Cultural Restitution
November 14, 2022
ZIMBABWE
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ZIMBABWE
Updated April 2026
Below is a schedule of successful restitutions made to Zimbabwe, together with other restitution news. Entries are updated regularly.
April 2026
The return of the sacred Zimbabwe Bird and ancestral human remains by South African authorities marks the latest victory in Zimbabwe's push to recover its cultural inheritance
May 2023
Bring Back Our Bones, a campaigning group that aims to recover the missing remains of heroes of the Zimbabwean uprising in the 1890s, has appealed for the return of Mbuya Nehanda's skull
November 2022
President of Zimbabwe has offered to swap the remains of Cecil Rhodes, who is buried in Zimbabwe, for the skulls of resistance fighters held in UK museums
More News
The USA is being urged not to renew a five-year cultural property agreement with the Arab Republic of Egypt, on the grounds Egypt has prioritised ‘prestige megaprojects’ and ‘political spectacle’ over site protection and collections management
“Modern morality,” wrote Oscar Wilde, “consists in accepting the standard of one’s age.” But how can museums define the moral standard of this age when constrained by historic rules of stewardship and the absence of a modern ethical framework?
This week’s announcement that Cambridge University has transferred legal ownership of its collection of 116 Benin artefacts to Nigeria could be hugely significant