UNESCO is planning to create the world’s first virtual museum of stolen cultural objects with the primary aim of raising public awareness about trafficking and the unique significance of cultural heritage.
As UNESCO’s Director-General, Audrey Azoulay, emphasized, “Behind every stolen work or object lies a piece of history, identity, and humanity that has been taken away from its guardians, rendered inaccessible to research, and risks being forgotten. Our goal with the virtual museum is to bring these works back into the spotlight and restore people’s right to access, experience, and recognize their heritage.” She made this statement during an event in Paris.
Constructed with the assistance of Interpol, whose database contains over 52,000 items stolen from museums, collections, and archaeological sites worldwide, the virtual museum, valued at 2.3 million euros, is expected to open to the public in 2025.
Visitors will be able to explore a series of virtual spaces containing detailed 3D images of the objects, accompanied by explanatory materials, including histories and testimonies about their origins.
Moreover, UNESCO’s announcement of the objects to be displayed in the virtual museum will be made shortly before its inauguration.
According to the Antiquities Coalition, a US-based NGO, among the most significant stolen cultural objects is an alabaster inscription from the 3rd century that was stolen from a Yemeni temple between 2009 and 2011.
The list of the most important artworks sought by authorities, which may be exhibited in UNESCO’s virtual museum, also includes a 7th-century ivory lion relief stolen from the Baghdad Museum in 2003, a green stone mask taken from a Maya temple in Guatemala, and an idol from the 5th-6th century stolen from a temple complex in Rajasthan, India, in 1988.
“These are objects that exist but we don’t know where,” said Ernesto Ottone, UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Culture, to The Guardian. “We will virtually exhibit them in a space where we can truly tell the stories behind them.”
Ernesto Ottone emphasized that the organization’s goal is “to help young people understand that a stolen artifact is an object that has been removed from its community and, at the same time, to strengthen efforts to repatriate them.”
As he pointed out, the ultimate goal of the museum should be its closure. “It is the opposite of a regular museum whose collection keeps expanding. We hope that over time, the collection will shrink as objects are discovered one by one.”
According to the project’s architect, Francis Kéré, the museum is about “awakening the imagination.” Kéré, who was born in Burkina Faso, compared a stolen object from his community to a tree uprooted from its soil. “Cultures from which artworks have been stolen are like the roots of a tree searching for sustenance to grow,” he remarked.
In total, 600 stolen objects will make up the inaugural collection in the museum. As Ernesto Ottone pointed out, the most challenging aspect of the entire endeavor was creating three-dimensional images of objects for which there is no physical archive beyond a small black-and-white photograph.
“No one has imagined a museum like this,” noted Audrey Azoulay. “The presentation of the works is enhanced by a deep immersion into their universe, their cultural and social movements from which they originated, connecting the material with the intangible.”
