BRITAIN’S most prized historical artefacts risk being demonised, after pressure from left-wing groups has led to a team being created at the British Museum in London to review its collection.
The British Museum has hired a left-wing curator to delve into the history of its eight million objects and examine claims of the museum’s connection to the slave trade.
Historian Dr Isobel MacDonald is to lead the museum’s ‘History of Collection’ research, which will examine how objects have arrived into the collection since its 1759 founding.
Numerous artefacts in the museum’s collection stand accused of having links to the slave trade, including the Elgin Marbles, the Benin Bronzes and the Rosetta Stone.
A museum spokesman told The Art Newspaper it was likely that issues such as the ‘role of the slave trade and empire’ would be ‘relevant’ to Dr Macdonald’s research.
The museum’s original collection of 71,000 artefacts were left to it by its founder Sir Hans Sloane, who had links to slavery.
In August, bosses at the world-famous museum buckled to pressure from the marxist movement Black Lives Matter, and removed a bust of Sloane from a pedestal – later being warned by Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden that they risked losing taxpayer support if they removed artefacts on political grounds.
A museum spokesman said: ‘The primary purpose of this curatorial role is to carry out a high level analysis of the history of the Museum’s collection.
‘It will look at the wider patterns of how different types of object from different parts of the world entered the Museum collection over the last 250 years and place those in a broader historical context.’
Meanwhile, growing anger mounts over public money being wasted by Sadiq Khan on a taskforce to review key street names and landmarks in London for links to the slave trade.
The 15-strong task force is to consist of far-left activists, including actor Riz Ahmed, made famous by the terrorist parody film Three Lions. Ahmed has previously said on national television that Boris Johnson is ‘an out-and-out complete c***’ who is ‘overtly racist’ and ‘blatantly lies to the public’. It also includes an anti-colonial protestor who ranted at the Queen during a live ceremony, and another who openly supported the illegal vandalising of statues.
Home Secretary Priti Patel has criticised the move, stating that it amounted to an attempt to ‘re-write history’.
