Cultural Restitution

December 1, 2019
NORWAY
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Norway

Updated November 2024


Below is a schedule of successful restitutions made by Norway to a country or community of source.  Entries are updated regularly.


November 2024

For the third time, Oslo's Kon-Tiki Museum is returning artefacts and human remains collected by Thor Heyerdahl in the late 1940s to Rapa Nui (Easter Island)

apnews.com




September 2021

Nearly 100 Mesopotamian artefacts in the collection of a private Norwegian collector are the subject of a restitution request from Iraqi authorities to the Norwegian Ministry of Culture

ArtDaily



April 2019

Oslo’s Kon-Tiki Museum agrees to hand back thousands of artefacts, collected by the explorer Thor Heyerdahl in the 1950s, to Rapa Nui

https://www.thelocal.no/20190330/norways-kon-tiki-museum-agrees-to-return-easter-island-items



More News

Imperial Gold Hairpin to return to Ethiopia

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A rare and important 19th century gold hairpin once owned by Empress Tiruwork, wife of the Abyssinian Emperor Tewodros II, will be returning to Ethiopia following negotiations by the Royal Ethiopian Trust with the Rome auction house Bertolami Fine Art

Protests in favour of a Benin Royal Museum frustrate ambitions of Nigeria’s Museum of West African Art

November 25, 2025
In 2022 several western collections made a decision to transfer ownership of their Benin Bronzes to Nigeria. Reassured by progress on the construction of a major new facility in Benin City, they understood their Benin artefacts would be exhibited in a new museum to be called the Edo Museum of West African Art

Why the Rosetta Stone will not be returning to Egypt ... just yet

November 11, 2025
After years of delay and political distraction, the official opening of the new Grand Egyptian Museum finally took place in the shadow of the pyramids on the evening of November 1st attended by monarchs, world leaders, heads of state and government