大英博物馆失窃丑闻揭穿“普世”的掠夺谎言

What a Scandal at the British Museum Reveals

JASON FELCH

The news that roughly 2,000 objects, dating from antiquity to the 19th century, have disappeared over a decade from the vast storerooms of the British Museum — a fact the museum acknowledged a few weeks ago — should be enough to endanger the job security of any museum’s director. Add in the news that the thief is suspected to have been a curator of Greek antiquities at the museum, and that the precious objects were being peddled in the digital marketplace, and you can understand why the museum’s director recently resigned.

前不久，大英博物馆承认了这样一个事实：在过去10年间，其庞大的库房里丢失了大约2000件物品——所出年代从古代到19世纪不等，这一消息应该足以危及任何博物馆馆长的饭碗。再加上有消息称窃贼疑似为馆内的希腊文物策展人，而失窃的珍贵文物流向了数字市场，大英博物馆馆长最近的辞职因此也就不难理解了。

These revelations have shaken the staid museum world and raised important questions about security, record keeping and funding priorities. But the root problem goes deeper, to the origins of our national museums. And the fix will take more than new security protocols.

这些爆料震动了严肃沉稳的博物馆界，并引发了对安全、记录保存和经费优先项目等重大问题的讨论。不过，我们这些国家级博物馆的起源才是更深刻的问题所在。要解决这个问题，仅靠新的安全规约是不够的。

The British Museum must use this scandal as an opportunity to update the dusty notion of the so-called universal museum — rethinking how these institutions can exist in a 21st-century world where the sharing and blending of cultures has never been more crucial. Rather than resisting calls to repatriate contested objects in their collections, museums should be transparent about their holdings and how they were acquired. They should embark on a campaign of generous, long-term loans that allows objects to circulate freely across borders. And they should embrace digital tools to open their storage facilities to public scrutiny.

大英博物馆必须以此番丑闻为契机，更新所谓普世博物馆的陈旧观念，重新思考此类机构在21世纪——一个文化分享和融合从未如此重要的时代——的存续之道。与其抵触归还藏品中争议文物的呼声，不如对其藏品以及文物获得方式保持透明。它们应该开展一场慷慨的、长期的藏品出借活动，实现文物的跨境自由流转。同时也要拥抱数字工具，将储藏设施开放接受公众的监督。

This is an opportunity to radically reimagine the mission and purpose of the universal museum — places like the Metropolitan Museum, the Louvre, the Prado and the British Museum — and what they owe to the world.

从大都会博物馆、卢浮宫、普拉多博物馆到大英博物馆，这是一个从根本上重新构想普世博物馆的使命与目的以及它们对世界的义务的机会。

The dream of a “universal” or “encyclopedic” museum was born centuries ago as a product of the Enlightenment. During the 1700s, in a burst of noblesse oblige, many art collections were moved from private drawing rooms into public spaces, where they theoretically could be appreciated by all. The grand institutions that were built over the next century to house them were established on the notion that access to the world’s art and artifacts would foster an enlightened, democratic culture — and, implicitly or explicitly, on the idea that only institutions in the West could properly preserve, protect and study the world’s great wonders.

作为启蒙运动的产物，打造“普世”或“万有”博物馆的梦想在几个世纪前就诞生了。在18世纪最初10年，一股推崇贵族义务的风潮让许多艺术藏品从私家厅堂移到了公共空间，在理论上可以被所有人欣赏。此后一个世纪，为容纳这些藏品而建立的大型机构树立了这样一种理念，即全球艺术和文物将熏陶出开明、民主的文化，并以或明或暗的方式确立只有西方机构才能妥善储藏、保存和研究世界伟大奇观的观念。

The Enlightenment led into the age of empire, and these new museums were quickly filled with plunder. Thomas Bruce (a.k.a. Lord Elgin) whisked sculptures from the Parthenon away to London. “The Winged Victory of Samothrace” landed in the Louvre. The “Benin Bronzes” were dispersed around the globe, including to the Met. Egypt’s Nefertiti bust was shipped off to Berlin.

启蒙运动引领了帝国时代，新的博物馆很快充斥了掠夺来的物品。托马斯·布鲁斯（即埃尔金伯爵）将帕特农神庙的雕塑运到伦敦。“萨莫色雷斯的胜利女神”被安置于卢浮宫。“贝宁青铜器”散落世界各地，包括大都会博物馆。埃及的娜芙蒂蒂胸像被运往柏林。

At the time, many considered this kind of acquisition to be benign, even necessary, arguing that the museums would be suitable curators and custodians of the objects. That view is still invoked as the rationale to keep vast collections of antiquities in museum storerooms now. In 2002, more than a dozen leading museums, including the Louvre and the Met, signed on to a “Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums,” partly as a retort to Greece’s nagging claims for a return of the Parthenon marbles in London and to the growing criticism that these museums embodied a colonial view of culture that needed correcting.

在当时，很多人都觉得这样的文物获取是件好事，甚至有其必要性，因为博物馆才是合适的文物管理者和监护者。这一观点至今仍被视为在博物馆库房中存放大量文物的理由。2002年，包括卢浮宫和大都会博物馆在内的十多家顶级博物馆签署了《普世博物馆重要性及价值宣言》，部分原因就是为了回击希腊不断要求归还伦敦帕特农神庙大理石雕塑的呼声以及越来越多的批评，这些批评认为这些博物馆代表了需要纠正的殖民主义文化观。

“Over time, objects so acquired — whether by purchase, gift or partage — have become part of the museums that have cared for them, and by extension part of the heritage of the nations which house them,” the statement read. “To narrow the focus of museums whose collections are diverse and multifaceted would therefore be a disservice to all visitors.”

“随着时间推移，无论是通过购买、馈赠还是分配得来的文物都已成为其所存放博物馆的一部分，并延伸为其所在国家文化遗产的一部分，”该宣言中写道。“因此，要这些丰富多元的博物馆缩小收藏范围，将是所有观展者的损失。”

But the theft of objects from the bowels of the British Museum put the lie to that threadbare view: If these institutions fail at the fundamental task of physically protecting the treasures they are supposedly preserving, how can they justify keeping things they themselves have taken from other societies?

但大英博物馆库房内文物被盗事件揭穿了这一陈腐观点的假意：如果这些机构连保存珍贵文物完好的最基本工作都做不到，它们又如何证明自己理应保留从别国夺走的东西呢？

Indeed, the British Museum thefts might have gone unnoticed if not for an antiquities dealer who was browsing eBay and recognized an ancient Roman cameo as one from the museum’s collection. The dealer notified the museum in 2021 that, after tracking and buying many such objects, he had identified the anonymous seller via a PayPal account. The evidence presented by the dealer was doubly disturbing: Not only were the thefts an inside job, but they were allegedly carried out by a curator (who is now facing a police investigation) whose duty was to protect these objects.

事实上，如果不是一位古董商在eBay上认出了本属于大英博物馆藏品的古罗马浮雕，该馆被盗的问题可能至今都不会被发现。那位古董商在2021年就将此事告知博物馆方，在追踪并购买了许多赃品后，他通过一个PayPal账户确认了匿名卖家的身份。他提供的证据令人更加不安：盗窃不仅是内部作案，据称还是一名策展人（目前正在接受警方调查）实施的，而策展人的职责本应是保护这些文物。

As an investigative reporter, I spent years uncovering how the J. Paul Getty Museum, along with peer institutions in Boston, New York and elsewhere, had built world-class collections of Classical antiquities in the 1980s and ’90s by doing business with a thriving black market. After the Getty’s curator was criminally charged by the Italian government (a case that was later dropped when a three-judge panel ruled that the statute of limitations had expired), the mounting evidence compelled several museums to return over 100 looted antiquities to Italy, Greece, Turkey and beyond.

作为调查记者，我曾用数年时间揭露J·保罗·盖蒂博物馆——以及波士顿和纽约等地的同行机构——如何在上世纪80和90年代通过猖獗的黑市贸易打造出世界顶级的古典时期文物收藏。盖蒂博物馆馆长遭意大利政府提起刑事诉讼（由于一个三法官合议庭裁定诉讼时效已过，该案后来被撤销），此后越来越多的证据迫使多家博物馆将上百件掠夺而来的文物归还给意大利、希腊和土耳其等国。

Several antiquities dealers have likewise been heavily involved in the theft and sale of antiquities from across Asia, selling them to collectors and museums, including some in the United States. Some of the dealers have since faced criminal charges, and federal agents at Homeland Security Investigations, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency usually charged with investigating antiquities trafficking, have worked with federal and state prosecutors to seize and repatriate tens of thousands of looted objects.

许多古董商同样深度参与了亚洲各地文物的盗窃和销售，将这些文物卖给收藏家和博物馆，包括美国的一些。此后，部分古董商被提起刑事指控，国土安全调查局的联邦特工和通常负责调查文物走私的移民及海关执法局与联邦及州检察官合作，缴获并归还了数以万计被掠夺的文物。

European museums are facing a similar reckoning about their colonial acquisitions. A report commissioned by France’s president recommended the restitution of major artifacts and any illegally obtained works to African countries on the basis of bilateral agreements. Last year, Germany announced it would return more than 1,000 bronzes from the historical Kingdom of Benin.

欧洲的博物馆也面临对其殖民掠夺品的类似清算。一份法国总统委托编撰的报告建议，应以双边协议为基础向非洲国家归还重要文物和非法获得的藏品。去年，德国宣布将归还曾属于古代贝宁王国的1000多件青铜器。

As the very first of the universal museums, the British Museum built its collection over several hundred years of colonial boondoggles and the result is a treasure house of epic proportions: The collection contains some eight million objects (nobody knows for sure), of which only about 4.5 million have been fully documented online. A mere 1 percent are on display. But the museum is largely prohibited by law from disposing of its holdings, and it has often justified its position by invoking its ability to safeguard the world’s treasures.

作为全球首家普世博物馆，大英博物馆在数百年的殖民掠夺中建起巨大的收藏，成就了一座宏伟的文化宝库：该馆收藏了约800万件文物（没人能统计出确切数字），而在网上有完整记录的只有约450万件。展出文物还不到总数的1%。但法律基本上禁止该馆放弃藏品，该馆也总以捍卫世界宝藏的能力为由来证明其立场的正当性。

That position no longer makes sense. The universal museum, a relic of the Enlightenment, was never truly universal: Virtually all universal museums reside in Western cities, far beyond the reach of many of the communities from which their objects were taken. And there is nothing enlightened about hoarding the world’s culture in storage, unseen by many and often, apparently, unsafe.

但这种正当性如今已经站不住脚。作为启蒙运动的遗迹，普世博物馆从来没有真正的普世价值：几乎所有普世博物馆都在西方城市，是许多千里之外的社会——那些被掠夺的地方——根本无法触及的。把世界文化囤积在许多人看不到且明显往往并不安全的仓库里，毫无启蒙意义可言。

作者

Jason Felch曾是《洛杉矶时报》的调查记者，也是《追寻阿佛洛狄忒：在全球最富有博物馆寻找被掠夺文物》(Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum)一书的合著者。 翻译：Nic Wong

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