The Natural History Museum has at least 30,700 human bones and other body parts. Responding to The Post’s reporting, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III asserted that “all the remains, all the brains, need to be returned if possible.” - Washington Post
The Nevada businessman who sold the baskets in the early 1900s said they were made by a Washoe princess named Dat So La Lee. In fact, she preferred her English name, Louisa Keyser, and the backstories told by the salesman about her were mostly made up. - The New York Times
"Valuable items can be seized by Hamas … or sold by smugglers. There is little funding and equipment to adequately excavate or maintain historical sites. Sometimes they are damaged in Israeli offensives. Yet a clutch of dedicated archaeologists and activists … (is) working hard to preserve the area's ancient past." - The Observer (UK)
"The bust known as 'Portrait of a Lady' was acquired in 1966 by the Worcester Art Museum, … dates from A.D. 160 to 180 and is believed to be a life-sized portrayal of a daughter of Marcus Aurelius or another Roman emperor, Septimius Severus." - AP
At the British Museum, flat funding from the Conservatives has meant a real-terms cut in revenue grant-in-aid of 37% between 2009-10, under Labour, and now, under the Tories. - The Guardian
The museum is now deluged with renewed calls for the restitution of contested objects, and raising a huge sum for an impending refurbishment looks even more difficult. At a time when it needs leadership most, the museum is rudderless, after its director, Hartwig Fischer, resigned on Aug. 25. - The New York Times
Six weeks after the UK government gave final approval for the $2.3 billion project, a group arguing that the tunnel could irreparably harm the ancient monument has filed a new lawsuit to block it. - Smithsonian Magazine
"A headless bronze statue believed to depict the Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius was ordered seized from the Cleveland Museum of Art by New York authorities investigating antiquities looted from Turkey." - AP
The lawsuit may serve as an early bellwether of how hard it will be for all kinds of creators — Hollywood actors, novelists, musicians and computer programmers — to stop AI developers from profiting off what humans have made. - AP
"How can developers appease locals worried about supposedly industrial wind farms taking over their idyllic landscapes? If other forms of infrastructure offer any clues, the answer might be trying to hide the fact that they're wind farms at all." - Curbed
"Climate activists have once again targeted a famous work of art, with a member of the group On2Ottawa throwing pink paint on Tom Thomson's Northern River (1915) at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and affixing himself to the museum floor on Tuesday." - Artnet
Time and time again, presidents have wrestled with or in some cases openly fought back to challenge the ways they were being pictured. They sought control. By that standard, Mr. Trump’s mug shot is no outlier. Not all presidential portraits look like the ones hanging in our museums. - New York Times
"The huge loopholes in the management and security of cultural objects in the British Museum exposed by this scandal have led to the collapse of a long-standing and widely circulated claim that 'foreign cultural objects are better protected in the British Museum'," the editorial reads. - BBC
"Authorities are reportedly on the brink of charging seven suspects in the September 2019 theft of Maurizio Cattelan's America, a functional solid gold toilet sculpture installed at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, U.K. The piece, which weighs 55 pounds, is said to be worth $6 million." - Artnet
In some ways, more culture writing circulates than ever before, but with fewer resources invested in any individual piece of writing. What you get is a great sense of redundancy and thinness. - Artnet
