Stone tools returned from Israel to Aboriginal owners
Aboriginal stone tools found in a museum in Israel have been returned to their community at a ceremony in Canberra.
Some of the Aboriginal stone tools returned from Israel. AAP Image/Supplied by the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies)
The five tools were initially collected in Victoria by non-indigenous people and formed the first tranche of items from an extensive collection to be returned to the relevant traditional owners.
The tools were returned to the care of the Wurundjeri Woi-Wurrung Cultural Heritage Aboriginal Corporation at a ceremony on Monday.
“I don’t call them artefacts, I call them I call them the best Aussie tools ever made,” Wurundjeri Elder Ron Jones said.
“They last for thousands of years.”
He said finding a single tool is proof that Indigenous people passed through an area over thousands of years.
“The tools tell us that our people were occupying this land. It is very significant that a lot more of our younger generation want to learn about stone tools and things like that,” he said.
The Israel Museum in Jerusalem returned more than 1800 objects from the Carl Shipman Collection in 2020 following talks with the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies, which runs a return of cultural heritage program.
Carl Shipman, a refugee from Europe who came to Australia, donated his collection of items to the Israel Museum in the 1970s.
Months of research have been undertaken to confirm exactly where the items came from.
Each of the tools bears the name of the location where it was sourced, but little other information is available.
They may have been kept overseas for a century or longer, according to AIATSIS chief executive Craig Ritchie.
‘These are tools that your ancestors once held, once used in their daily lives, they link today’s community directly to those ancestors,” he said.
AAP
