Hundreds, if not thousands, of priceless historical monuments are stolen, traded, sold and passed through many hands to be hidden across many borders to reach Collect artifacts in a black market. These are worth about $ 6.3 billion each year.
The question of property and the process of identifying stolen objects from museums and their return to the country of origin is a mystery. Despite the tempting rule of "finding something to keep," many of the precious treasures and monuments of the cultural heritage belong to their motherland once it is established that the state will be able to preserve them and have the necessary resources So.
Here are some of the most effects disputed by countries so far:
1. Ishtar Gate, Iraq
"This belongs to Iraq" This painting is held by the Iraqi student Zeidoun al-Qinani at the Ishtar Gate of Babylon in Berlin's Bergamoem Museum. German archaeologists have unearthed it as one of the many monuments that were returned to Western countries before World War I as part of a larger trend by European colonists across the Middle East.
This highlights the long debate between museums in the United States and Europe over the ownership of some antiques and the countries to which they belong.
2. Rosetta Stone, Egypt
Discovered by a French officer in Rachid, Egypt in 1799. This basalt stone, which is about 2,200 years old, is a well-known antiquity engraved in hieroglyphics, demotic and Greek. It is thought to have the keys of hieroglyphic decoding and the past history of Egypt.
After the defeat of the French in 1801, the British were transferred to the British Museum in London in 1802. Although Egypt pressed the museum to restore the stone, it refused to move it from its place.
3. Elgin marble statues, Greece
This collection of ancient Greek marble sculptures is the source of a heated debate between Greece and the British Museum. The Italian delegate Lord Elgin took these monuments from Athens when he was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 19th century and has been in the possession of the British Museum since 1816.
The British Prime Minister rejects Greece's claim to restore the sculptures as a vital part of the museum's exhibits. UNESCO also intervened on this issue and called on the two countries to find a compromise for this long-standing dispute.
4. Kohinoor Diamond, India
Means "mountain of light" in Urdu, captured by the secret of the British Empire of East India as one of the spoils of war during the colonial period. The colonial ruler of India then equipped the diamond to be presented to Queen Victoria in 1850.
One of the largest diamonds in a world of 105 carats is placed in the crown of the late mother of the current Queen Elizabeth, and is now on display at the Tower of London. Despite India's demands to restore the diamond, the British Prime Minister said that it would not be returned and that he did not believe in the principle of restoration.
5- Head of Nefertiti, Egypt
Despite Egypt's campaign to restore more than 5,000 monuments around the world, the German Foundation rejected the Egyptians' request to restore Nefertiti's 3,400-year-old head, which is at the Neuss Museum in Berlin and supplies more than a million viewers a year.
It was discovered by German archaeologist Ludwig Burchardt in 1912 and moved to Germany the following year. Despite Egypt's insistence on restoring the head, Germany rejects a claim that the statue is too weak for the distance from Berlin to Egypt.
6. Fisherman of Aphrodisias, Turkey
It is a 2000-year-old man's marble trunk, currently in the Bergamoon Museum in Berlin. The Turkish Minister of Culture demanded that he be returned as part of a tough Turkish campaign to recover its antiquities from some of the world's largest museums, but the German authorities refused.
"The piece arrived in 1904 within a collection of antiques and was purchased from a market for works of art in a legal way and we can prove it, and there is no justification for its return at all," said Herman Barzinger, head of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
7. Treasure of Sion, Turkey
Byzantine silver from the 6th century AD with some antiques for decoration and is known as the Sion Treasure. It is among the many elements that Turkey is trying to retrieve from a research institution owned by Harvard University.
It is said that this treasure was found on a grave hill in Komolka, Turkey, in the 1960s. The museum obtained it from an antiques collector purchased from Gorchak Zakos, a merchant with documented ties to the black market. Turkey has been demanding the restoration of these objects since 1968 to bring them together with the rest of the treasure displayed at the Antalya Museum in Turkey.
8. Iraqi Jewish Antiquities, Iraq
Harold Roed is fighting to prevent the return of thousands of ancient Iraqi antiquities found in the subterranean basement of Saddam Hussein's Baghdad headquarters to the Iraqi government, compared to returning them by giving personal property to Jews murdered in the Holocaust to Germany again.
He also launched a campaign to stop the diversion of antiquities, supported by several groups of American Jews and members of Congress arguing that the effects belong to the Jews of Iraq and not the Iraqi government.
9. Imperial Treasures, China
British Prime Minister David Cameron has recently faced several claims from state-owned Chinese media and Internet users to return 23,000 precious traces of 19th-century Beijing stolen from the British Museum.
Britain was part of the G8, which suppressed the "boxer insurgency / uprising" of the late 19th century, robbed the Forbidden City, and destroyed the old Summer Palace in Beijing in 1860. The British Museum argues that these treasures are a world heritage and are easily accessible by more visitors in London.
