Trafficked Lebanese Antiquities: Can They Be Repatriated from European Museums?

In this essay, I review the issue of repatriation from the Lebanese perspective. I examine the history and context of how artifacts from Lebanon were illegally exported and present one example where the objects have been returned. It is alarming that, even in the twenty-first century, Western politicians and curators do not want treasures returned to their countries of origin as they have become part of the local heritage of the Western people.

There are two important things to consider in a historical monument: its use and its beauty. Its use belongs to its owner, its beauty to everyone in this world, to you, to me and to all of us. Therefore, it is beyond our right to destroy it.¹

(Hugo 1832: 621; translation by L. Tahan)

Nearly 200 years ago, Victor Hugo in his article “Guerre aux Démolisseurs” (War on Destroyers) wrote that historic monuments belong to their owners, meaning by this the country in which they are present, but their beauty is for all humankind. His thoughts and words resonate with us even today. De facto, cultural property has been vandalized, looted, trafficked and sold to Western museums. A lot has been written on illicit trafficking in Lebanon and the Middle East, but thus far no one has thought of the issue of repatriation to Lebanon. Is this subject taboo? Are curators afraid of requesting their artifacts back in order not to cause any diplomatic crises? Or is it that the Lebanese museums are so engrossed in work that they have not bothered to ask for the return of important archaeological finds?

In what follows, I explore the history of how key objects left the Lebanese territories and entered (mostly) the collections of the Department of Near Eastern (formerly Oriental) Antiquities at the Louvre in Paris. I then analyze whether repatriation is the solution or if the loan of artifacts is a more constructive way to move forward.

Context and History

Repatriation is the restitution of cultural goods to their countries of origin. These artifacts were taken either as war booties or just as an appropriation when developing countries where under the control of a foreign power. In the case of Lebanon, it happened under the Ottoman Empire and later under French Mandate. Repatriation is a very delicate and complex issue and most of the time curators do not like to discuss it openly as it involves moral, ethical, legal, and diplomatic factors. Very many Lebanese antiquities were taken to Western museums. Some were taken in the nineteenth century and others in the early part of the twentieth century. Yet others were given to the archaeological missions excavating during that period under ‘partage’ (sharing) agreements. This practice existed until the 1950s. Afterwards, no object was allowed to be exported legally out of its country of origin.

Lebanon was under Ottoman rule for 400 years. During that time, the Ottoman Empire controlled the export of archaeological artifacts, but managed to retain the large collections that are now found in the Istanbul Museums. For example, the prized Alexander sarcophagus with a scene of the Battle of Issus (Fig. 1), discovered in 1887 by Osman Hamdi Bey in Sidon, Lebanon, is now exhibited at the Istanbul Archaeology Museum along with many Lebanese artifacts. It is to that museum what the Mona Lisa is to the Louvre! The Turks point out that the sarcophagus was legally acquired because at the time it was excavated, Sidon was part of the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, Turkey itself is threatening US and European museums in order to retrieve some of its important objects (The Economist, May 19, 2012).

The French Mandate was implemented with the best of intentions. It was the brainchild of a South-African general, placing the territories that formerly belonged to the Syrian province of the by-then defunct Ottoman Empire under the tutelage of the League of Nations. France’s mandate was to establish Syria and Lebanon as independent nations under French supervision, to favor local autonomy, to secure the defense, the safety and the foreign relations of the territories...