Hong Kong Redux - On the Authenticity of Looted Antiquities and the Ethics of Studying Them

May 2, 2023
Hong Kong Redux
On the Authenticity of Looted Antiquities and the Ethics of Studying Them

From ancient times, China has always been plagued by tomb-robbing, a problem that has become ever more severe over the last thirty years. In this talk, Professor Edward Shaughnessy, Lorraine J. and Herrlee G. Creel Distinguished Service Professor in Early Chinese Studies of the University of Chicago, will examine four different robbed artifacts: the Jin Hou Su bells in the Shanghai Museum, the Bin Gong xu in the Poly Museum of Beijing, the Warring States Chu manuscript Zi yi in the Shanghai Museum, and the Warring States Chu manuscript in the collection of Tsinghua University, and show on the basis of various types of information that all four are certainly authentic. Professor Shaughnessy notes that there is perhaps a serious ethical problem in using these robbed artifacts: to what extent are the Chinese cultural and educational institutions that buy these robbed artifacts on the Hong Kong antique market repatriating them to the mother country, or are they supporting the illicit antiquities market and encouraging even more tomb-robbing? Based on the 1972 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) treaty concerning the import and export of cultural artifacts, he argues that the actions of the Chinese institutions are legal, and that even though there is certainly the unhappy side-effect of further encouraging tomb-robbing, once the artifacts have been robbed, there are both scholarly and ethical imperatives to return them to China.

Speaker
Edward L. Shaughnessy
Lorraine J. and Herrlee G. Creel Distinguished Service Professor in Early Chinese Studies
Department of East Asian Languages and Civilizations
The University of Chicago

Moderator
Mark Barnekow (MBA’88)
Executive Director
The University of Chicago Yuen Campus in Hong Kong

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▬ Content of the Talk ▬
Opening - 0:00
Edward Shaughnessy’s presentation - 4:06
Q&A session - 1:10:45
Ending - 1:31:50