UKC

…shouldn’t be returned. According to the culture secretary. She reckons we should keep them ‘To protect our culture.’ Can anyone explain what culture she is referring to?  The only one I can think of is our culture of robbing other countries. 

But she says that they were not plundered. So what is the official story?

Nevertheless, she seems more genuine than Nadine Boris....

And she's not privatising channel four.

 https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/7-facts-about-the-elgin-...

Has the following info...

According to the British Museum, Elgin was granted a firman (letter of instruction) granting him permission to take away the pieces...

... “as a personal gesture after he encouraged the British forces in their fight to drive the French out of Egypt, which was then an Ottoman possession”. The legality of this document is today hotly debated.

I wrote a dissertation on this very subject about 24 years ago which was well received. I can't remember much if any of it aside from a very firm conclusion that they should go back.

Christopher Hitchens is worth a read on this.

What about the stuff in Berlin? I've visited a few times pre and post wall coming down.

Were they not all liberated from Greece as well?

Not the Benin Bronzes?  If so it's funny you should mention that..

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/20/germany-returns-21-benin-bron...

Of course they should be returned. The point is that they would not be put back on the Parthenon but in a specially built museum (that the Greeks have had waiting for many years) with a sealed environment to prevent any atmospheric erosion. In Britain we should simply have facsimiles ... what's the big deal? The truth is that Lord Elgin did everyone a favour in removing the originals from the frieze where they were already being seriously weathered, but now that the Greeks have a controlled environment they should go back. I can't see what possible justification we have for holding on to them.

I think the argument is that they were purchased fair and square (we literally have receipts), and that given that they've now been in the UK for over 200 years, they're part of our culture too. 

The first point is very tricky, yes. The second extremely dubious. Surely playing with words/using the concept of culture wrongly to say that they are part of our culture. Just as we would surely not say that the Leonardo cartoon or Van Gogh's Sunflowers in the National Gallery were part of our culture. They are representatives of foreign 'schools', i.e the Italian Renaissance and Dutch impressionism.

I can't see what the fuss is all about.  The 'marbles', are a mix of broken & chipped sculptures.  Missing arms, faces, noses, heads, ears, legs, hands, feet and at least one missing penis.

Let them have the back.

 

Couldn't remember the name last night. The Pergamonmuseum is a bit controversial too.

purchased fair and square from someone who had no right to sell them - the turks

"Finders keepers. Shut up!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY&t=2s

Not easy for either side in the discussion.

Clearly they were not " looted" like the Nazi treasures which have been returned in recent years. If anything Elgin saved them for the Greek nation, which if I am correct he was fighting for the Greeks to overthrow the Turks at the time.

There are also part of the Acropolis etc in other countries- I think France and Denmark also have those pieces should also be part of the discussion.

The new museum in Athens is a beautiful and inspring place to visit, breathtaking. Well woth a visit and I would highly recommend it. It is after all the cradle of European civilisation.

But perhaps the Greeks in their negotiations and future display  should recognise the place that Elgin and the British Museum has had in preserving them friezes and make more of this if they were returned.. Without Elgin and the BM... they would probably not exist in their current format.

That museum is already functioning and open...its breathtaking.

Give them back? Have you lost your marbles? How much revenue do they generate?

No way! Those pesky Welsh will be asking for Stonehenge back next.

He wasnt.  He was the British ambassador to the Ottoman empire and so on, reasonably, good terms. Hence why he was able to get permission to study the site and, maybe, to remove items.

Those who did, later, fight against the turks would probably be opposed eg Bryon was.

They are.

Possibly but given the state of those remaining there its not immediately obvious. Any which had fallen were probably saved (from being used by locals) but those in situ were quite possibly more damaged. They also came very close to being lost in a shipwreck.

But they were in mostly made in the 5th Century BC, so they were sat in the Acropolis for nearly 2300 years before that? Surely, they are far more a part of Greek history than British! 

Give them all back, keep some copies in the British Museum. 

Have you seen the parts blown up by the Turks who fired cannons into the Acropolis etc ?

it’s interesting how little value was placed on these artifacts back then.

You don't have to go back too far to see how things haven't really changed - IS destroying Palmyra and the Taliban destroying the Bamiyan Buddhas spring to mind as recent examples.

Ukraine has a lot of issues as well. 

People tend to place less value on artifacts, when they are not their artifacts.

I would argue the cultural aspect from a British point of view is not that we possess the marbles but how and why we possess them.  The marbles are culturally Greek.  The story of protecting them and preserving them is our cultural story.  Replicas in the museum would be perfectly adequate to demonstrate what we achieved and in fact returning them would enhance the story in my mind.

She said the main reason for not returning the Marbles is that it would be a “slippery slope”, leading to the "repatriation" of all exhibits, except those of Grayson Perry.

I remember working on an architectural design competition for that in <does quick Google search> 1990! Back in the day when I could pull a few all-nighters. The runner up's design from Daniel Libeskind was also pretty dramatic and worth a look. 

It’s very clever.  

Who did have the right to sell them at that time, then? Who owned them? The Ottomans were the government of the day, so they owned them. That's how it works. 

Even if that's true, it seems highly questionable whether they intended to sell them. 

And in Australia* last month.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/30000-year-old-indigenous-cave-dr...

*vandalism rather than policy of a religious insurgency or government