Dr Summer Rose Austin

I wonder if it would be at all fruitful to compare the initial rhetoric coinciding with the rise of personal computers and the internet to the rise of AI. Looking at how its talked about, how it is marketed, how we accept it, fear it, reject it, etc. And if there are lessons to be learned?

Leading Russian archaeologist arrested in Poland over Crimean excavations Ukraine has requested the extradition of the State Hermitage Museum’s Alexander Butyagin, who seized artefacts including ancient Greek coins

Antiquities and archaeological heritage are central to Russia’s campaign to claim Ukrainian territory and identity, not just in Crimea but in other occupied Ukrainian territories. Ukraine, in response, has placed dozens of archaeologists working for Russia.
www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/03/06/r...

Major Brazilian art heist still unsolved as statute of limitations expires Paintings by Monet, Matisse, Dalí and Picasso were snatched in a cinematic heist from Rio de Janeiro’s Museu da Chácara do Céu in 2006

For Tardáguila, the case was simply swallowed by administrative routine. “Given the way Brazil protects its cultural heritage, something like this could happen again at any time,” she warns.

www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/03/05/m...

Art thief stole 300 pieces from British Museum before he was caught The former staff member used razors to scrape off labels on prints to avoid identification, before he was stopped as he left the museum with 35 works of art

Seems to be a recurring issue at the BM but with what seems to be a very different response (criminial vs civil approach).
www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/art...

Come join me and the @uclarchaeology.bsky.social team! Teaching replacement post in Museum Studies, 1 year contract: www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Bill aimed at giving Israel control over all West Bank heritage sites sparks concern Campaign groups have claimed the proposal violates international law, while Israel maintains it is about taking responsibility for and protecting Jewish heritage

www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/02/10/b...

Thieves empty Dutch silver museum in early morning heist The robbery of the Doesburg Silver Museum is the latest in a spate of precious metal heists in the Netherlands

www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/01/22/t...

Meet the global taskforce working to recover stolen cultural heritage A reporter for The Art Newspaper has been on the scene with the Heritage Crime Task Force (HCTF), tracking, identifying and repatriating a wide variety of art and antiquities lost to crime and conflic...

www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/01/19/g...

Sale of Chinese Vase Canceled by French Court Over Question of Provenance The sale of a Chinese vase to Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani was cancelled by a French court over questions about its provenance.

Because trusting experts is bad?

The lawyer for Galerie Kraemer expressed disappointment with the decision and said: “All dealers should be concerned that it only takes a couple of experts to raise doubts about dates to cancel the sale of such a marvelous object.”

www.artnews.com/art-news/new...

Man Steals Sword From Joan of Arc Statue in Paris The suspect reportedly climbed the bronze sculpture and broke off the French heroine’s weapon with a snap.

hyperallergic.com/man-steals-s...

British Museum Launches Farcical “Decolonizing” Loan Program Long-term loans to former colonies are not restitution. They do not acknowledge historical wrongdoing, nor do they restore agency to source communities.

@dremilinesmith.bsky.social with some reflections on the British Museum's latest ploy hyperallergic.com/british-muse...

Looking forward to the engaging and inspiring conversations taking place at TAG 2025 @tag2025york.bsky.social.

Hundreds of items stolen in 'high-value' Bristol museum raid More than 600 artefacts from the museum's British Empire and Commonwealth collection were taken.

Yet another museum theft, this time at Bristol museum
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I called my recipe book Sabzi – vegetables. But the name was trademarked. And my legal ordeal began The granting of patents and trademarks to foods and words from the global south is part of a long colonial grab. It’s time to realise we share what we cook, and what we call it

The legacies of colonialism and control are not confined to museums, they are evident in often overlooked aspects of life today. Yasmin Khans’ ordeal sheds light on how these legacies are still weaponised today.

www.theguardian.com/food/comment...

Cambodian Government Requests Records from Disgraced Art Historian and Denver Art Museum Board Member Cambodia reached out to the family of Emma C. Bunker, an art historian who died in 2021 and who sat on the board of Denver Art Museum, for records.

Receipts are about to come to light 🧾
www.artnews.com/art-news/new...

The Heist of Its Culinary Crown Jewels Rocks a French Village

Its snail jail for these thieves 🐌
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/04/w...

In New Filing, Philadelphia Art Museum Accuses Ex-Director Sasha Suda of Theft Earlier this month, Sasha Suda filed a civil suit against the Philadelphia Art Museum. On Thursday, the museum filed its response.

This case is getting spicy 👀 www.artnews.com/art-news/new...

Canadian government commits to enacting artist’s resale rights law The recently passed federal budget includes a pledge to provide artists royalties when their work is resold on the secondary market

www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/11/24/c...

Massive thanks to all our contributors and to @ucl.ac.uk for funding the Open Access fees

This interdisciplinary volume brings together scholars and practitioners across criminology, archaeology, heritage studies and data science. It explores how open-source digital methods can help trace the ownership, provenance, and movement of cultural objects, especially within illicit networks.

📚 I’m thrilled to share that “Researching a Rigged Game: Digital Approaches to Tracing the Illicit Trade in Cultural Objects”, edited by @dremilinesmith.bsky.social and myself, is now published and available as Open Access via @springernature.com.

🔗https://lnkd.in/gBCv2KDH

Egypt’s Grand Museum Is Finally Open. Now, ‘We Need Our Stuff Back.’

“The old arguments against return are crumbling,” @monicahanna.bsky.social The new museum, she argued, was a signal to the world: “Egypt possesses the capacity, the will and the world-class facilities to house its own heritage.” www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/a...

Vatican Museums will return rare Indigenous kayak to Canada The Vatican is working with the Canadian Catholic Church to return Indigenous artefacts

In an era marked in Canada by systems of forced conversion and the moral scourge of residential schools, this Inuvialuit kayak serves as a reminder of colonialist iniquity and Indigenous resilience. www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/11/06/v...

Limestone relief disappears from Egypt’s Saqqara necropolis The work, taken from the tomb of a vizier called Khentika, features a motif that is extremely rare in Ancient Egyptian art

www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/10/08/l...

The Pushkin job: unmasking the thieves behind an international rare books heist The long read: Between 2022 and 2023, as many as 170 rare and valuable editions of Russian classics were stolen from libraries across Europe. Were the thieves merely low-level opportunists, or were bi...

A really interesting read about rare book thefts
www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

Excited (and relieved!) to share that I have officially submitted my doctoral thesis: “Tut on Tour: 30 Years of Demand Creation through Blockbuster Exhibition” at @uclarchaeology.bsky.social

I’m grateful to my supervisors, colleagues, friends, and family for their unending support throughout!

ChatGPT’s interpretation of contested memoryscapes favours the voice of current governments, capitalism and the far-right This study examines political biases in ChatGPT-4o’s interpretations of memoryscapes linked to dictatorial regimes in Spanish-speaking countries. Using a least-to-most prompting model and a Discour...

'ChatGPT’s interpretation of contested memoryscapes favours the voice of current governments, capitalism and the far-right'. Our new article, led by Tania Gonzáles Cantera, is out. It is an outcome of Tania's visit to the #HeritageMindsLab @hcaatedinburgh.bsky.social last yr doi.org/10.1080/1352...

On top of the valid points made by Morgan, this is an example of broadcasting a list of sites exact locations without protections in place, literally providing potential looters a map to sites that are not protected. All as a publicity stunt. #dobetter

Auction houses, dealers, eBay…any and all of it is suspect.

France returns three human skulls to Madagascar—including one that may have belonged to a king The restitution is the first to take place under a 2023 French law on the return of human remains

www.theartnewspaper.com/2025/08/27/f...