Who owns cultural heritage? Conference organized by SGOA and SHIRIN Switzerland

Since antiquity mankind has been dealing with its history and its material remains by collecting and copying antiquities. While this passion for collecting has preserved us innumerable Roman copies of lost Greek statues as well as the invaluable collections of the great museums like the British Museum or the Louvre, we today view this passion in a more critical light, especially in the antiquities’ countries of origin. Territorialism, according to which artifacts of all eras are principally defined as possessions of modern states which now occupy an individual site or region, is accepted worldwide today and also UNESCO uses this principle to decide about claims of ownership. However, problems related to this issue have repeatedly surfaced: what if cultural heritage objects were already removed from their places of origin in antiquity (e.g. the “Codex Hammurapi,” which is currently on display in the Louvre, but already around 1100 B.C.E. was removed from its original location in modern-day Iraq to Elam in today’s Iran, where it was eventually discovered by French archaeologists)? What if borders change or states even cease to exist (e.g. the Ottoman Empire: do countries like Iraq, Syria or Egypt have the right to claim ancient objects that had been brought to Istanbul during the Ottoman Period)? And which set of laws applies: that of the Ottoman Empire, which basically already denied the export of ancient artifacts from its territory as early as the 19th century, or the internationally accepted UNESCO regulations, which define 1970 as crucial date for such matters?

University of Bern, Schanzeneckstrasse 1, Room A003

Flyer “Who owns cultural heritage”