The Annals of the Joseon Dynasty

IRAQ
INTERPOL cooperation
At the beginning of the War in Iraq in March, 2003, Iraqi documents related to ancient Judaism were sent to the United States for repair and preservation but they later appeared in Israel. The 300 pages of documents include notes on the Book of Job published in 1487 and writings on Biblical prophecy published in 1617 in Venice, Italy. In cooperation with the international police organization, Iraq is trying to find clues about its lost cultural properties.

KENYA
Loan exhibition
In the early 2006, an exhibition on African cultural heritages was hosted in the National Museum of Kenya. The exhibits, including a valuable mask of circumcision that came from Western Kenya, were all provided by the British Museum. This is the first time the African cultural properties collected by the European museum were on display in their homeland. Such way of returning cultural properties stirred wide discussion at that time.

PERU
Negotiation, litigation
Peru has repatriated their cultural properties mainly through diplomatic channels, including direct negotiations and agreement with relevant countries. In this way, the country has recovered many of its treasures from Spain, Britain, Germany and America.

EGYPT
Beard of Great Sphinx returned after 166 years
It took Egypt 166 years and repeated requests to get back the beard of the Great Sphinx, which had long been stored in the British Museum. When the Cultural Minister of Egypt visited Britain in 1982, Egypt again demanded that Britain return the artifact and it complied the following year.

SOUTH KOREA
Annals of Joseon Dynasty returned
For more than 10 years, South Korea negotiated with Japan to recover its artifacts. In 2006, Japan returned the national treasure of South Korea the Annals of the Joseon Dynasty, which had been abroad for almost a century.