Who really owns history?

In February 1897, 1,200 British troops, under the command of Sir Henry Rawson, raided Benin City in modern-day Nigeria, burning down the palace and looting as many as 10,000 culturally significant artefacts for their own profit. The Oba, or King, of Benin was sent into exile, and British rule of the kingdom began, lasting until 1960 when Nigeria gained its independence from the empire. Among the items stolen during the Benin Expedition were over 900 metalworks which have come to be known as the Benin Bronzes.

This is one of many examples of the crimes of the British Empire, where colonial authorities overthrew and pillaged countries around the world for their own gain. During this time, many artefacts of cultural significance were left in British collections, most notably at the British Museum, which houses disputed items such as the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles. In a report by Felwine Sarr and Benedicte Savoy from 2018, it is estimated that up to 95% of Africa’s cultural heritage is held outside the continent, with much of it in Europe and North America.

“Artefacts came back with a different story than intended"

In recent years, there has been a greater emphasis placed on contextualising and repatriating items with colonial ties back to their original owners. After President Emmanuel Macron announced a repatriation scheme during a lecture at Burkina Faso’s University of Ouagadougou in 2017, France passed a new law in May 2026 providing an exception to items’ protected status in France’s collections if they were taken by “theft, pillage or gift obtained by coercion or violence” across a 157-year spell in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Back in Britain, collections have increasingly come under scrutiny over controversially acquired items, with the University of Aberdeen repatriating a Benin Bronze in 2021. The statue, depicting the head of one of the Kingdom's Obas, was purchased at auction in 1957 and remained in the university's collection until its return.

Lewis McNaught, managing editor of the repatriation news website Returning Heritage, says these stories need to be addressed.

“Western museums have every right not to repatriate artefacts they acquired legitimately”, he says, “but there’s a growing recognition among the museums of former colonial states that the ownership of objects acquired unlawfully or violently should be reassessed using a different, modern set of ethical values.”

Jessica Adair, a recent graduate from Aberdeen University’s Department of Anthropology, says collections and museums often choose to ignore items’ troubled pasts.

“Aberdeen currently houses one of the largest international artefact collections in Scotland. However, sometimes when these artefacts were gathered, they came back with a different story than intended.”

“The onus is on Indigenous communities for proof”

Adair, a future anthropology postgraduate at the University of St Andrews, recognises the need to have these dialogues in the interests of undoing these past colonial crimes.

“The university does have a great interest in this idea of decolonisation,” Adair says. “However, if there is an Indigenous community interested in a repatriation project, the onus is on them to contact Aberdeen and prove the artefact is theirs.”

Another interesting aspect to repatriation is the rapid increase in these efforts in the last ten years. Despite these lootings and coerced acquisitions taking place during the Victorian era or even earlier, the vast majority of repatriation cases have come about since 2020. The rise in calls for restitution is believed to be linked to the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the murders of George Floyd and Breanna Taylor, something the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC explicitly mentioned when they returned 29 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria in 2022.

Adair believes the reasons behind the trend run deeper than the influence of Black Lives Matter alone.

“I think the late 2010s and early 2020s saw a great rise in the need and want for political and academic equality,” she said, “not just for students and staff, but every individual impacted by their work.

“There was an innate pressure to answer to the demands set out by society on why we still hold artefacts collected during the peak of colonialism, and why [institutions] weren’t working towards either repatriation or, at a minimum, addressing the histories of the past and the institutions’ roles within that.”

Repatriation remains a hot topic of conversation today, with efforts continuing around the world. Alongside the University of Aberdeen and the Smithsonian Museum, many other institutions have been spurred on by societal pressures to act on their looted items and begin repatriation projects.

As of April 2026, the University of California in Berkeley has repatriated over 50,000 culturally significant Indigenous items under the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation (NAGPRA) Act. Meanwhile, Leiden University in the Netherlands formally agreed in May 2026 to repatriate two Chola Dynasty copper plates from its collection, following a request by the Indian government back in 2023.

“Sustained lack of progress”

That being said, some believe not enough is being done. While a growing number of museums and universities have embraced repatriation, many institutions continue to resist returning items or move slowly through lengthy review processes. The British Museum, for example, still retains the majority of its collection of Benin Bronzes, as well as other disputed objects, including the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles.

McNaught believes English organisations have been slow on the uptake when it comes to making change.

“There’s a sustained lack of progress among England’s national collections, whose governing articles are driven by historic legislation that prevents almost all deaccessioning.

“Without a fundamental review leading to changes in legislation, England’s major national collections, such as the V&A and British Museum, will fall even further behind the rest of Europe.”

Museum leaders often argue that such collections allow millions of visitors to engage with world history in a single location and that institutions have a responsibility to preserve objects for future generations. Critics, however, contend that these arguments overlook the circumstances under which many of the artefacts were acquired and place institutional interests above the rights of source communities.

“Responsibility is on the shoulders of others”

For Adair, the issue is not simply about ownership, but about responsibility. She argues that many institutions remain too passive in their approach to repatriation, waiting for communities to come forward rather than proactively researching collections and building relationships with those affected. While Aberdeen has been praised for returning its Benin Bronze, she believes there is still more that universities and museums can do.

"They can be a bit idle in their efforts," Adair says. “They are kind of resting that responsibility on the shoulders of others and not themselves.

“There have been cases where, using Aberdeen as an example, even if they do know exactly where something has come from and they have a direct lineage of where this has been taken from, they won’t start the conversation. But they will partake in these projects when they are presented with a case.”

The debate ultimately raises larger questions about how societies confront the legacy of colonialism. Repatriation is not only about the return of physical objects, but also about recognising historical injustices and giving communities greater control over their own cultural heritage. As governments, museums and universities continue to examine the origins of their collections, pressure is likely to grow for institutions to justify why they retain disputed artefacts. Whether through full repatriation or shared stewardship agreements, the conversation surrounding colonial collections appears to be far from over.

In the case of their Benin Bronzes, the British Museum’s website states that it “continues to pursue a thorough and open investigation of Benin collection histories – and to participate in the wider contemporary dialogues within which these collections are positioned. This includes fully acknowledging and understanding the colonial history which provided the key context for the development of the Benin collection at the British Museum.” Whether this will spur on any repatriation efforts, or the items will remain in London, is yet to be seen.

“It does still rest on communities coming to the university and saying 'Hey, I think this is ours'”, Adair says, “but it is a step in the right direction of how Western institutions can take the initiative and give back what isn’t theirs.”