No Context, No Provenance: A-OK!

This article is very interesting. China is offerring rewards for artifacts and relics that were taken out of the country during its "century of shame." I find it interesting because here we see a government offering money for artifacts that may or may not have any known context or provenance. One of the questions that has come up over the past semester has been: are looted artifacts or collected artifacts, especially those with unknown context or provenance, just as important as excavated ones? Do they have any significance?


"While China will not concede any of its original claims of rightful ownership, Chan said that China may be willing to provide “fair and reasonable” compensation to the “benevolent holders” of its looted artifacts, in accordance with international treaties and conventions."

I find this quote to be very interesting in that China is offering money, which could be interpreted as China understanding that they do not actually own the artifacts. For example, Greece will never ask the British Museum for a loan on the Elgin Marbles due to the fact that Greece would then be recognizing the British Museums ownership of the artifacts.

"Now, as China’s economic might grows, greater efforts are being made to restore its lost cultural heritage."

So, we can assume that the context of the artifact is not important here. Can one have any cultural heritage without actually knowing the history of the object? I say yes. This is due to the fact that artifacts can mean more than a piece of history. They are symbols of patriotism. Just witnessing a piece of art can invoke a lot more pride than the actually history of it. This isn't always the case, but its true.

"Last month, the director of Beijing’s Summer Palace said China would send a team of experts to museums around the world in an attempt to create a complete catalog works looted from the Summer Palace when it was ravaged and burned by British and French forces in 1860"

Here we can also see that the artifacts can also symbolize independence. They had lost artifacts from invading foreign forces and recovering these lost objects can help in rebuilding pride and establishing independence.