The British Museum’s first exhibition in China has left many Chinese wondering where their own country’s priceless artefacts in the collection from the world’s oldest museum have gone.
”Why are there no Chinese artefacts and [who] do the objects really belong to?” asked the official Xinhua news agency on Monday.
Over 270 artefacts from the ancient civilisations of Rome, Greece and Egypt have been put on display for the Treasures of the World Cultures exhibition that opened at Beijing’s newly built Capital Museum on Saturday.
But relics from China are not there.
”I was really stunned by the beautiful artefacts from the different cultures, but why are there no Chinese antiques?” Xinhua quoted 19-year-old Wang Wei as saying.
The British Museum has in its collection thousands of oriental paintings, manuscripts, statues, ornaments, jewellery and other cultural relics smuggled out of China mainly in the late 19th century and early in the 20th century.
Many of them were traded to other parties before eventually being acquired by the museum.
”More than 20 000 Chinese artifacts including paintings, textiles, jade and metal objects are housed in the British Museum. Most of them were robbed or purchased for pennies more than 100 years ago,” Xinhua said.
There were no Chinese relics in the exhibition partly because Beijing had refused to recognise British claims to them, according to the China Daily.
The British Museum has been under pressure in recent years from Greece, Egypt and China to return their artefacts but all requests have been refused so far, Xinhua said.
”It’s not a bad thing for the artefacts, if they are well preserved, to be in the British Museum since the artefacts are the cultural heritage of all human beings,” it quoted Capital Museum Director Guo Xiaoling as saying.
”But they should return a part of the huge collection of the Chinese antiques as a gesture of friendship. That will make Chinese people very happy.”
British Museum director Neil MacGregor said Chinese relics would be shown in future exhibitions, according to the China Daily. – AFP
