Mike Pitts

Dan likes to hype up the damage

And chaired by me. See you there!

Ignoring what’s actually being done - analytical curating, collaborative working with affected communities, historic research & more - is a feature of too much “anti-colonial” campaigning aimed at museums. Ditching sensitivity and progress in favour of having your name out there attached to a cause

The Guardian’s reporting on the numbers, which seems to rely on what campaigners have supplied rather than any research or checking, is abysmal. But as bad I think is the rhetoric, on the one hand implying museums don’t give a shit, on the other hyping up damage & atrocity as if hurt is a goal

OK, I have to get this! Revisit memories of Bognor cinema with my mum (my parents preferred Chichester for everything, but it wasn’t on there). Plus playing singles with my mate Humph who had a record player and knew how to make vinaigrette to serve with avocados

Moai Find out about the two large stone moai from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) that the Museum cares for.

Looking at the BM's page on Hoa Hakananai‘a & how the museum & Rapanui Islanders are collaborating, I notice a typo that took me back to childhood Top of the Pops. The island's museum is the Sebastian Englert Anthropological Museum. Not the Englebert Museum
www.britishmuseum.org/about-us/bri...

Here is my second post about Hoa Hakananai'a & the time it was removed from Rapa Nui in 1868. It expands on the Sunday Times story about my identification of a remarkable photo of the men who dug the statue up– 1 of 3 taken at the same time on board HMS Topaze
mikepitts.wordpress.com/2026/03/04/a...

RIP David Harding, a very archaeological artist. It's explicit in Henge, a listed spiral of concrete megaliths, but powerful in this collaborative work Empty Television. All that remains is the material, weathered into place
www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

I assume he just believes it

This is very odd coming from an academic:
“So much of the research on ancient coins is done by the collecting community, all around the world. Without their contribution, we would know very little”

Absolutely. And as with most cases of this kind, even if there were any sort of apparently formal agreement that would not be the end of it. I always think of the Elgin marbles, where there’s been much ink spilled over a putative but missing permit. If such were ever found the arguing would not stop

Rooks excited by the warm weather, fighting (noisily) for occupation of an established nest

Nice reward for being up early this morning, lovely light in the mist

Ivan Hall, impassioned architectural historian who joined the Georgian Group aged 12 In 1980, with his Hull University colleagues, he launched a campaign to protect the south side of Beverley Minster from ugly development

RIP Ivan Hall "authority on Georgian architecture & fervent campaigner for historic buildings" joined Historic England 1984
"Like all self-respecting architectural historians, he never held a driving licence…. although he relished research, never enjoyed writing"
www.telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/2...

I feel strongly that casts or replicas, however well done (the AMNH is a copy not a real cast) are a distraction in this context. This is a key, often ignored point. Museum objects have their own history & cultural memory, as important as such things matter to objects where they were made

I’m old enough to remember British forces sinking the Argentinian ship General Belgrano with torpedoes, with considerable loss of life, in 1982. World War Two ended in 1945

Thanks Jim.Hope you make it out there, it’s an extraordinary place

A story of a statue once on Rapa Nui. Part 2: The photo This is a prolonged detective story. In my previous post, I wrote about the only known eyewitness account of the removal of a statue known as Hoa Hakananai‘a from Rapa Nui. The carving was taken by men from HMS Topaze, and the report was written shortly after the ship visited the island in 1868, while it was docked in Valparaíso, Chile.

A story of a statue once on Rapa Nui. Part 2: The photo

This is a prolonged detective story. In my previous post, I wrote about the only known eyewitness account of the removal of a statue known as Hoa Hakananai‘a from Rapa Nui. The carving was taken by men from HMS Topaze, and the report was…

As it was for me as a student, Gordon Childe would be at the heart of it

I could give a whole teaching course about this stuff, tho who’d be interested is another matter!

There’s plenty to say about what I think he’s addressing but from an outsider perspective it’s the REF that’s odd & ignored by most of society. The rest is much too big to yield to a single label (& what about Julian Cope’s modern antiquarians or Diaz-Griffith’s collector new antiquarians?)

I shouldn't, but I find the mix of enthusiasm and bonkers thinking quite endearing. For anyone unfamiliar with Rapa Nui, the figure on the left is a bad, modern copy of a real statue

If you know anything about archaeology and you'd like a laugh...
www.msn.com/en-us/video/...

And ended the day in the British Museum. So nice to see old friends and make new acquaintances in these glorious spaces (and a nod to Ramesses)

Started the day yesterday with Ramses at the Battersea Power Station. See my review in the Spectator in a week's time

Ah no, i saw the first Dr Who broadcast (a boast of my daughter) as the headmaster of the boarding school thought it was something we should see & arranged a viewing for us

Probably a Paul Johnstone production, but as far as memory goes I’d have been in bed when that was broadcast (& was not allowed to watch TV anyway!)

Fab photo Toby!

Royal Artillery under fire after denying access to looted Asante treasure ‘Extraordinary’ golden lamb’s head pillaged in 1874 from what is now Ghana remains hidden in officers’ mess

Amazing what antiquities lie hidden in Wiltshire. This sounds more like a jobsworth cockup than a conspiracy
www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

A story of a statue once on Rapa Nui. Part 1: The report Rapa Nui November 1868, watercolour by John Linton Palmer (Royal Geographical Society) Hoa Hakananai‘a is a famous statue in the British Museum. It was taken from Rapa Nui by HMS Topaze in 1868. Yo…

I've updated the first of two blogs looking into (much!) more detail of the circumstances of the removal of Hoa Hakananai‘a from Rapa Nui, as reported by the Sunday Times. This one's about the eyewitness text. The next will be about the contemporary photo
mikepitts.wordpress.com/2026/02/23/a...