Scottish
culture minister Linda Fabiani has visited the British Museum in London
to ask the institution to return the historic Lewis chessmen to
Scotland, reports the BBC. Fabiani told the Scottish Parliament last
week that it was "unacceptable" that 82 of the 93 chessmen were based
in London. The 13th century figures were found in 1830 on a beach on
the Isle of Lewis. Eleven are housed in an Edinburgh museum.
British Museum officials argue that the figures are admired by millions
of visitors each year in London and are frequently loaned to museums in
Scotland and elsewhere. Researchers at the museum also point out that
the Isle of Lewis was part of Norway at the time of the figures’
making, and that the chessmen were likely made in Norway between 1150
and 1200 A.D.
Fabiani said the government would move forward with a proposal for
the artifacts’ return, and Western Isles parliament member Angus
MacNeil is preparing a bill which would facilitate the return by
allowing the British Museum to give away or sell parts of its
collection.
The Scottish government’s position has been scrutinized, however,
with some asking whether Scotland would now repatriate Napoleonic
artifacts housed there. (Artinfo, January 28, 2008)
Read more >>
Buddhist
images on the walls of central Afghanistan’s Bamiyan caves are the
world’s first oil paintings, Japanese researcher Yoko Taniguchi says.
Taniguchi, an expert at Japan’s National Research Institute for
Cultural Properties, and a group of Japanese, European, and American
scientists are collaborating to restore the damaged murals, the Daily
Star reports. The Los Angeles-based Getty Conservation Institute
analyzed 53 samples from the murals that date back to about 650 A.D.,
concluding that they had oil in the paint. "My European colleagues were
shocked because they always believed oil paintings were invented in
Europe," Taniguchi said. "They couldn’t believe such techniques could
exist in some Buddhist cave deep in the countryside." The Bamiyan
Valley is known for two huge 1,500-year-old statues of the Buddha that
were destroyed by the Taliban in 2001. The researchers are restoring
the murals, which depict thousands of Buddhas in red robes, as part of
international efforts to salvage what is left of the region’s cultural
relics. (Artinfo, January 28, 2008)
Read more >>
