Wellcome

• The British Museum’s latest exhibition, Rediscovering Gems, displays a range of prized ancient Roman and Greek artefacts.
• The exhibition stemmed from an announcement last year that numerous pieces from the museum’s collection were missing, stolen or damaged.
• While the British Museum celebrates recovered items in its new exhibition, it has continuously refused to return historically looted items in its own collection back to countries of origin.

From irony to hypocrisy

• The objects will remain with the Asante for three to six years before having to be legally returned to the British Museum.
• Read more:
  V&A's decision to loan looted Asante gold back to Ghana has implications for other British museums

  And herein lies the hypocrisy of Rediscovering gems.

• The opening of Rediscovering gems displays an open embrace of institutional hypocrisy.
• There is no legal barrier preventing the amendment of laws enabling the permanent restitution of historically looted objects.

Beyond the British Museum

• As well as continuing to pile pressure on the British Museum and UK lawmakers, I would argue that community stakeholders and national leaders should look beyond most national museums which are prohibited by law from returning objects to countries of origin.
• This includes the Science Museum Group, Kew Gardens and Wallace Collection.
• As well as striking the loan agreement with the British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum, Asante representatives also struck a deal with the Fowler Museum at the University of California in Los Angeles.
• The British Museum declined a request from The Conversation to comment on this story.

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Nathan Bossoh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• AN2 Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: ANTX), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on developing treatments for rare, chronic, and serious infectious diseases with high unmet needs, today reported financial results for the quarter ended September 30, 2023.
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• These boron-based molecules were originally discovered by researchers at Anacor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of Pfizer) and the University of Georgia, with grant funding from Wellcome.
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• In 2020, the annual funding gap for product development targeting poverty-related and neglected diseases was estimated at US$2.6 billion.
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