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Lesley Riddoch: Museum's attitude to culture is just antiquated

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Published Date: 30 March 2009
By Lesley Riddoch
OUTSIDE the British Museum, I sat down and wept. Inside, abandoned, alone and out of context, were tiny figures that should have been elsewhere.
Not the Lewis chessmen – whose temporary loan to Scotland this Homecoming Year should self-evidently be followed by a permanent exhibition in Uig, Lewis – but virtually every other artefact, statue, portrait, rug, column and facade on display.

So ...



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  • Last Updated: 30 March 2009 10:37 AM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
  • Related Topics: Lesley Riddoch
 
1

Dr. James Wilkie,

Vienna 30/03/2009 22:46:35
Another precisely focussed and eminently readable contribution by Ms. Riddoch. My memories of Uig include a near shipwreck while crewing a fishing boat taking supplies out to St. Kilda, after an unscheduled tour of the Flannan Islands in a Force 9. I doubt whether the Vikings actually played chess while at sea under these circumstances, but my respect for them is nevertheless unbounded.

Some years ago the United Nations set up a special committee to organise the return of objects of cultural importance that had been illegally removed to other countries in the course of colonial exploitation or commercial trading. The Scotland-UN Committee took the opportunity to have the issue of the Stone of Destiny raised in the committee, where it created a furore. The story can be read at www.realmofscotland.com as a Related Article with a link at the foot of a page in the Scotland-UN section.


 

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