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-Why there are pyramids in Egypt?

-Because Brits couldn't moved them to British Museum.

Imagine doing a Gate of Ishtar maneuver but with the pyramids
- It's not quite the same thing (particularly because of the motivation), but, uhh…I suggest you read about Abu Simbel, if you haven't already.
To be fair. Most of the pyramids were raided far before the British took an interest and whatever they held has now been lost to time.
- Eh, I meant the whole pyramids but fair enough.
Markdown guide is in the toolbar (?⃝) alongside a button for lists.
Edit: Disregard. They were trying to do quotation dashes.
- Well, that's the reason why I didn't write it like that. I wanted it to look like a dash, just like in novels.
- TIL what quotation dashes are.

What's the opinion on certain high risk countries where there's a high likelihood of the artifacts simply being destroyed? If I remember correctly ISIS and other similar organizations have burned or bombed several historical sites before.

Museums should participate in cultural exchange, if a museum feels under threat then they have channels they can trust to protect their artifacts until they can be returned
- if a museum feels under threat
  If you run a museum in Afghanistan and are afraid that the Taliban is going to execute you unless you destroy some blasphemous statue, are you going to risk your life to send the artifact to the British Museum, or are you just going to destroy it? Yeah, some heroes will definitely risk their lives, but most won't.
The only opinion that should matter is that of the people the artifacts belong to.
“It’s safer with us” is an excuse that’s been abused by colonizers and raiders for too long.
- What if some of the locals want it taken away for protection, but the government wants it destroyed?
  There's no clear 'owner' in many cases. I think it places where it's uncertain, then we should prioritize saving the artifacts over the ones that seek to destroy them.
- The only opinion that should matter is that of the people the artifacts belong to.
  Which people? The government? So in Afghanistan it's up to the Taliban? If you don't trust that the government of a country represents the will of the people, then how do you determine what the people want?
  And, again, which people? Is a totem pole in a museum in Canada the property of the Canadian people? Or is it something that belongs to the Haida people, and it doesn't matter what other Canadians want? If it is up to the Haida, it is up to the Council of the Haida Nation, or is it up to the band the original artist belonged to?
  What about a Tatar artifact found in Donetsk? Who gets control over that? Is it the Russians since they occupy Donetsk? The Ukrainians because they used to occupy it? Do you have to study the blood of various Ukrainian people to figure out who has the most surviving Tatar DNA?
- In many cases there is no owner, they're from a completely separate culture that happened to occupy the same region in the past.
We have to be extremely wary of people who cite that because it's so easily used as a justification for artifact theft and can have deep roots in racism.
- That's the question. Where is the line between racism and artifact protection?
If you're suggesting a daring heist at the Smithsonian, I'm in!
Much like the theft of historical artifacts by the UK et al, ISIS was the result of decades of imperialist meddling by the US. Maybe just leave things be and let the locals work out what they want to do with their land, their people, and the artifacts on it. Offering assistance without strings attached is good, interventions are bad.
It's like offering to help your neighbor with their yard: it's acceptable to offer to lend them your mower, but it's not acceptable to dig up everything on their property, replace it with grass sod, and spray it regularly with herbicides because you didn't like the look of their local fauna and are afraid the dandelions and clover would spread to your lawn after your first intervention.
- Who do you recognize as the authority to make that decision though? If the locals are currently ruled by a terrorist group or Nazis or whatever, do they get to decide? What about the locals that disagree with the government currently in power?
  And an answer of 'if we just didn't needlessly meddle' might be the ideal, but it's ignoring the realities that we have meddled and some countries are unlikely to stop doing so. We have to accept the world we have not the one we wished we had.
ISIS works for usa, so, the answer is kill all yanks
Adults have the right to make their own mistakes?
- At the expense of everyone else?

i need someone to convince me why it is wrong to steal from the British museum gift shop

Will you display for free all your stolen giftshop loot for everyone to see, and promise never to damage it, sell it or dispose of it in any way.
- I'll showcase it to people I allow on my house, and say I take care of it, but what if I put then in ebay? who is going to stop me

Gonna play a game of comment roulette. How far do I have to scroll before I see someone say something like, "That can't be in their museum because they can't be trusted with it".

Spinning the chamber now.

Edit: turns out I wasn't prepared for what I saw. Now I sad.

on the other hand how often things go missing in the British museum?
- https://youtu.be/eJPLiT1kCSM
- Eurotrash gonna eurotrash.

better a museum than on a shelf in someone's living room (no I won't be donating it)

They are my human skulls I found them fair and square
This is why I always donate my finished books to my local library. I don't need them and, if I want to read them again, I can always just go check it out from the library.

Marion, this is a movie made in the 1980s and set in the 1930s, what the hell are you even talking about?

"I liked you better when you were a child I was grooming!"
- Marion, you knew when you met me that I came from the mind of George Lucas. It's not my fault I'm a little fucked up!
That attitude gets retconed in the great circle.
where he explicitly says that it belongs in a museum and helps locals get their relics to keep safe in their museums. ie, it belongs in their museums.
good game overall

Gotta love how the first movie opens with him stealing an idol from an uncontacted Peruvian tribe, and the heroic music swells as he narrowly escapes with spears flying around them.

Granted, this takes place in 1936 and his actions were the norm for the period, but despite coming out in 1981 the movie plays this scene out rather uncritically.

He narrowly escapes with his life after having the idol stolen from him by his rival, Belloq, who works for the Nazis and actually hired that Peruvian tribe to be his little private army. Belloq then orders the Peruvians to attack Jones and he barely escapes on his hired plane.
- Where do you get that he hired them?
  The opening scene is them discussing that the tribe would kill them just for being in the area, and then Belloq taunts Jones saying he can’t warn them that he’s scamming them because Jones doesn’t speak Hovitos. No where does it say he hired them.
Temple of Doom had way more questionable scenes in it with the banquet, the heroic British soldiers at the end and... Short Round. Did they really have to name him that?
Although the cultists were based on a real group and I actually saw something that looked like the heart thing in an Indian movie, so maybe that's based on something real as well.
- I doubt it.
  There are 1.4 billion people. I think there'd be a stereotype about them doing black magic if it was an ever prevalent thing.
  To be fair to the movie, it isn't trying to say all Indians worship dark gods. It's just depicting a cult that happens to be in India.
Yeah, but if the tribe made those traps that still work perfectly after hundreds of years, imagine how advanced they must be by now. Dr Jones was probably within miles of a hidden techno utopia and never had a clue.

Why are there pyramids in egypt?

Because they were too big for the british museum.

It should belong to the country of origin, but it could also be shared and tour around museums across the globe so an even greater number of people can check it out. They do this with art pieces. Why not cultural artifacts, too? Is not everyone entitled to learning about anything, including someone else's culture?

I would assume there would be arguments around transporting them increasing the chances of it breaking. It would really only make sense to move these back to their country of origin and have them remain there to minimize potential points of failure. The rarer the artifact itself (another rusted out sword or plain clay cup versus a one of a kind manuscript whose pages have become incredibly delicate) the less their respective owners are going to want it to be moved.
Instead, we should be allowing more people the ability to travel and take time to go explore other cultures in their country of origin instead of trying to transport priceless artifacts across the globe.
Fun fact: Many cultural artificats do go on tour!
For example I've seen both Pompeii & King Tutt exhibits in San Diego that have since rotated. I've also seen other traveling exhibits in several other major cities I've lived in that were far more than art.
Many cities also have free admission days to museums for people that live nearby (depends on the institution but it could be for City/County/State).
With this knowledge, you too, can now learn and explore societies that predate written word.

scandalized stare

edit *innocent stare I meant

Countries and borders are an arbitrary concept created during the peace treaty of Westphalia.

Those relics belong to dead people.

Attributing modern concepts of borders to Westphalia is a Eurocentric worldview. What, you don't think they had the concept of statehood and sovereignty in Asia for at least a few thousand years prior to this?
Countries and borders are an arbitrary concept created during the peace treaty of Westphalia.
Stealing this foolproof argument for when I next apply for a UK visa to go to British Museum. Thanks!
Yeah, it's definitely a little questionable when the people currently inhabiting the land have no direct connection to the people who made the artifacts. And then you got shit like this. Or this. Or this.
- Hot take: all artifacts should be located in the most geopolitically stable area possible
  Hotter take: un peacekeepers should protect world heritage sites with weapons-free orders
Those relics belong to dead people.
No, it belongs to a community. Does something stop belonging to a people if the original creators die? No.
That way nobody owns any land, because it belongs to the amoeba.
Returning the artifacts is meant to be a good will gesture, and a sort of a reparation (in lieu of the actual reparations) for all the horrible colonial era crimes that were propagated not more than even 100 years ago.
Countries and borders are an arbitrary concept
Very Lemmy comment haha
- When I was in grad school, the philosophy of science students would egg me on with things like: "I'll buy you a beer if you can prove the electron is real". I'd like to think I'm carrying on their tradition in science memes.

Karen Allen, the perfect example of aging naturally and radiating beauty.

Petite brunette women with green eyes have always been my thing. I realised recently that is entirely due to Karen Allen.
- She isn't even specifically my type, but her smile in this Indy 4 promo foto
  was just absolutely captivating

Well I'm British so... fuuuck that!

The museum could pay rent per item to the country the artifacts originate from? Bad idea?

if you want to compare Indiana Jones to real life, the movies say flat out that he is an unscrupulous grave robber and he is completely aware of the hypocrisy. its part of his character arc, where he's all about fortune and glory and doesnt believe in any of the mystical crap, until he is confronted with powers he didn't understand and fights to stop others from exploiting them. and at the end of the day it was a movie

They're too poor to have museums so by default yoink

Britannia Jones and the stolen museum artifacts.

Laughs in British

Forgot the zoom on the bottom panels.

Honestly, "country of origin" will have straight lines drawn on a map that are so far removed from where the people who lived there originally considered their borders even that's probably not pinning it down well enough.

Finders keepers, them's the rules. Don't blame me.

Many ethnic minorities complain that their cultural heritage is exhibitioned in the capital far away. Countries are a social construct

doesn't mean crackers are off the hook for centuries of theft
- Mf’kin crackahs be trippin and shit.
Do you REALLY think a minority ethnic group in say, Nigeria, would rather have their artifacts locked away in London under the stewardship of Anglos rather than displayed in Lagos where they can at least visit it?
- I didn't say that, how do people read that into my comment? I was giving additional context that it is not enough to bring it anywhere into the country. Sure, keeping it in London is worse, I never said it's better.
  Many anti-colonial activists will point out that the modern day governments are the collaborators from back then and still they get the reparations and artifacts. Sure, keeping them in London is worse, I never defended that.
So it's better to keep it somewhere thousands of kilometres away where they'll never be able to see it as compared to being able to see it albeit with difficulty?
That's an internal problem for them to solve, not an excuse to hoard someone else's culture.
- I never said it's better to keep it but it's not enough to bring it somewhere in the country. Countries are a social construct so instead of focusing on boarders, bring it directly to the cultural heirs. Of cause keeping it is worse. If the capital is too far away, why would London be better?
So a museum in Western Europe or the US is better, or just as bad?
- It's worse, obviously. It's not enough to bring it into the country but it's worse to keep it in Western Europe or the US. You could argue that once it's in the capital it won't travel anywhere closer to the people but when it stays in London or Berlin, it's not moving anywhere. On the other hand, once you ship it to the country of origin, you can take the extra mile and bring it to the cultural heirs. But keeping it is the worst option.