The British Museum is being targeted by Chilean campaigners who are demanding the return of a statue taken from Easter Island more than 150 years ago.
Campaigners began ‘spamming’ the museum’s Instagram, Facebook and YouTube accounts after a Santiago-based influencer encouraged his one million followers to flood the institution’s accounts with ‘return the moai’ comments.
The museum has two moai statues which were taken from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) by British surveyors in 1868. There has since been longstanding demands for the statues to be returned to the Chilean territory.
British Museum officials deactivated the comments section on one Instagram post in response to the influx of comments.
The online campaign comes amid a row between the Greek and the UK governments about the ownership of the Elgin Marbles, which were brought to Britain in the 1800s. Greece has been calling for their return since the 19th century.
The British Museum is being targeted by Chilean campaigners who are demanding the return of a statue taken from Easter Island more than 150 years ago. The statue is pictured on display at the British Museum on November 22, 2018
The museum has two moai statues which were taken from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) by British surveyors in 1868. There has since been longstanding demands for the statues to be returned to the Chilean territory. The statue is pictured on display at the museum in November 2018
The British Museum became inundated with ‘return the moai’ comments after influencer Mike Milfort in January instructed his followers to ‘spam’ the institution.
‘My followers began spamming “return the moai” on Wikipedia, and then the comments section of the British Museum Instagram was full of people posting “return the moai,”‘ Mr Milfort said in a recent video.
The museum indefinitely deactivated comments on one social media post, which had been shared in collaboration with the charity Youth Project. A spokesperson told MailOnline the decision was made for the ‘comfort and security’ of the charity.
‘We welcome debate, but this has to be balanced against the need for safeguarding considerations, especially where young people are concerned,’ the spokesperson added.
The museum also reiterated it has ‘good and open relations’ with its colleagues in Rapa Nui, including inviting them to visit the institution for ‘various initiatives’ over the past two years.
Members of the Rapa Nui community visited London in November 2018 and a reciprocal visit took place in June 2019, which saw museum staff visit Rapanui cultural sites and take part in a series of conversations about the moai.
Campaigners have spammed the British Museum by flood the institution’s social media accounts with ‘return the moai’ comments
The British Museum has two moai statues, including the Hoa Hakananai’a, which holds particular significance to Rapa Nui.
The four-ton, 7ft 10in Hoa Hakananai’a is regarded as one of the most spiritually important of the Chilean island’s 900 famous stone monoliths, or moai.
Each of the figures is said to embody tribal leaders or deified ancestors.
It was taken from the island, which lies in the Pacific more than 2,100 miles off the coast of Chile, in 1868 by Commodore Richard Powell, captain of HMS Topaze, who gave it to Queen Victoria.
She donated it in 1869 to the British Museum, where it now stands at the entrance to Wellcome Trust Gallery. But Easter Island’s indigenous community, the Rapa Nui, want Britain to give back the spiritually ‘unique’ effigy.
The museum has faced other claims to return artefacts to their original homes, including the Elgin Marbles to Greece.
Greece has long demanded the return of the Elgin Marbles, also known as the Parthenon Sculptures, which were removed by Lord Elgin from occupied Athens in the early 19th century, when he was the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
A Parliamentary Select Committee inquiry in 1816 found the acquisition of the Marbles had been entirely legal and done with permission of Ottoman authorities.
The British Museum has faced other claims to return artefacts to their original homes, including the Elgin Marbles (pictured) to Greece
Part of friezes that adorned the 2,500-year-old Parthenon temple on the Acropolis, the Elgin Marbles have been displayed at the British Museum in London for more than 200 years.
Most of the remaining sculptures are in a purpose-built museum in Athens.
The Greek government in December offered to lend rotating exhibitions of ‘important antiquities’ to ‘fill the void’ in exchange for the the Elgin Marbles.
British Museum chairman George Osborne previously pledged to continue working on an exchange deal to allow the Elgin Marbles to be displayed in Greece.
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