Possession Trumps Cultural Claims
Two Western Museums Cling to Famed Historic Lion Representations
Jan 2, 2009
This is a story of how three famous lions ended up not only far from home, their way back blocked by formidable giants, but also in the midst of a worldwide debate on who has the right to cultural property that originated in countries that were looted centuries ago.
The Tsavo Man-eaters: Whose Cultural Property?
Kenya is reportedly compiling a list of more than 10,000 historic artifacts that it will seek to reacquire from museums abroad. Among the items that Kenya would like returned are the Tsavo Man-eaters, a pair of male lions that allegedly devoured 140 workers on the Kenya-Uganda railway. The attacks brought construction to a standstill until the chief engineer, Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson, shot the lions in late 1898. The incident was recounted in a book and a Hollywood film titled The Ghost and the Darkness, which are the names given to the lions.
Although Patterson had the lion skins cut down to rugs, he sold them and the skulls to the Field Museum in Chicago in the 1920s. The Museum created taxidermy mounts for the lions' remains, and the exhibit is among the Field’s most popular.
In 2007 and 2008, news outlets around the world reported that Kenya had asked the Field for the lions. While stating that the Field had legally bought the lions, officials of the National Museums of Kenya (NMK) were quoted as saying that the lions belonged in Kenya, where they are a part of the history and heritage.
Reports later emerged that when Field officials had called about the matter, the NMK did an about-face and denied making any such request. At about the same time, the Field revealed that the two museums had renewed “a memorandum of understanding” on a wide range of collaborative research, training, and exhibits and that the Field was looking forward to collaborating with the NMK on future projects.
The world-class Field Museum receives funding from large corporations, private donors, and philanthropic organizations,as well the State of Illinois. In contrast, the NMK are funded by the Kenyan government, with contributions from the European Union for specific programs. By cultivating a spirit of cooperation, the NMK are able to obtain loans of African artifacts along with training, and technical assistance from large Western museums.
Under such circumstances, it is not hard to speculate which institution called the shots in the matter of the Tsavo Man-eaters.
The Knidos Lion: Demand for Return of Antiquities
The Knidos Lion is a majestic 6- to 8-ton marble statue from the ancient city of Knidos in southwestern Turkey near the modern municipality of Datça. The lion, which occupies a prominent place in the British Museum in London, measures 10 feet long and 6 feet high and was sculpted perhaps as early as 350 B.C. from a single piece of marble. The lion statue was set atop a tomb monument which may have been created to celebrate a naval battle victory and commemorate those who died in battle. The monument originally sat on a 200-foot high cliff and could be seen by ships that sailed past.
Charles Newton was an archaeologist and an assistant curator for the British Museum. In 1852, the Museum had him appointed consular official on the island of Lesbos and later acting consul at Rhodes so that he could acquire antiquities for the Museum. Newton convinced the Ottoman rulers of Turkey to allow him to excavate important historic sites. The Knidos lion was one of many antiquities uncovered under his direction and shipped to England.
Datça has reportedly asked the British government for the return of the Knidos lion, among other items. A representative of the Datça Ministry of Culture has stated that the statue should be returned because it was produced thousands of years ago by inhabitants of the region. However, previous arguments of this type have not convinced the British Museum to give up any of its vast holdings of antiquities.
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