By Paula Tuerk

Stangel

Andrew Stangel, professor of history and civilization at the University of New Hampshire, treated the April 18 Los Altos Morning Forum audience to a sampling of stories behind some of the western world’s best-known cultural artifacts, details of their discoveries and the political struggles to decide where they should permanently reside. His talk spanned treasures from Babylon in the sixh century B.C. to Heinrich Schliemann’s discovery of the city of Troy in 1873.

Stangel is an art historian who became familiar with European museum treasures and archaeological sites when he directed the Art History Tours Program for the United States Armed Forces in Europe. His position on who owns the artistic treasures of civilization is very clear: They belong to all of us as part of our collective cultural heritage. And lessons of our cultural history and appreciation of past civilizations can be most effectively understood when the artifacts appear in public venues such as museums, where they are preserved.

Many countries are now calling for the return of their artifacts from institutions like the British Museum. But today’s world is both a cultural and archaeological layer cake. Stangel said that the original owners of many of these pieces are far removed from today’s residents. For example, today’s Turks did not create the Greek artifacts from Ephesus in western Turkey.

It’s a tangled question approached from different international perspectives, according to Stangel. National pride and economic implications fostered by the promise of tourism are also at stake. The famous Elgin Marbles Thomas Bruce, the Lord of Elgin, brought to England in 1806 to elevate appreciation for ancient Greece are known in Athens as the Parthenon Marbles. To Melina Mercouri, the late actress and Greek minister of culture, the artifacts in the British Museum were the soul of the Greek people and should be returned.

Another aspect of the provenance question is returning artifacts to countries where their safety and protection could be in doubt. What would have been the fate of sixth century B.C. Babylon’s Ishtar Gate, with its glazed tiles and friezes, if it had been returned from Germany to Iraq in the 1970s, as Saddam Hussein demanded?

On the question of returning artifacts stolen from individuals during wartime, Stangel said that the pieces belong to their original owners or their descendants. Some of these stories have a happy ending. Five priceless paintings by artist Gustav Klimt, stolen by the Nazis, had been displayed in a former Hapsburg royal palace since World War II. In January, Austria returned all five to the owner’s children in California.

Morning Forum is a members-only lecture series held at the Los Altos United Methodist Church. To get on a waiting list for membership, write to: Morning Forum, P.O. Box 274, Los Altos 94023-0274.