One of the most pressing problems of modern interactions with objects and sites of significant cultural heritage is the question of ownership. Who exactly is positioned to inherit the rich meanings and knowledge of these sites of global heritage? Amidst global calls for repatriation of stolen and illicitly acquired antiquities, it is more necessary than ever to ask ourselves: Who are the appropriate stewards of world heritage sites?

The legitimacy of the British Museum’s claim to the Parthenon marbles has been compelling questioned; the reconversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque signals a political motion towards ethno-nationalism and Erdogan’s imperial nostalgia; the occupation and looting of Palmyra by ISIS has brought into global circulation blood antiquities. How, then, should we treat these illicitly acquired and unprovenanced antiquities? To whom do they belong? Who has a legitimate claim to the ownership of a site?

Scholars such as James Cuno and John Henry Merryman have argued that the imperatives which should govern our interactions with these objects and sites of global cultural heritage is to consider a triad of constraints: Firstly, preservation—how can we best protect and preserve the object? Secondly, knowledge—how can we best gain insights into the historical, scientific, cultural, and aesthetic knowledge contained within the object? And lastly, access—how can we ensure the object is accessible for study, enjoyment, and whatever function it was intended to serve? This framework is certainly valuable; however, it has also been used to justify the acquisition of unprovenanced items by museums and private collectors, who buy into a Eurocentric and saviorist paradigm which positions the (often) colonial Western museum as a more suitable guardian of a cultural inheritance than the society from which it originated in the first place.

We would like to amend and add to this existing framework: Considerations of origin and meaning to the peoples who inhabit, contribute to, and interact with the site and object are also critical and should be the central concern in shaping how we interact with and preserve a site. Antiquities and antique sites are not dead places and objects to be studied and collected; instead, they are often times places of living cultural exchange and development.