The British Museum is the subject of a campaign by Chilean social media users demanding the return of a stone monument taken from Easter Island.
The museum contains two Moai statues taken from Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, in Chilean territory in 1868.
The online campaign began when an influencer encouraged her followers to “spam” the museum’s Instagram posts with the comment “Give us back the Moai.”
The British Museum has announced that it has disabled comments on one of its social media posts.
The island of Rapa Nui, located approximately 2,300 miles (3,700 km) off Chile’s Pacific coast, is best known for its moai statues, which are said to embody the spirits of their famous ancestors.
Dating between 1400 and 1650 AD, many of them remain on the island to this day, but some have been transported to museums around the world, such as Hoa Hakananaia, which is in the collection of the British Museum.
The statue, along with a second smaller moai known as Hava, was given as a gift to Queen Victoria in 1869 by Brigadier General Richard Powell, captain of HMS Topaz. The Queen donated the two statues to the British Museum.
There have long been calls for the hoa hakananaia, or “stolen friend,” to be returned to Rapa Nui.
Milfort regularly talks about the moai in his viral videos.
“My followers started spamming Wikipedia with ‘give me back the moai’ and then the British Museum’s Instagram comments section was filled with people posting ‘give me back the moai,'” he said in a recent clip. He spoke at
Chilean President Gabriel Boric also supported the sentiment behind the social media campaign in a recent radio interview.
The British Museum has announced that it has disabled comments on a post shared in collaboration with a youth charity.
A spokesperson said the museum welcomed the discussion but “must balance this with the need for safeguarding considerations, particularly where young people are concerned”.
The museum says it has a good and open relationship with its Rapa Nui colleagues and has had several visits from the community to London since 2018.
Last year, Greece’s prime minister called for the Parthenon sculptures, the Elgin Marbles, to be returned from the museum.
These sculptures are among the most high-profile artifacts in the debate over whether museums around the world should return items to their countries of origin.