and paternalistic tone really off putting ( reason for only 3 stars).

[Randal White · Rating 4 out of 5]

To The Victor Go The Spoils??? An exhaustingly long look at a phenomenon affecting modern museums today, that of repatriation of artifacts removed from their "homes" and stored in museums around the world. Over the course of centuries, whether by colonization, thoughts of preservation, or outright theft, antiquities have been removed from their original locations and stored/warehoused/displayed elsewhere. Should they have been taken? What about if the items in question would have been destroyed if left where they were? The author discusses the Elgin Marbles", a group of marble statues removed from Greece long ago, where they were being ground into mortar. The busts would be, literally, in the "dustbin" of history if they had not been removed. Should they be returned now? Where does the right of possession lie? And, as in all things, there is a financial consideration. Artifacts draw large numbers of people to museums, bringing in much needed funds. The author points out that museums are experiencing confusion over how they should proceed. Return the items (where they may never see the light of day again), or keep them (where they can serve as an educational tool to many people)? To find out the author's opinions, you'll have to read the book yourself. It is a very interesting study.

[Nalini Naidu · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Elgin marbles were a group of statues removed from Greece a long time ago....the book makes me think about museums and cultural heritage and what is best museum practice.
Jenkins puts forward strong and contentious thoughts on collection, whether the reader agrees or not I feel the book is worth a read. I was not all together convinced by her arguments on collecting and repatriation of artefacts although did give them some thought. The book is well researched showing deep knowledge of artefacts and global museums by the author. Perhaps the approach taken towards claims by communities requesting return of artefacts should be on a case-by-case basis.
The work got to be a bit lengthy for me.

[Eileen Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a well researched book on how artifacts from antiquity came to be in museums around the world.
The author gives her reasons why these objects should never be given back to the original countries even though they were taken illegally.
This is a very controversial book and one that will cause "conversations" for some time.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Oxford University Press via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.

[Mait · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't understand how someone can be so close to understanding something and yet miss the point so spectacularly. it's incredible

Jenkins chooses to completely ignore the fact that a certain demographic was the only one to create narratives about people which more often than not tended to be harmful and contribute to ongoing harm. THAT'S FUCKING WHY collaborations with global South countries and communities, and underrepresented groups happen. jesus christ

[Manish · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://manishmohandas.com/2023/07/08...

[Teresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Keeping Their Marbles is a strident wish for old boxes (museums) in new wrapping paper without effecting change. Jenkins is a "repatriation skeptic" and while I do think museums need to (and many do) reassess what they are in society, I found her arguments unpersuasive.

[Matt Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt this was a study with a great degree of potential, that was ultimately disappointing. Jenkins argument for the Parthenon Marbles remaining in the BM (by no means the only issue raised by the book) smacked of a western centric perspective. Whilst it is true that the marbles sojourn at the BM are part of their history, and the history of Britain, I still see no valid reason why they should not be returned to Greece. They were made in Greece, from materials found in Greece, by Greeks, for Greeks, in honour of Ancient Greek culture and religion, to adorn a magnificent structure in ancient Athens. The fact that Greece as it is now did not exist then is fairly moot, as it was Athens that created the marbles, and an institution in Athens, purpose built to house them, that wants them returned. Scholars can access them just as easily in Athens as they can in London.
I love the BM. It is a magnificent institution, yet it cannot and should not have a monopoly as a repository of the ancient past. Elgin's 'legitimate' acquisition of them from the Ottoman authorities is hardly a just reason for their retention, nor is the notion that they have been here for 200 years and so are as much 'ours' as 'yours'. The book is fascinating, and raises many pertinent questions on the role of museums past and present, but if we are to understand and utilise museums as the repositories of a unified human story, then surely it makes little difference where the objects that tell that story are? We are then left with the question of where an object best fits, and Jenkins' arguments for the retention of many objects from a variety of cultures and locales just does not hold water, essentially boiling down to 'our museums are better than yours'. She also has some odd views on the validity of Native American institutions.
Whilst I spent a good deal of time whilst reading this rolling my eyes and 'hurrumphing' with indignation and occasional outrage, the questions Jenkins raises are valid. I just feel the conclusions reached are way off and at points poorly argued.
Anyone interested in heritage and museums should read this, as it contributes to the ongoing debate on a variety of issues. You may not find it as odious as I did!

[Charlotte]

This is a topic I'm kind of obsessed with, and I am simpatico with the author's general position on the issue, but my goodness this was dull. It never took off for me, getting bogged down with a lot of academic prose and technical details. Perhaps my own fault for not realizing that it was originally written as an academic monograph rather than as a popular/mainstream publication.

[Mills College Library]

069.5 J529 2016