General Awareness

ART AND CULTURE - May 2020

May 2020

Jun 03, 2021

Belgian Experts Frustrated at Lack of Initiative from Museums and Government

An independent panel of scholars and experts has called on Belgian museums to restitute artefacts acquired in a colonial context and urged the government to create a neutral commission to evaluate restitution requests, an independent institute for provenance research, and a new law to facilitate returns.
Their proposals are similar to guidelines put forward in Germany and the Netherlands. But there is one big difference—in those countries, the guidelines were commissioned and adopted by the authorities. In Belgium, no official proposals on decolonising museums and restituting objects looted in the colonial era have so far been presented.

May 30, 2021

Louvre Gets its First Female Leader in 228 Years

Historian Laurence des Cars becomes the first female president of Musée du Louvre, the world's largest museum in Paris, France in 228 years. She was appointed as the first female president of Musée du Louvre by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.
Laurence des Carsis currently heading the Musée d'Orsay, the Paris landmark museum which is dedicated to 19th-century art. On September 1, 2021, she will replace the current president, Jean-Luc Martinez, who had been heading the Orsay museum for the past eight years.

May 29, 2021

US Returns Ancient Stone Carvings to Thailand

Two ancient sandstone carvings, believed to have been stolen from Thailand and smuggled to the US during the Vietnam War, are being repatriated.
The carvings were originally lintels - support beams - in temples dating back to the 10th century and feature the Hindu deities Indra and Yama.
For decades they have been on display in San Francisco's Asian Art Museum.
They are due to go on display at the National Museum in the Thai capital, Bangkok.
The San Francisco museum said it always wanted to return the beams to Thailand, but disputed experts' allegations that they had been stolen.
"We are very pleased that these lintels are going back to their country of origin," said Jay Xu, the museum director.

May 25, 2021

Huge Cemetery with at Least 250 Rock-cut Tombs

About 250 tombs, some with fancy layouts and hieroglyphics, have been discovered cut into a hill at Al-Hamidiyah cemetery to the east of Sohag, in Egypt's Eastern Desert, about 240 miles (386 kilometers) southeast of Cairo.
The tombs were constructed at different times in Egypt's history. The earliest were constructed about 4,200 years ago, at a time when Egypt's "Old Kingdom," as modern-day Egyptologists call it, was collapsing. At this time, the pharaohs of Egypt were losing control of the country, as a number of local governors gained power. Why these tombs were cut into the hill is not clear but it was not an uncommon practice in ancient Egypt.

May 18, 2021

Galapagos Islands: Erosion Fells Darwin's Arch

A famous rock formation off the Galapagos Islands known as Darwin's Arch has collapsed.
The Ecuadoran Ministry of Environment said that it was due to natural erosion.
The collapse of Darwin's Arch, the attractive natural bridge was less than a kilometre from the main area of Darwin Island.
The formation, named after the English biologist Charles Darwin, is considered a top diving location.
The Galapagos Islands, 563 miles (906km) west of continental Ecuador, are a Unesco World Heritage site renowned worldwide for their unique array of plants and wildlife.
The archipelago is made up of 234 islands, inlets and rocks. Four of them are home to some 30,000 people.

Rare Silver Coin Portraying King Charles I Discovered in Maryland

An almost 400-year-old silver coin found in a field in Maryland suggests that the remains of a nearby fort are all that's left of one of the earliest English colonial settlements in the Americas, archaeologists said.
The coin is a silver shilling — worth the equivalent of maybe $8 in the 17th century — that portrays a likeness of the English king Charles I. Research shows it must have been minted in London in about 1633 — more than a decade before Charles was executed by his Parliamentarian enemies in 1649, during the English Civil War.
The coin indicates the underground remains of the structure where it was found are from the very first colonial fort built in 1634.

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