Cultural Restitution
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Updated March 2025
Below is a schedule of successful restitutions made by Germany to a country or community of source together with other restitution news. Entries are updated regularly.
March 2025
The SPK has agreed the return to Colombia of three unique Kogi ritual objects that have been on loan in Bogota since October 2024
October 2024
Egyptian archaeologist Monica Hanna calls for the return of the Nefertiti bust, questioning its role as Egypt's ambassador to the city of Berlin
July 2024
The Ubersee-Museum in Germany has returned to Samoa the prow of a taumualua, or war canoe, stolen by a German naval officer during the Samoan civil war in 1888
June 2024
Germany's culture minister returns 25 antiquities from Berlin's Altes Museum to her Italian counterpart, all believed to have been illegally trafficked
May 2024
Two royal ancestral stools, looted from Benin City in 1897 and returned to Nigeria by the German government, were handed over to the Oba of Benin at a ceremony at the Oba's Palace
May 2024
Four significant cultural items, returned to Australia by the Grassi Museum in Leipzig in August 2023, were officially handed over to the Kaurna people at a ceremony in North Adelaide
March 2024
'Measina' or cultural artefacts taken during German colonial rule in Samoa between 1900 and 1914 and now held in the Uebersee Museum in Bremen will be returned to Samoa in June
November 2023
Mexico has recovered 75 Huasteca archaeological items from German authorities, including 74 items from the Museum Schloss Salder in Salzgitter
October 2023
Germany's culture minister has signed an agreement with her counterpart in France to set up a joint provenance research fund focussing on museum objects from sub-Saharan Africa
August 2023
At a ceremony in Sydney, Australia, Dresden's museum of world cultures returns to the Kaurna Aboriginal community four objects collected by Protestant missionaries in 1838-39
skd.museum
August 2023
Four Aboriginal artefacts taken by German missionaries almost two hundred years ago from the Kaurna community of Australia have been returned by Dresden's museum of world cultures
August 2023
A near life-size statue of Ngonnso, the queen mother of the Nso people that lies at the heart of a campaign to return artefacts to Cameroon, will be returned by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
June 2023
Germany has returned two 15th century Kogi masks to Colombian President Gustavo Petro at a ceremony in Berlin after years of back-and-forth between the two governments
June 2023
As part of an international research project entitled 'Sensible Provenances' the University of Gottingen has returned the human remains of 32 people stolen in colonial times from New Zealand
June 2023
A study reports German museums of world cultures hold 40,000 objects from Cameroon, exceeding the 6,000 objects in Cameroon's capital Yaounde
May 2023
Human remains from the Staatliche Ethnographische Sammlungen Sachsen were returned to representatives of their Maori (New Zealand) and Moriori (Chatham Islands) communities of origin
April 2023
Germany is taking steps towards clarifying and returning to Tanzania the human remains of countless colonial war victims held in German museums
January 2023
Berlin officials have denied there are plans to return the bust of Nefertiti to Egypt or the Pergamon Altar to Turkey, following comments made last month in favour of their return
December 2022
Linden Museum, Stuttgart has returned a 16th cent Queen Mother Idia mask to Nigeria. The Idia mask, one of only five known looted from Benin City, is one of 78 Benin items to be returned by the Linden Museum.
December 2022
Germany's foreign minister hands over 21 Benin Bronzes looted by the British to Nigeria's culture minister amid Nigerian frustration at British Museum's failure to repatriate any of its Benin Bronzes
December 2022
The Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne has officially transferred ownership of 92 looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria
September 2022
Arrest warrants against four German dealers throw light on widespread trafficking of Middle Eastern antiquities in German public museums and universities
July 2022
Germany returns two Benin Bronzes and agrees to repatriate more than 1000 other items to Nigeria, an action described as "the single largest known repatriation of artefacts in the world"
June 2022
The Prussian Cultural Foundation agrees to return looted objects to Cameroon and Namibia, and agrees to begin talks with Tanzania over objects stolen during the Maji Maji Uprising
June 2022
Berlin's Humboldt Forum is considering the return of the only known statue of Ngonnso, the queen mother of the Nso kingdom, removed by a German colonial commander from Cameroon in 1902
May 2022
Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is returning 23 objects to Namibia as a long-term loan in a move to address its colonial past
February 2022
In a collaboration between the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, 32 skulls in a Berlin collection are returned to a Native Hawaiian group
February 2022
The City of Cologne's Council is in discussions to return 96 Benin artefacts to Nigeria, in line with the new political framework agreement between the two countries expected in spring 2022
January 2022
Seven German museums are to research their collections that may contain thousands of objects looted during the Boxer Rebellion
January 2022
Five Continents Museum, Munich has identified around 50 colonial objects from the Max von Stettens collection, suspected of being looted from Cameroon at the end of the 19th century
January 2022
New Minister of State for Culture, Claudia Roth, believes there is a determination to come to terms with Germany's colonial heritage that must be driven forward
December 2021
The Lubeck Museums offer to repatriate 26 ethnographic objects that arrived in 'dubious circumstances' to the national museums of Namibia and Equatorial Guinea
November 2021
Without prompting, the Lubeck Volkerkundesammlung has decided to return looted art in its ethnological collection to Africa
September 2021
Appeals from ambassadors from the Group of Latin America and the Caribbean have been made to stop an auction of pre-Hispanic artefacts in Munich
June 2021
The board of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation has given the green light for Berlin's museums to return looted Benin artefacts to Nigeria, "regardless of the circumstances in which they were acquired"
May 2021
Luf boat, said to be looted from Papua New Guinea and due to be exhibited at the Humboldt Forum, is set to become the latest restitution battleground
March 2021
In an historic move, Germany has entered into discussions to return looted Benin Bronzes to Nigeria
November 2020
Humboldt Forum plans joint exhibitions and repatriations to Dar es Salaam
https://culturalpropertynews.org/humboldt-forum-collaboration-with-tanzania/
September 2020
Berlin's Ethnological Museum is to return the mummified remains of two Aboriginal children held in the museum since 1880 and human bones in a wooden coffin to Australia
https://artdaily.cc/news/128181/Berlin-museum-to-return-Aboriginal-remains-#.X2Hm8GdKit8
September 2020
Berlin to return two mummified tattooed heads (Toi moko), which entered the city's collections in 1879 and 1905, to the Te Papa Tongarewa museum in Wellington, New Zealand
November 2019
The German state of Saxony returns the human remains of 45 indigenous ancestors, acquired in the 19th century, to communities of origin in Australia
October 2019
The Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg returns a 12th century marble panel, stolen from the Rawza Museum of Islamic Art, Ghazni in the late 1970s, to Afghanistan
https://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2019/10/mkg-hamburg-returns-12th-century-marble.html
June 2019
Germany returns a 2nd cent A.D. marble bust of a Roman youth, discovered in the city of Fondi and smuggled out of Italy over 50 years ago
https://www.thelocal.it/20190620/germany-returns-ancient-roman-bust-to-italy
May 2019
Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin to return the Stone Cross of Cape Cross to Namibia, placed on Namibia’s coast by Portuguese explorers in 1486
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-returning-stone-cross-artifact-to-namibia/a-48768706
May 2019
Reliquary looted from the church of Saint Mamas in Turkish occupied town of Morphou saved by Dusseldorf auctioneers and returned to Cyprus
https://in-cyprus.com/looted-cyprus-reliquary-saved-from-auction-returns-home/
April 2019
Five German institutions return the human remains of 53 Aboriginal ancestors to Australia, one of the largest repatriations of Aboriginal remains
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47934971
March 2019
The personal Bible of Nama-leader Hendrik Witbooi, together with his whip, both looted by German colonial soldiers in 1893, were returned to Namibia after six years of negotiations and a change in law by the parliament of Baden-Wurttemberg
https://www.gondwana-collection.com/news/article/2019/03/06/witbooi-bible-returned-to-namibia/
August 2018
Germany returns to Namibia the human remains of the Herero and Nama indigenous groups killed during the colonial era genocide
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-returns-human-remains-from-namibia-genocide/a-45268717
June 2018
The Rautenstrauch Joest Museum of world cultures in Cologne returned a tattooed Maori skull, purchased over 110 years ago from a London dealer, to a delegation representing the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/german-museum-returns-maori-skull
May 2018
Berlin's Ethnographic Museum returns nine artefacts, stolen from a burial site in the 1880s to indigenous communities in Alaska
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/16/arts/design/berlin-museum-artifacts-chugach-alaska.html
March 2018
After 10 years of diplomatic and judicial efforts, two 3,200-year-old Olmec culture archaeological pieces are returned by Germany to Mexico
January 2016
Germany returns to the Republic of Iraq a Sumerian clay cuneiform tablet dating from 2049 B.C. and offered for sale in an online auction
July 2014
The Charite, Berlin, the first German science institution to sign a repatriation agreement with Australia, has made its fifth return of 14 ancestral remains to Australia
November 2012
Golden brooch in shape of a winged seahorse, part of the 'Lydian Hoard' illegally excavated in the mid-1960s, is to return to Turkey
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/25/king-croesus-treasure-returning-turkey
May 2003
Fragment of a carved soapstone sculpture of a bird, plundered almost 100 years ago from the Great Zimbabwe ruins, are returned by the Ethnological Museum in Berlin to Zimbabwe
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3028589.stm
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