To The Victors Go The Spoils

National treasures of antiquity, that is. Amazing, isn't it, that conquering armies always manage to seek out and to loot the artistic, heritage treasures of countries that they have subdued. Not enough, the exploitation of invaded countries' natural resources, but to heap insult onto injurious and quite humanely-injudicious looting, treasures of antiquity are also violently loosed from the soil out of which they came.

Ancient Egypt, Greece and other aged civilizations have all been forced by untoward circumstances to surrender their treasures, and they yearningly attempt to make their case for the return of their heritage, for the most part quite unsuccessfully. The British Museum's Elgin marbles, for one instance. And the treasures of Egypt, looted by Napoleon's invading forces and by amateur archaeologists over the centuries.

These imperialist treasures echoing the heritage of ancient civilizations - long pre-dating the current civilizations that now presume to own these fabulous items beyond measure - languish far from their provenance. China estimates that some 1.5-million art treasures belonging to that country are on proud show in museums and private collections around the world.

China would dearly love to reclaim those objects of ancient art. Ironic, in a way, since modern Communist China has long since disavowed its ancient heritage. But there is a certain urgency in claiming those fabulous treasures of yesteryear for the purpose of restoring them to rightful ownership. And they make compellingly prestigious tourism attractions.

China's Old Summer Palace was sacked, in 1860, by British and French troops as pay-back for the torture and execution of 18 diplomatic emissaries representing Western powers, to Beijing. It is a dreadful thing to rob a proud country, one with an ancient civilization renowned for its high art and skilled craftspeople producing creatively sumptuous art forms and heritage artefacts.

"We don't really know how many relics have been plundered since the catalogue of the treasures stored in the garden was burned during the catastrophe", stated the current director of the palace. "But based on our rough calculations, about 1.5-million relics are housed in more than 2,000 museums in 47 countries."

Now that represents big-time cultural-artistic thievery. Implicating, moreover, nations who saw it in their best interests to greedily acquire what they had no right to own. Does a century confer immunity from responsibility and moral prosecution?