alt Hacker News> After all, the British Museum, the main example for restitutions, is located in a global city, given completely free access to its huge collection on display and pays for preservation. The global cultural value it adds is much larger than individual museums all over the would could provide.
Most of the collection of the British Museum is not on display at any given moment (if ever). They could lose 90% of their inventory and the display would be exactly the same.
But that's beside the point. Museum entry may be free, but London is pretty expensive to go to, especially if you are from a place where the items in question were plundered (ie poor third world countries). In some cases it may even be illegal. Most of the people whose cultures those items belong to cannot afford to go visit the museum.
Most of these third world countries also have some artefacts on their soil as well. Do they need literally all of them, and you'd have to visit the globe to see international artefacts? The most famous ones, like the Rosetta Stone, only became famous from their usage by Western archeologists.
As for London being expensive, well visiting any foreign country is expensive by non-natives. At least in London you can get a large set of cultural exposure in a single visit.
> Most of the people whose cultures those items belong to cannot afford to go visit the museum.
There is no ancient Greek or Egyptian alive today, those cultures are long dead. What claim do modern inhabitants of those regions have over these artefacts?