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Te Papa museum officials are hopeful of repatriating a preserved Maori head from France despite the Culture Ministry there putting the brakes on the plan.
The head is being held in a museum in the northwestern city of Rouen and the city's mayor recently offered to return it to New Zealand.
However, a French court blocked the return of the head, which has been in the museum since the 19th century, after the plan was contested by the Culture Ministry.
Te Papa marketing and communications director Paul Brewer said yesterday the situation was now out of New Zealand hands but hoped it would be resolved in due course.
He said it had not got to the stage where Te Papa representatives had flown to France to collect the head.
Mr Brewer said representatives from the Rouen museum had contacted Te Papa in July to offer to return the head but the timeframe from start to finish for such arrangements was historically one or two years.
"So we are not particularly concerned by the events of the last couple of days.
"It's an issue between the museum and the French Government and they need to be comfortable that everything is being done according to their own systems."
Mr Brewer said Te Papa would stand back from the issue while that happened.
He said repatriations of preserved Maori heads and body parts from foreign countries were ongoing and Te Papa would focus on other issues in the meantime.
The return of cultural items was a relatively new practice for the global museum community and it would take time for institutions to feel comfortable with it.
"The fact that a number have allowed us to repatriate human remains is fantastic, but we're not going to be successful by shouting from the rooftops," he said.
"The way we will be successful is just quietly maintaining cordial relations with the institutions."
France's Culture Ministry said there was a concern that repatriation offers by individual museums could threaten its control over artefacts from other civilisations, such as ancient Egypt or Peru.
Minister Christine Albanel said the head was covered by rules designed to ensure that museum holdings remain intact. A decision could only be made after a recommendation by a scientific commission.
- NZPA
