Blog Layout

Cultural Restitution

Apr 04, 2023
VATICAN CITY
SHARE ARTICLE

VATICAN CITY

Below is a schedule of restitutions made to or from Vatican City.

Entries are updated regularly.

May 2023

Pope Francis confirms talks are underway to return colonial-era artefacts in the Vatican Museum's collection to Indigenous peoples in Canada, as well as other objects on a 'case by case' basis

AP News


April 2023

Responding to decades of Indigenous demands, the Vatican has formally repudiated the "Doctrine of Discovery" that legitimised the colonial-era seizure of Native lands

AP News


March 2023

In a special Vatican ceremony, the restitution of three stone fragments from the Parthenon was signed off prior to their transfer to Athens on 24 March 2023

The Art Newspaper


December 2022

Pope Francis has ordered the Vatican Museums to return three sculptural fragments removed from the Parthenon in the form of a 'donation' to Greece

AP News


March 2022

Curator of the Ethnological Museum in the Vatican tells leader of an Inuit delegation that the Vatican is open to returning precious cultural items to Canada

CBC News






More News

Getty Museum to return a looted bronze head to Turkey

03 May, 2024
A Roman bronze head from a statue of a young man, acquired by the Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 1971, is returning to Turkey after evidence emerged it was excavated illegally

National Museums Scotland identifies an Ethiopian Tabot

10 Apr, 2024
An official from the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has confirmed the identity of an object held at National Museums Scotland (NMS) as a sacred Ethiopian Tabot

British Museum faces investigation by Information watchdog over sacred Tabots

31 Mar, 2024
The British Museum has shown itself adept at refusing to provide information to questions they’d prefer not to answer. We hope our initiative to escalate concerns about the Museum’s collection of Ethiopian Tabots to the Information Commissioner’s Office will encourage greater transparency
Share by: