British Museum Under Threat

The British Museum seems to be increasingly under threat of gradual dismantlement as this or that group come along to claim that objects should be returned to their countries of origin.  I dislike this whole line of approach.

Firstly many objects do not have a single national origin.  Others such as the Gweagal shield are as much a part of one country's history as another's (In that case British history as well as Australian).  Still others, like the Parthenon marbles, were created by cultures that are now only tenuously related to the modern versions that now exist in the same place.  Of course, there is an important sense in which modern Greeks descend from fifth century Athens, but there is also an important sense that all Europeans descend from Fifth century Athens.  These factors make the whole concept of a simple "return" problematic.

There is also a more important sense in which dismantling the British Museum is a bad idea.  It is a museum of interconnectedness, not just a "national museum".  The interconnectedness is the subject matter.  Something important would be lost if that went.