Germany returns plundered artefacts to indigenous Chugach people of Alaska
Berlin — Germany has restituted nine artefacts belonging to indigenous people in Alaska after determining they were plundered from graves. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees museums in the German capital, said on Wednesday that the burial objects were brought to Berlin in 1882-84 on commission by the then Royal Museum of Ethnology. But "everything shows today that the objects stemmed from a grave robbery and not from an approved archaeological dig", said the foundation. The objects, including two broken masks, a cradle and a wooden idol, were handed over to a representative of the Alaska’s Chugach people. "The objects were taken from the graves then without the consent of the indigenous people and were therefore removed unlawfully," said foundation president Hermann Parzinger. "As such, they don’t belong in our museums." The Chugach region of south-western Alaska has been inhabited for thousands of years by the Sugpiaq people, also known as the Alutiiq. Museum...
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