Jamaica To British Museum: Hand Back Taino Sculptures.

  The Jamaica Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport is moving to retrieve precolonial indigenous sculptures held in the British Museum (Jonathan Mason, 'Jamaica To British Museum: Hand Back Taino Sculptures', The St Kitts Nevis Observer November 10, 2020).

Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport, Hon. Olivia Grange, said that “as Minister, I am determined to ensure the repatriation of cultural objects taken from Jamaica, which constitute our rich cultural heritage,” [...] Minister Grange said the return of the artefacts “will fill the gaps in our history that are critical to the process of understanding ourselves and fostering greater cultural awareness”. [...] She noted that in 1981, the British High Commission in Jamaica had identified approximately 137 objects from Jamaica that were housed at the British Museum.[...] the Taino sculptures were removed from a cave in Carpenter’s Mountain in the parish of Vere, now known as Manchester, during the 18th century. Those objects are also called Carpenter’s Mountain carvings. “The objects are slated to have been acquired by the British Museum in the period between 1799 and 1803. They were formally entered into the Museum’s collection in 1977,” the document says further.[...] Hopefully some kind of arrangement can be worked out between the Jamaica National Museum and the British Museum over the future of these historically important objects. Perhaps a time-share arrangement by which the originals and replicas are swapped back and forth would allow for the artefacts to be viewed and studied by the largest number of people on both sides of the Atlantic.