Germany to loan back 23 looted museum pieces to Namibia
Africa, Germany, Namibia, National Museum of Namibia, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK)
0 Comments
, 2022-05-25 04:03:42,
The move is one of a series of recent steps by Germany towards atoning for colonial-era crimes, including the official recognition last year that it committed genocide in Namibia, then known as German South West Africa.
Namibian art pieces from the collection of the Ethnological Museum in Berlin are on display during a press conference on 24 May 2022, before 23 parts of the collection will travel to the National Museum of Namibia in the framework of the partnership research project titled “Confronting Colonial Pasts, Envisioning Creative Futures”. Picture: Tobias SCHWARZ/AFP
BERLIN – A Berlin museum will on Friday send 23 ancient pieces of jewellery, tools and objects back to Namibia, a former German colony, on indefinite loan as part of a project to encourage rapprochement between the two nations.
The artefacts will be handed over to the National Museum of Namibia and made available to local artists and academics for research, Berlin’s Ethnological Museum said.
Chosen by Namibian experts, they include an ancient three-headed drinking vessel, a doll wearing traditional dress and various spears, hair pieces and other fashion accessories.
This is a step towards reassessing “the long, complex history that Namibia and Germans have”, Esther Moombolah, director of the National Museum of Namibia, told journalists in Berlin.
“We urge all future partners to follow suit like this institution,” she said, stressing that Namibians should not “have to get on a plane to see our cultural treasures which are kept in boxes in foreign institutions”.
The Prussian Cultural…
,
To read the original article, go to Click here
