The 2023 repatriation of the Freavnantjahke gievrie, a South Sami ceremonial drum seized in 1723 during an intensified Christianization campaign and long held by German museums, is documented through the Meininger Museen's own institutional account of the return, made in cooperation with the Kulturstiftung Meiningen-Eisenach and German authorities to the Samien Sijte Museum in Snasa, Norway. As an institutional record of a specific repatriation event, it is a reliable source for the transfer's facts and timeline, and it is a genuinely well-documented case, since the drum carries an unusually complete historical record including the original 1723 interrogation of the men from whom it was seized. As the returning institution's own account, it is one party's record of the transaction; the receiving Sami museum's own account is a natural complement for the drum's meaning within South Sami tradition.
Facts
Citation
AuthorMeininger Museen
Institutional-author convention: the deciding or announcing body is read as its own author, the same shape already used elsewhere in this corpus (for example, United Plant Savers' own At-Risk List entry). This resolves an authorship gap that had been left open for want of a URL to disambiguate; the entry's own title (naming the specific drum) and its own already-correct custodian body (Saemien Sijte) resolve it independently of any URL, confirmed against UNESCO's own published account of the repatriation (unesco.org, 27 May 2024) and Norwegian press coverage (Kunstavisen). This is the German-to-Norway case, not the Denmark-to-Norway case an earlier, since-corrected publisher value had named. PublisherSaemien Sijte / Meininger Museen
Corrected from "Saemien Sijte / National Museum of Denmark." The recipient (Saemien Sijte) was already right; the counterparty was wrong. The drum this entry is titled for, the Freavnantjahke gievrie, was returned by Meininger Museen (Thuringia, Germany), not the National Museum of Denmark, per UNESCO's own published account of the repatriation and Norwegian press coverage (Kunstavisen). Publication Year2023
Corrected from 2022. Meininger Museen's board decided the return in June 2023; the drum reached Saemien Sijte later the same year. 2022 belonged to a real but different Sami drum repatriation (National Museum of Denmark to RiddoDuottarMuseat), not this one. Source TypeMuseum
Assessment
Reliability Tier2
The Meininger Museen's own institutional account of the 2023 repatriation of the Freavnantjahke gievrie, a South Sami ceremonial drum seized in 1723, to the Samien Sijte Museum in Snasa, Norway, the middle tier reflecting that it is a reliable institutional record of the transfer's facts and timeline from a genuinely well documented case, notwithstanding that it is the returning institution's own account, one party's record of the transaction, for which the receiving Sami museum's own account is a natural complement. NotesThe agreed return of a South Sami drum, the Freavnantjahke gievrie, from Meininger Museen in Germany to Saemien Sijte in Norway, the case most often cited in the wider repatriation argument.
Corrected from "the agreed return of a South Sami drum from Danish to Sami custody": the counterparty was Germany (Meininger Museen), not Denmark. Custodian
Custodian SourceYes
Custodian BodySaemien Sijte (South Saami museum and cultural centre)
Custodian BasisA repatriation account co-published by the South Saami community institution that received the drum. Authoritative for the Saami side of the repatriation; the German museum is the counterparty, not the custodian.
Corrected "the Danish museum is the counterparty" to the German museum (Meininger Museen); custodian-body itself (Saemien Sijte) was already correct and was the internal clue that the counterparty had been mis-recorded. Claims Backed By This Source (15 claims)
This source backs 15 claims across the atlas. As facts: 10 well-attested. As cited relationships: 4 holds. Plus 1 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Sources, 10 claims: 10 well-attested.
- Sacred Objects & Ritual Items, 5 claims: 4 holds, 1 general references.
Holds
4Sacred Objects & Ritual Items
General References
1Sacred Objects & Ritual Items
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.