Inside the British Museum’s Looted Legacy | OFei Lens

The British Museum stands as one of the world’s most visited cultural institutions, attracting more than 6 million visitors every year. Yet how many of those visitors realise they are walking through what is essentially a crime scene? Its marble halls are filled with the spoils of empire, a monument not only to art and history but to theft, denial and the power that rewrites the past. Out of the museum’s 8 million artefacts, historians estimate that between one and two million were taken under colonial conditions — seized, looted or acquired through the power imbalance of empire.

A Museum Built on Plunder

The British Museum likes to call itself “the first national public museum of the world,” a place to “experience cultures across the globe from the dawn of human history to the present.”
But whose history, exactly?

Founded in 1753, the museum grew alongside the rise of the British Empire, an empire that stretched across continents and subjugated millions. From Africa to Asia, from the Pacific Islands to the Middle East, artefacts were not collected, they were taken. Looted in wars, seized in the name of “science,” or simply gifted to Britain by colonial administrators who believed they owned everything they saw.

The museum’s foundations are inseparable from conquest. It is not a neutral space. It is an archive of appropriation, where the violence of empire has been polished into prestige.

The Benin Bronzes: Beauty Behind Bloodshed

In 1897, British troops invaded the Kingdom of Benin, now southern Nigeria, in what history books politely call a “punitive expedition.” They burned the city to the ground and killed thousands.

When the fires died, they looted thousands of bronze and ivory sculptures from royal palaces, masterpieces that told centuries of Benin’s story. The treasures were shipped to London, catalogued and auctioned.

Today, the British Museum still holds over 900 of them. They are displayed under soft lighting, with plaques describing their craftsmanship but not the massacre that brought them here.

In October 2021, Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Information and Culture issued a formal written request for the return of the Benin Bronzes, stating that they were “looted artefacts that rightfully belong to the people of Nigeria.” The British Museum confirmed receiving the letter and replied by asking for “points of clarification” (British Museum statement, BBC News 2021).

When Nigeria asks for them back, Britain speaks of “legal ownership” and “the importance of global access.”

The irony is staggering — a country that believes the world should come to London to admire what it stole, yet resents the very idea of that world living among them.

Gold from the Ashanti Kingdom

From West Africa came gold, the lifeblood of empire.
In 1874, British forces invaded the Asante Kingdom, now part of Ghana, looting royal regalia, ceremonial swords and golden ornaments of deep cultural significance.

Some of these artefacts ended up in the British Museum, others in private collections and palaces. Each object represents not just artistic mastery but humiliation, a reminder of power stripped away and displayed as curiosity.

In 2024, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum announced a deal to loan a collection of Asante gold and silver regalia back to Ghana for three years, after which they must be returned to London in 2027.

Not gifted. Not restored. Loaned.

The very idea that Britain can lend something it stole is obscene. It is colonial arrogance repackaged as generosity, a moral absurdity dressed up as diplomacy. To take what is sacred, keep it for a century, then lend it back with conditions is not restitution. It is ridicule.

And yet, Britain calls it progress.

The Excuse of Universal Heritage

The British Museum’s defence has remained the same for decades:
that it is a universal museum, preserving the world’s treasures for all humanity.

It is a seductive argument, one that hides behind ideals of scholarship and accessibility. But at its core lies the same colonial logic that built the empire: we know better.

By refusing to return what was stolen, the museum claims moral superiority under the guise of education. Yet the truth is simpler, it fears the precedent. If one artefact goes back, others must follow. If one wound is acknowledged, others might bleed.

The Evidence on Display

Walk through the British Museum and you are surrounded by proof. Every room is a confession carved in stone, cast in bronze or woven in gold.

Here are ten of the most heavily contested and symbolically valuable artefacts in its collection, each a story of beauty, violence and denial.

1. The Rosetta Stone (Egypt, 196 BC)
   Seized by British forces in 1801 after defeating Napoleon in Egypt. The stone unlocked the language of ancient Egypt, yet remains in London despite Egypt’s official request for its return (Egyptian government, 2022; BBC).

2. The Parthenon Sculptures (Greece, 5th century BC)
   Removed by Lord Elgin from the Parthenon in Athens between 1801 and 1812, during Ottoman occupation. Greece has formally requested their return multiple times since the 1980s, most recently in 2023 (BBC, The Guardian).

3. The Benin Bronzes (Nigeria, 16th–17th century)
   Looted during the 1897 British invasion of Benin City. The museum holds several hundred pieces. Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Information and Culture sent a written request for their return in 2021, confirmed by the British Museum (BBC, British Museum statement).

4. Asante Gold Regalia (Ghana, 19th century)
   Taken after British military campaigns against the Asante Kingdom. In 2024, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum agreed to loan 15 pieces back to Ghana until 2027, after which they must be returned to London (The Guardian, Forbes, January 2024).

5. Hoa Hakananai’a (Easter Island, Rapa Nui, late 18th–19th century)
   A sacred moai statue removed by a British ship in 1868. The Rapa Nui people have requested its return repeatedly since 2018, calling it a living ancestor, not an artefact (BBC, 2018).

6. Māori Mokomokai (New Zealand, 18th–19th century)
   Preserved tattooed heads of Māori individuals, traded and collected during colonial times. New Zealand’s Te Papa Museum and government continue negotiations for their repatriation (BBC, 2023).

7. Gandhara Sculptures (Afghanistan and Pakistan, 1st–3rd century)
   Taken during the British colonial period in South Asia. Many were removed from temples and archaeological sites under imperial “excavation” permits that would be illegal today (The Guardian, 2021).

8. Assyrian Lion Hunt Reliefs (Iraq, 7th century BC)
   Excavated from the royal palace of Ashurbanipal in Nineveh and transported to London in the 1850s. Iraq’s government has raised concerns about the loss of heritage and asked for discussions on cultural cooperation (UNESCO, 2019).

9. Egyptian Mummies and Sarcophagi (Egypt, various dynasties)
   Hundreds of mummies and burial goods were exported under colonial-era “dig” permits that ignored Egyptian sovereignty. Egypt’s Antiquities Ministry has called for the return of several human remains and artefacts (Al Jazeera, 2023).

10. The Lewis Chessmen (Scotland and Norway, 12th century)
    Discovered on the Isle of Lewis but believed to originate from Norway. While not colonial loot, Scotland has formally requested that all pieces be permanently displayed in Scotland (BBC, 2019).

A Changing Tide

The world, however, is changing.

Germany has begun returning Benin Bronzes. Belgium is returning Congolese artefacts. France has also pledged to repatriate treasures taken during colonial rule, although it continues to maintain a financial grip over several African nations through the CFA franc system, a structure critics describe as a colonial tax that keeps former colonies economically tied to Paris. Even institutions once complicit in silence are starting to speak.

And yet the British Museum remains defiant, offering “long term loans” as if lending someone their own history is generosity.

Ironically, the museum itself has been plagued by thefts from within. In 2023, hundreds of artefacts were reported missing, stolen by a curator. A fitting metaphor for an institution built on taking what is not theirs.

Rewriting the Narrative

To decolonise a museum is not merely to return artefacts. It is to confront the story they tell.
Every label, every display case, every guided tour shapes how the world understands its past. And for too long, that story has centred the coloniser, not the colonised.

True restitution means more than boxes on planes, it means acknowledging the empire behind the exhibits. It means teaching visitors that beauty and brutality can coexist, that the splendour they admire was bought with blood.

My suggestion is simple. Return the artefacts. Replace them with replicas if necessary. Then tell the real story — the story of how these pieces were taken, the lives they belonged to, and the empire that claimed them. Only then can a museum claim to educate, rather than erase.

A Legacy Under Glass

The British Museum stands today as a paradox, a national treasure built on other nations’ treasures.
Its marble halls whisper stories that Britain still struggles to hear.

Returning the artefacts will not erase history. But refusing to do so ensures that the injustice continues.
Until Britain faces that truth, the museum remains what it has always been — a house of stolen memories, a monument to empire disguised as culture.

Beyond One Museum

And the British Museum is not even the worst offender. The British Royal Family still holds some of the most famous stolen treasures in the world. The Kohinoor Diamond, seized from India and forced into the hands of Queen Victoria, now sits in the Queen Mother’s Crown. The Great Star of Africa, the largest clear cut diamond ever found, taken from South Africa under colonial rule, sits at the centre of the Sovereign’s Sceptre. These objects are not heirlooms. They are loot, still paraded in royal regalia while Britain pretends the empire is over.