#Stolen Statue

[conqueenror]

I love Mondstadt sm, and it's not because it is the "home region", but because it is a mysterious and sometimes even creepy region when you dig a little bit further

[justafanwarrior]

DP x DC Prompt #1

An old collection is finally shown again at the British Museum after being left in boxes for a few decades.

By coincidence one Tucker Foley, reincarnation of a Pharaoh, notices among the collection several items that used to belong to him. It doesn't take much (or anything) to convince Sam and Danny to go on a... Field trip yup field trip with him to London, a little vacation for his 24th birthday if you will. What do you mean his birthday isn't before several months? That's blasphemy.

They simply came during the day as to control the perimeter (and make a list of other artefacts that would suddenly be returned to their rightful place.)

They could not have planned that one Ra's Al Ghul also had several of his own personal items that he wished to retrieve among the very same collection. Or that he would decide to not only get them back himself but also at the same time.

[agerasiaa]

A crack fic about Lucifer, Vox and Husk making an Alastor Hate Club. And it’s just them once a week bonding over how much they hate Alastor and Husk realizes more and more how he doesn’t actually hate Alastor and is bitter about it, Lucifer randomly trauma dumps about his tragic life, and by each meeting Lucifer and Husk notice how Vox’s sheer hate borderlines on obsession and they share awkward glances every time he starts ranting and shows them his Alastor shrine or something. And when he makes some comments like “Alastor does this and that every day” (some very specific detail about him only a stalker/someone with a long history with Al would know) and the other two are like “how do you know” and he’s like “I just do.”

[souryellows]

there was a room in the old family farmhouse that was technically my uncle’s office but we just called it ‘the clown room’ because it was decorated floor to ceiling with clownery. clown paintings and posters. piles of clown magazines. clown statues. and even worse is the house was burnt down at one point and when they finished fixing it up they put the clown room back together with the same decorations, now all at least somewhat damaged in the fire, the worst of which were the horrific partially melted clown statues

[nelkcats]

Wrong Ticket

Danny bought a plane ticket to travel to Goshen, Indiana to visit his father's family. Apparently his aunt was very excited to meet him, and Jazz was excited to send him away from the lab after his accident.

She was worried that she would have to spend a few days scouting colleges, and Danny would be left home unguarded (she wouldn't make that mistake twice, her parents didn't count as good guards and Danny would be too bored since he was on school holidays), so the invitation from their uncles was like a miracle fallen from heaven.

Unfortunately for Danny, his family didn't check the ticket after purchasing it, and therefore they didn't notice the error where "Goshen, Indiana" was changed to "Gotham, New Jersey," so when the airline called his flight, Danny didn't notice his destination. He practically fell asleep a few seconds after entering the plane.

Danny wished he had been paying attention when a few hours later he found himself stranded on the streets of Gotham with nothing but his luggage and a little money. Though that last seemed more of a risk than a benefit if he took into account the way they watched him as he passed.

As if that wasn't enough, it seemed that something strange was starting to happen to him, there were moments where his backpack would slip from his grip, almost as if he was walking through it, and others where he felt invisible. This did not go unnoticed by the denizens of Gotham, who were assessing him with clear interest.

Red Hood, who had noticed the guy (possibly meta) stumbling into his territory, sighed and offered him a temporary place to stay. Danny, who just met the strange guy in the red helmet, was relieved to have temporary lodging, though he would probably look for another place the next day. Just in case.

[blueiscoool]

European Court Upholds Italy's Right to Seize Greek Bronze from Getty Museum

A European court on Thursday upheld Italy’s right to seize a prized Greek statue from the J. Paul Getty Museum in California, ruling that Italy was justified in trying to reclaim an important part of its cultural heritage and rejecting the museum’s appeal.

The European Court of Human Rights, or ECHR, determined that Italy’s decades-long efforts to recover the “Victorious Youth” statue from the Malibu-based Getty were not disproportionate.

“Victorious Youth,” a life-sized bronze dating from 300 B.C. to 100 B.C., is one of the highlights of the Getty’s collection. Though the artist is unknown, some scholars believe it was made by Lysippos, Alexander the Great’s personal sculptor.

The bronze, which was pulled from the sea in 1964 by Italian fishermen and then exported out of Italy illegally, was purchased by the Getty in 1977 for $4 million and has been on display there ever since.

The Getty had appealed to the European court after Italy’s high Court of Cassation in 2018 upheld a lower court’s confiscation order. The Getty had argued that its rights to the statue, under a European human rights protocol on protection of property, had been violated by Italy’s campaign to get it back.

The court ruled Thursday that no such violation had occurred.

“This is not just a victory for the Italian government. It’s a victory for culture,” said Maurizio Fiorilli, who as an Italian government attorney had spearheaded Italy’s efforts to recover its looted antiquities and, in particular, the Getty bronze.

The Getty has long defended its right to the statue, saying Italy had no legal claim to it.

Among other things, the Getty had argued that the statue is of Greek origin, was found in international waters and was never part of Italy’s cultural heritage. It cited a 1968 Court of Cassation ruling that found no evidence that the statue belonged to Italy.

Italy argued the statue was indeed part of its own cultural heritage, that it was brought to shore by Italians aboard an Italian-flagged ship and was exported illegally, without any customs declarations or payments.

After years of further legal wrangling, an Italian court in Pesaro in 2010 ordered the statue seized and returned, at the height of Italy’s campaign to recover antiquities looted from its territory and sold to museums and private collectors around the globe.

Thursday’s ruling by the Strasbourg, France-based ECHR was a chamber judgment. Both sides now have three months to ask that the case be heard by the court’s Grand Chamber for a final decision. But Thursday’s ruling was unanimous, with no dissenting judges, and the Grand Chamber can refuse to hear the case.

There was no immediate comment from the Getty, and its lawyers referred comment to the museum.

Italian Culture Minister Gennaro Sangiuliano praised Thursday’s decision as an “unequivocal ruling” that recognized the rights of the Italian state and its ownership of the statue.

“Following today’s ruling … the Italian government will restart contacts with U.S. authorities for assistance in the implementation of the confiscation order,” he said.

In a statement, he doubled down on Italy’s campaign to bring its looted treasures home, and noted that recently Italy has ceased cooperation with foreign museums that don’t recognize Italian legal confiscation orders.

Recently, Italy banned any loans to the Minneapolis Institute of Art following a dispute over an ancient marble statue believed to have been looted from Italy almost a half-century ago.

The Getty had appealed to the ECHR by arguing, among other things, that Italy’s 2010 confiscation order constituted a violation of its right to enjoy its possessions and that it would be deprived of that right if U.S. authorities carried out the seizure.

The ECHR however strongly reaffirmed Italy’s right to pursue the protection of its cultural heritage, especially from unlawful exportation.

“The court further held that owing, in particular, to the Getty Trust’s negligence or bad faith in purchasing the statue despite being aware of the claims of the Italian state and their efforts to recover it, the confiscation order had been proportionate to the aim of ensuring the return of an object that was part of Italy’s cultural heritage,” said the summary of the ruling.

It wasn’t immediately clear what would happen next, though Fiorilli said the Getty had exhausted legal remedies and it’s now for U.S. the courts to enforce the Italian confiscation order.

“It’s not about guaranteeing the right to property, it’s about guaranteeing the internationally recognized value of every nation’s right to protect its cultural patrimony,” Fiorilli told The Associated Press over the telephone.

The statue, nicknamed the “Getty Bronze,” is a signature piece for the museum. Standing about 5 feet (1.52 meters) tall, the statue of the young athlete raising his right hand to an olive wreath crown around his head is one of the few life-sized Greek bronzes to have survived.

The bronze is believed to have sunk with the ship that was carrying it to Italy after the Romans conquered Greece. After being found in the nets of Italian fishermen trawling in international waters in 1964, it was allegedly buried in an Italian cabbage patch and hidden in a priest’s bathtub before it was taken out of the country.

Italy has successfully won back thousands of artifacts from museums, collections and private owners around the world that it says were looted or stolen from the country illegally, and recently opened a museum to house them until they can be returned to the regions from where they were looted.

The most important work to date that Italy has successfully brought back is the Euphronios Krater, one of the finest ancient Greek vases in existence. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which purchased it for $1 million in 1972 from an art dealer later accused of acquiring looted artifacts, returned it to Italy in 2008.

In 2010, the same year that Italy ordered the “Victorious Youth” statue confiscated from the Getty, a criminal trial ended in Rome against the Getty’s former curator of antiquities, Marion True. After years of trial, the Rome court ruled that the statute of limitations had expired on charges that True received stolen artifacts. She has denied wrongdoing.

In 2007, the Getty, without admitting any wrongdoing, agreed to return 40 ancient treasures in exchange for the long-term loans of other artifacts. Similar deals have been reached with other museums.

Under the 2007 deal, the two sides agreed to postpone further discussion of “Victorious Youth” until the court case was decided.

By Nicole Winfield.

[scrambledlikeeggs]

watching beastars with my dog so if he’s gay he knows I support him

[soulless-bex]

pjo x mcu au where Nick Fury learns about the mythological world and, in exchange for being gifted with clearsight (because he’s Nick Fury and not being able to see/know everything is making his paranoia worse), he gives the demigods their own subdivision of shield with the fundings that comes with to take care of mythological threats

did i mention that Fury gets to have little to no control over said subdivision? like, he knows what they’re doing, but he knows better than to tell them what to do

cue the Avengers being exceedingly frustrated when everyone refuses to tell them what the new shield department is for, and even more so when Percy (who is obviously the head of the department what do you mean) starts to tell them (read: order) to leave his team alone

[chernobog13]

Giant Monster Wardoris couldn't figure out why Miss Liberty wouldn't respond to his amorous advances.

Giant Monster Wardoris was not very smart.

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

Raised in Amphibia AU Marcy has a very complicated relationship with Andrias. They love each other and see each other as father and daughter. He never yells at her, never raised a hand at her, yet she's so utterly terrified of him. She doesn't even know why she feels like this, but all she wants is to not lose his love and to make him proud, and feels like she's always in debt, always failing at earning her place, always desperately two steps behind, never quite pleasing him.

She gives up so much of herself to earn his love and approval... she keeps most of her less useful interests secret, she doesn't have any friends except for maybe Lady Olivia, she drops whatever she's doing, no matter how important, to go to her father when he calls her, she "forgets" about her feelings when they're inconvenient to him...

She used to wear her hair long because he liked it. He never pressured her to wear it like that, possibly didn't even notice the effects his words had on her, but he once said it's what's traditional for the Leviathan royal family, and that it looked good in her, and she was determined to keep hers as long as possible, until one day she can't handle all the stress and anxiety and she desperately cuts it all in her bedchambers. Now it's so short, barely reaching her jaw. She cried herself to sleep that night. Andrias didn't say anything about it, only that it looked nice, and Marcy feels her heart sink - she let it grow for years no matter how uncomfortable it was or how little she liked it for nothing.

[kookiekult]

BRO I WENT TO A WAX MUSEUM TODAY AND THERE WAS A STATUE OF HUGH JACKMAN

OH MY GOD

DID IT LOOK LIKE HIM

WHAT WAS HE WEARINGGG

[drethelin]

Everyone responding to this poll chooses between a blue pill or red pill. - if > 50% of ppl choose blue pill, everyone lives - if not, red pills live and blue pills die Which do you choose?

[coffeeisfortheresponsible]

i only draw my ocs sorry gang i promise more ninjago stuff is coming soon 🙏🏻🙏🏻

take this comic that i actually adore maybe i’ll explain it someday lol

[leluxiboi]

thinking about my twst oc thats a shapeshifter and everything people know about him is an elaborate lie because he's been pretending to be his childhood friend who happens to be royalty for years ever since the Incident(TM)

yeah by the way he's in scarabia, which shouldn't be a surprise

[blueiscoool]

The Cleveland Museum of Art to Return a 2,200-Year-Old Statue to Libya

A statue of a bearded man striding forward was crafted from black basalt over 2,000 years ago during the Ptolemaic dynasty.

Now, it’s finally set to return to Libya, where it was looted during British occupation in World War II, according to the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The museum, which has held the piece since 1991, announced the planned return in a Wednesday news release.

“Based on new information provided by the Department of Antiquities and research undertaken at the CMA, the museum voluntarily recognizes the statue as the property of Libya,” the news release read.

Mohamed Faraj Mohamed, head of Libya’s Department of Antiquities, said in the news release the department appreciated “the willingness of the Cleveland Museum of Art to work with the department in accomplishing the transfer of this important work.”

“We look forward to continued cooperation with the museum,” he said.

The statue stands almost two feet tall and was formed from basalt, a “hard volcanic rock formed from lava,” according to the museum’s website. The bearded man is dressed in “contemporary fashion” of the time: He’s wearing “a T-shirt, wraparound skirt, and shawl.”

The figure was discovered in a large storage jar during 1937-1938 excavations of the Columned Palace at Ptolemais in Cyrenaica, now part of eastern Libya, according to a statement shared by the Cleveland Museum of Art.

The statue then ended up at the Ptolemais Museum in Libya, which was destroyed during the British occupation of the area. A 1950 publication by an Italian scholar noted the sculpture was “was likely lost in 1941.”

By 1960, the piece had made its way to Lucerne, Switzerland. The statue spent the decades between 1966 and 1991 in the private collection of New York art collectors Lawrence and Barbara Fleischman and was donated to the museum in 1991.

“Given the rarity of the sculpture type – carved of stone, with precise replicas very unlikely – and the extremely close resemblance between the sculpture given to the CMA in 1991 and the sculpture described and illustrated in 1950, together with the wartime events that took place in Libya, the CMA has concluded that the sculpture rightfully belongs to Libya,” the museum said.

By Zoe Sottile.

[satsuha]