Picture used for illustrative purposes only.

Although the English language continues to evolve and change, ‘stolen’ still means stolen. Four Aboriginal spears that were stolen by British representative Captain Cook in 1770 have been returned to Australia after about 250 years.

How long will it take for all of the ‘stolen’ material in museums in Britain, and in probably almost every museum in the world, to be returned to their owners or descendants? Some of this material is human remains that should be buried where they came from with appropriate respect.

We now have the technology to capture the image of anything in 2D and 3D so let's move museums to the virtual rather than the physical as we have with everything else.

Dennis Fitzgerald,

Melbourne, Australia