The Last Week Tonight host digs into the history of stolen artifacts and the market in dubiously sourced antiquities
, who was married to the heiress of Jamaican sugar plantations worked by enslaved people. Sloane bought much of his collection with that wealth, “meaning that the museum’s very foundations are inextricably tied up with slavery and colonialism”, said Oliver.
Except, as Oliver pointed out, people knew it was an ethical crime back then. After the British army raided an Ethiopian kingdom in 1868 with a British Museum representative in tow to bid on the choicest items, thehe “deeply lamented … that these articles were thought fit to be brought away by a British army” and urged that they be held only until they were restored.
Another argument is that stolen artifacts would be safer under the care of western institutions than in their home countries, but the caretaking record at some museums is “mixed at best”, said Oliver. The Elgin marbles taken from Greece at the British Museum, he noted, were permanently damaged by wire brushes and a harsh cleaning agent in the 1930s.
Antiquities theft is not a crime of the past – “this practice is still very much going on”, Oliver explained, shifting his attention to the modern antiquities market, which includes disreputable dealers of stolen goods and museums or auction houses, such as Sotheby’s, performing cursory provenance research.
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