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Ancient antiquities, where do they rightfully belong

If you have visited Machu Picchu, you will probably find Bingham’s excavated artifacts at the Yale Peabody Museum in New Haven to be a bit of a letdown. Mostly, the pieces are bones, in varying stages of decomposition, or pots, many of them in fragments. Unsurpassed as stonemasons, engineers and architects, the Incas thought more prosaically when it came to ceramics. Leaving aside unfair comparisons to the jaw-dropping Machu Picchu site itself, the pottery of the Inca, even when intact, lacks the drama and artistry of the ceramics of earlier civilizations of Peru like the Moche and Nazca. Everyone agrees that the Machu Picchu artifacts at Yale are modest in appearance. That has not prevented, however, a bare-knuckled disagreement from developing over their rightful ownership. Peru says the Bingham objects were sent to Yale on loan and their return is long overdue. Yale demurs.

The article goes on to point out that the British Museum will not return the Rosetta Stone to Egypt, the Germans have a bust of Nefertiti at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin and the Greeks want the Parthenon marbles. The writer Lubow describes a metaphorical swooshing sound as the great museums of the United States, France, Germany and Britain are half emptied as all the arts and antiquities are returned to their nation of origin. I wish I had an clever easy answer, but I don’t. Even as the Peruvian government tries to have the Machu Picchu artifacts returned they acknowledge a thriving illicit trade in antiquities by local smugglers. Legally they belong to the nation of origin, yet part of me thinks that some of the countries like Peru have such unstable governments maybe it would be better if Yale acknowledged Peru as the rightful owners, but perhaps worked out some compensation plan to keep them as trustees and where they would be safer. While Egypt has done a good job in many respect of protecting their ancient artifacts they have also, because of financial constraints let many be literally worn away by the weather - again here maybe some kind of annual royalty should be paid by the British, German and American museums to keep them. Imagine if the situation were reversed and Peru had a rare copy of the Declaration of Independence or the the British had taken the Liberty Bell during the War of 1812 and never returned it.

Librarians Describe Life Under An FBI Gag Order

Life in an FBI muzzle is no fun. Two Connecticut librarians on Sunday described what it was like to be slapped with an FBI national security letter and accompanying gag order. It sounded like a spy movie or, gulp, something that happens under a repressive foreign government.

They had simply refused to turn over library computer records with out a court order - the FBI used a National Security Letter authorized under The Patriot Act which doesn’t require a court order. The Librarians couldn’t even attend their own hearing because they were regarded as a national security threat. No wonder the majority of Americans have finally come around to seeing that the country is headed in the wrong direction.