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Hey I love London. I like England. I get along with the 'Ingles'' Thank you Britain for all your work after Elgin ripped off the stones and interfering in the 'lines' of the Parthenon. So where are we? The ancient marbles are Greek. They were created by ancient Greeks. The Greeks should have them either on the Acropolis or in their new museum. It is their ancient gift to the world. London's really on for the ride on this issue. Time to send them back after all the centuries.
The ruins of the Acropolis are dropping to bits in all honesty then again so are the vastly over rated marbles themselves, and no one is going to put the marbles anywhere but in a secure controlled environment, which Athens well known for it's pollution certainly is not. If anything Elgin secured the Marbles and saved them from war, destruction and indeed pollution.
The Greeks have built a rather ugly brutalist museum in Athens where half the marbles are now kept in secure and controlled conditions and I am fully supportive of this, however this does not mean that every ancient antiquity should be returned to it's exact location and in London a major global city the marbles are free for all to view (from all over the world), as part of the history of mankind as a whole. The British Museum received a record-breaking 6.8 million visitors and a virtual audience of 35.3 million last year alone.
As for your statement "London's really on for the ride on this issue", I am not entirely sure what you mean. Are the Greeks going to stop supplying us with Olive Oil and Feta Cheese, how will we ever survive. Or is Team America going to attack the British Museum using drones.
Lord Elgin (Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin) took up the post of ambassador to Constantinople (Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire, in 1799. Mainland Greece was then part of that Empire, and had been for most of the time since 1456.
Wishing to improve the arts of Great Britain, Elgin assembled a group of architects, painters, draughtsmen and moulders to make casts and drawings of Greek monuments. They began work in Athens in 1800. The following year, Elgin was granted a firman (letter of instruction) that required the authorities in Athens not to hinder his employees in this work, and in addition allow them to 'take away any pieces of stone with inscriptions or figures'. A further firman was secured by Sir Robert Adair in February 1810 which instructed the authorities in Athens to allow the embarkation of all the remaining antiquities collected by Elgin.
It is a popular misconception that Elgin purchased the antiquities. In fact the firman was granted to him 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 continuing destruction of classical sculpture in Athens prompted Elgin to rescue for posterity what sculptures he could. The Parthenon had been reduced to a ruin over a hundred years previously, in 1687, during the Venetian siege of the Acropolis. The defending Ottoman Turks were using the Parthenon as a gunpowder store, which was ignited by the Venetian bombardment. The explosion destroyed the roof and parts of the walls and the colonnade.
Previously, around AD 450-500 the Parthenon had been converted into a Christian church and an apse built. It was probably at this time that the whole of the middle section of the east pediment was removed, entailing the destruction of 12 statues in all. Part of the east frieze was taken down, and almost all of the metopes on the east, north and west sides were deliberately defaced.
Elgin planned to donate his collection to the nation, but on his return to England he suffered severe financial problems. In 1810 he began formal negotiations with the British Government for the sale of his collection. In the end Elgin agreed to accept the value determined by a special Committee of the House of Commons. They held the collection to be worth £35,000 (and not the £73,600 which Elgin had requested). The Committee found that the collection had been legitimately acquired by Elgin as a private individual, and the sale went through. The collection was then vested in the Trustees of The British Museum in perpetuity, under the terms of the Local and Personal Acts 56 George III c.99 of 1816.
The Trustees now hold the Elgin collection under the terms of The British Museum Act (1963).
Great news regarding the Marbles. Greece has now restored 5 of the Caryatid statues to their original ivory patina after the centuries of grime adhering to their surfaces. They are in the Acropolis Museum. The missing one is in the British Museum and it is evident that it is an omission
at the Greek museum. This could be a very good time to link all the originals back together where they belong. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
I'm with travic on this one. The original agreement/purchase/arrangement between the Sultan and Lord
Elgin sounds shady. Dr. Chris Stockdale (British) is campaigning to reunite the sculptures of the Parthenon
back to it's home, the cradle of democracy.
I'm with travic on this one. The original agreement/purchase/arrangement between the Sultan and Lord
Elgin sounds shady. Dr. Chris Stockdale (British) is campaigning to reunite the sculptures of the Parthenon
back to it's home, the cradle of democracy.
There was no purchase agreement, Elgin was gifted the Marbles after he encouraged the British forces in their fight to drive the French out of Egypt, which was then an Ottoman possession.
Quote:
Originally Posted by British Museum
It is a popular misconception that Elgin purchased the antiquities. In fact the firman was granted to him 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 returned marbles wouldn’t go back to their original positions on the upper parts of the temple – where, incidentally, they would be very difficult to see – but to a museum. You can only return works of art to museums.
You can’t return them to their original settings, because these are in a process of continual change. You can’t turn the clock back. Indeed, seen in their original positions, as they originally were, intact and garishly painted, the Parthenon Marbles would look hideous to modern eyes.
Our idea that classical sculpture is the tasteful white and grey of unadorned marble – which is the way the Parthenon Marbles are seen today – is an invention of the Italian Renaissance. It has nothing to do with Greece. It’s part, like the history of the marbles and the fact they’re in London, of the dissemination of Ancient Greek culture outside its native land, which still affects all our lives in one way or another.
The largest example of a propylaeum, an architectural form evolved on the Athenian Acropolis, wasn’t in Greece at all, but in north London. Namely, the Euston Arch, that magnificent blackened Doric structure, which stood about 10 minutes walk from the British Museum – appropriately enough – until the British authorities allowed it to be pulled down in the Sixties (but that's another story).
Similarly, I never look at the swelling volumes of the Parthenon Marbles, their magnificent sense of weight and flow, without recalling Henry Moore’s sculptures. That is also part of the dialogue between past and present that these objects’ presence in Britain represents.
We no longer live in the age of romantic nationalism which gave rise to Greece’s independence (and to a lot of other far less desirable phenomena), when culture was seen as the emanation of a particular people living on a particular chunk of the earth, when governments set up departments to decide what was and wasn’t a legitimate expression of their particular national culture.
In our post-modern, post-nationalist world, it’s all about interaction and hybridisation, about celebrating the diverse cultural components that make up each of us.
On the one hand, this means you can’t say "my country" or "my culture" without sounding like a fascist – and we have precious little say in who goes in and out of "our" borders. On another it means that the Parthenon Marbles are as much British as they are Greek.
Before I begin, I would like to say that for me one of the most disappointing things about this whole dispute is the lack of generosity on the part of Greek officialdom in making such a song and dance about the presence of the Marbles in the British Museum. For one thing, it is quite clear that if the sculptures had not been removed to England they would have in effect perished by now. You have only to compare the state of blocks that were recorded in pre-Elgin casts but remained in situ with their condition as revealed in contemporary photographs to see that. I can even see from amateur photographs that I took at Easter 1958 that the arêtes on the fluting of the Parthenon were much sharper then than they are now.
Secondly, through their presence in London the Marbles have served as ambassadors for the culture of classical Greece and spurs to tourism in Greece itself on a scale far exceeding anything that could have been expected had they remained in Athens. (And there is no charge for seeing them in London, unlike Athens, where not long ago non-Greek visitors were required to pay higher admission charges for visiting the Acropolis than Greeks.)
Thirdly, Greece itself is absolutely stuffed with glorious monuments of the classical age. Can’t they find it in themselves to leave these wonderful sculptures, which have arguably been far more influential in the subsequent intellectual and artistic development of countries other than their own, where they are, in one of the world’s great international collections? For the BM’s collection is INTER-national; that is half the point of it – it is not a matter of narrow nationalist pride.
***
Greek claims based on narrow nationalism not reason
Greece has no better claim to the Elgin Marbles than any other modern state has to objects or artefacts once found on what is now its territory and housed, for whatever reasons, in a museum on the territory of some other state. Are we to unravel the great international museum collections for this sort of petty cultural chauvinism?
Greece’s campaign to gain possession of the Marbles is based on emotion and little else: an appeal to a narrow kind of patriotism that has made a national virility symbol of the Marbles. It is entirely in character that it should have been launched by Melina Mercouri, whose only real talent was the histrionic display of “passion.” Noble, heroic little Greece, cradle of democracy, mother of western civilisation, for ever martyred, humiliated and despoiled, by the Great Powers, Turks, British, Americans, all its ills attributable to the ksèno dhàktilo, the foreign finger. In this instance, robbed of its greatest treasure by a dastardly Englishman and an aristocrat to boot. That, basically, is how the story goes. That is the essence of the appeal. And of course it works with the “passionless” English, who can be made to feel guilty, both for their lack of passion and for their Great Power past.
Appeals of this kind may win votes, but they do not confer rights or amount to an argument.
You make a show of disinterested objectivity on your website. All we care about, you claim, is the best possible future for the Marbles themselves. But you are essentially dishonest, for you proceed to present your case in extremely tendentious terms. You claim that the Marbles somehow embody the achievement of a free democratic people: no mention of the slave economy of 5th century Athens, of the total disenfranchisement of women, of Athens’ brutal mainmise on the treasury of its allies in the Delian League, not to mention its bloody “disciplining” of its allies. “Imperial Spoils,” Christopher Hitchens calls his book with unconscious irony. Dead right!
You claim that Elgin removed the Marbles without the consent of “the Greek people” – an anachronism if ever I heard one. There was no Greek state and never had been one in 1800. So what do you mean by “the Greek people”? Would you have polled the Greeks resident for centuries in the Crimea, Bucharest, Odessa, Alexandria, for example? Would you have included the Vlachs, the Albanians, the Macedonians, the Pomaks and the other minorities systematically repressed by the modern Greek state?
You talk of Greece being under Ottoman occupation. Of course, the Ottomans ruled what we now recognise as the territory of the Greek state. But then? There was not a Greece in the fifteenth century for the Ottomans to occupy, not in the sense which you are trying to exploit.
And you put this tendentious stuff out on your website and publish what you claim are the results of opinion polls. I would bet that 95% of the people whose opinions you claim to have sounded do not know what you are talking about and could not tell an Ottoman from a penguin. Besides, it is hardly surprising in our politically correct times that if you present the BM’s possession of the Marbles as theft and ask people who no longer have much idea of history, classical or modern, whether they approve or not, they are likely to say no, just as demands for reparation for the evils of slavery are always aimed at England, as if the slave markets – with Christian Europeans the slaves in many cases – of Turkey, north Africa, central Asia and Arabia – had never existed, never mind continued to operate long after the trade was banned wherever England’s writ ran.
Neglect of all periods of history outside the classical and lack of interest in other people’s cultures
Greece suffers from a peculiarly narrow chauvinism, in the cultural as in other domains. It prizes exclusively that part of Greek history which precedes the death of Alexander the Great. The Byzantine and, especially, post-Byzantine periods are largely ignored and their monuments neglected. Numberless early medieval chapels in Crete and the Mani languish in varying states of decay and neglect; even the main Byzantine churches of Thessaloniki have been “devalued” (to use your tendentious expression) by the overshadowing of modern apartment blocks. Mt Athos itself has been allowed to fall into serious disrepair. The rich heritage of eighteenth and nineteenth century architecture has been almost completely destroyed in the last fifty years. Of the grand old mansions of Kastoria, Siatista and many other northern towns hardly one survives in a reasonable state. In the 1970s the National Tourism Organisation of Greece bought four of the survivors (at that time) in Kastoria and over the next ten years allowed them to fall ever further into disrepair. Practically every provincial town in the country has been architecturally desecrated and Lord knows how many interesting remains lost through the unscrupulous activities of property speculators.
There are churches and monasteries throughout the Pindos mountains which have scarcely even been catalogued. Their frescoed walls and painted ceilings have been ruined by damp and repaired any old how with raw cement and their flagged floors concreted over because it is “easier to clean”. (The politicians in Athens have never even set foot in these places.)
I suggest that the proper appreciation of this more recent history is far more important to an understanding of contemporary Greece and its place in the world of today than the exclusive focus on the grandeur of the classical period and consequent playing down of all subsequent periods. The Greek government would be performing a far greater service to the people of Greece if it were to promote the proper teaching of these periods of history rather than the thoroughly cleaned-up version of events that passes for history teaching at the moment.
As to the contents of Greece’s museums, you will not find a single item of African or Oriental art anywhere in the country, nor an Italian Renaissance painting, nor an example of English or French eighteenth-century furniture, as if Greece’s cultural horizons started and ended with its own classical period.
***
It is rather noticeable that since the coming into being of the new Acropolis Museum the terms of the argument have changed: from being about the repatriation or restitution of the Marbles to being about their re-unification.
Re-unification of the Marbles a red herring
Well, a) it is pretty clear that for most people the interest of the Marbles is the beauty of the sculpting, NOT understanding the historical context, the significance of the Panathenaic processions et cetera; and b) re-unification is a term that anyway begs rather a lot of questions in this context, as fewer than half of the original Parthenon sculptures survive in any form. Christian Greek iconoclasts destroyed a goodly chunk of what they considered pagan work in the sixth century AD and a Venetian artillery shell landing in a Turkish munitions dump blew a further large hole in the south side of the building in 1687. It is difficult to see how any “artistic unity” could be restored in these circumstances.
A lot more heat than light is generated in most discussion about the Elgin Marbles. Nadine Gordimer and the Australians (a very large Greek migrant community there of course, whose feelings about back home may well be as irresponsibly nationalistic as American Irish support for the IRA used to be) seem to think that, were it not for the bloody-minded British, the Parthenon could quite easily be restored to former glory. Hitchens seems to think that the crucial factor is the villainy of a ferocious, predatory, horse-whipping aristocrat, who “ripped off huge chunks,” “carried them off” to his “private home” – a bit like Grendel, perhaps? “Only his bankruptcy saved them,” to the relief, I suppose, “of all us Philhellenes.” And is not that a give-away? For what is a Philhellene if not a sentimentalist, an uncritical worshipper of an ideal vision of all things classical Greek, and an essentially Anglo-Saxon vision at that? I assume he is not thinking of the baser practices of ladhòmata, rousfètia, fakelàkia and so forth.
My late lamented friend, the painter John Craxton (see my earlier post), who like me spent half a lifetime in Greece, used that to say that the Greeks had a chip on their shoulder and it was made of Pentelic marble!
There was no purchase agreement, Elgin was gifted the Marbles after he encouraged the British forces in their fight to drive the French out of Egypt, which was then an Ottoman possession.
According to the British Museum (read that article) during the Ottoman Empire.
What does Greece say:
They were sold by Elgin to the British Government in 1816, however in terms of Elgin himself he did not buy the marbles. As I have previously stated Elgin himself was gifted the Marbles after he encouraged the British forces in their fight to drive the French out of Egypt, which was then an Ottoman possession.
Greece wasn't established as a nation until the London Protocol in 1830 and it's independence was largely established through British efforts and we have helped maintain the peace between Greek and Turks on a number of occasions most recently in terms of Cyprus where the British Army maintain a peacekeeping force on an island divided between Greek and Turkish areas. Lets also no forget the 371 British servicemen who lost their lives in Cyprus between 1956 and 1959, when the island was split between armed Greek Cypriot Nationalists and armed Turkish Cypriots.
It also should not be forgotten that Britain did honour its 1939 commitment to Greece in relation to any attack or invasion of Greek territory and a lot of British and Commonwealth troops laid down their lives trying to defend Greece and Crete, so the Greeks have a lot to be thankful for.
The Greek cause, however, was saved by the intervention of the European powers. Favouring the formation of an autonomous Greek state, they offered to mediate between the Turks and the Greeks (1826 and 1827). When the Turks refused, Great Britain, France, and Russia sent their naval fleets to Navarino, where, on Oct. 20, 1827, they destroyed the Egyptian fleet. Although this severely crippled the Ottoman forces, the war continued, complicated by the Russo-Turkish War (1828–29). A Greco-Turkish settlement was finally determined by the European powers at a conference in London; they adopted a London protocol (Feb. 3, 1830), declaring Greece an independent monarchical state under their protection. By mid-1832 the northern frontier of the new state had been set along the line extending from south of Volos to south of Árta; Prince Otto of Bavaria had accepted the crown, and the Turkish sultan had recognized Greek independence (Treaty of Constantinople; July 1832).
In terms of Greece it hasn't even preserved the abundance of historic treasures it already owns that well, and Athens became an oasis of cheap concrete housing during the 1960's and 1970's which included a period of military dictatorship, when many beautiful and historic buildings were destroyed.
Whilst the Greek Marbles are in a much sorrier state than the ones in Britain because they weren't looked after nearly as well and much of the points made in my last post are also extremely valid.
Thanks for that. It will be interesting to see if at least that 6th statue goes to the Acropolis Museum to complete the 'fixed unit' of the Caryatid statues. As noted by Greece they have made accomodation for its possible return by exceptionally restoring the existing Caryatids.
Time no doubt will see if any monuments go back. A spokesperson from Greece noted it could be possible that monuments could be returned in the context of the Acropolis museum.
Thanks for that. It will be interesting to see if at least that 6th statue goes to the Acropolis Museum to complete the 'fixed unit' of the Caryatid statues. As noted by Greece they have made accomodation for its possible return by exceptionally restoring the existing Caryatids.
Time no doubt will see if any monuments go back. A spokesperson from Greece noted it could be possible that monuments could be returned in the context of the Acropolis museum.
The British Museum regularly lends artefacts and items to Greece, so there is cooperation between the two countries and lets not forget the Queens husband Prince Philip is in fact Greek himself.
It also should be noted that the British Museum tops the list of the world's lending collections in terms of loans to other international museums and is free to people who visit from across the globe, in fact it attracts 6.8 million visitors and has a virtual audience of 35.3 million, and both figures are growing year on year.
The British Museum tells the story of cultural achievement throughout the world, from the dawn of human history over two million years ago until the present day. The Parthenon Sculptures are a significant part of that story.
The Museum is a unique resource for the world: the breadth and depth of its collection allows a world-wide public to re-examine cultural identities and explore the complex network of interconnected human cultures. The Trustees lend extensively all over the world and over two million objects from the collection are available to study online. The Parthenon Sculptures are a vital element in this interconnected world collection. They are a part of the world’s shared heritage and transcend political boundaries.
The Acropolis Museum allows the Parthenon sculptures that are in Athens (approximately half of what survive from antiquity) to be appreciated against the backdrop of ancient Greek and Athenian history. The Parthenon sculptures in London are an important representation of ancient Athenian civilisation in the context of world history. Each year millions of visitors, free of charge, admire the artistry of the sculptures and gain insight into how ancient Greece influenced – and was influenced by – the other civilisations that it encountered.
The Trustees are convinced that the current division allows different and complementary stories to be told about the surviving sculptures, highlighting their significance withinworld culture and affirming the place of Ancient Greece among the great cultures of the world.
Common misconceptions
All of the sculptures from the Parthenon are in the British Museum
This is incorrect. Around half of the sculptures from the Parthenon are now lost, destroyed over the last 2,500 years of the building’s history. The sculptures that remain are found in museums in six countries including the Louvre and the Vatican, though the majority is divided roughly equally between Athens and London.
The Parthenon sculptures now in the British Museum were stolen
This is not true. Lord Elgin, the British diplomat who transported the sculptures to England, acted with the full knowledge and permission of the legal authorities of the day. Lord Elgin’s activities were thoroughly investigated by a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 and found to be entirely legal. Following a vote of Parliament, the British Museum was allocated funds to acquire the collection.
The Greek government has asked for a loan of the sculptures which has been turned down by the British Museum
The Trustees have never been asked for a loan of the Parthenon sculptures, only for the permanent removal of all of the sculptures to Athens.
The Trustees will consider (subject to the usual considerations of condition and fitness to travel) any request for any part of the collection to be borrowed and then returned. The simple precondition required by the Trustees before they will consider whether or not to lend an object in the collection is that the borrowing institution acknowledges the British Museum’s ownership of the object. The Trustees frequently lend objects from the collection to museums all around the world, including Greece. In the last year alone they lent 4,400 objects to hundreds of museums worldwide.
The Trustees’ policy and their willingness to consider loans to Athens has been made clear to the Greek government, but successive Greek governments have refused to consider borrowing. This has made any meaningful discussion on the issue virtually impossible.
The British Museum argues that the sculptures in their collection should remain in London because there is nowhere to house them in Greece and that the Greek authorities cannot look after them
Neither of these claims is true, the British Museum does not argue this. The Trustees argue that the sculptures on display in London convey huge public benefit as part of the Museum’s worldwide collection. Our colleagues in Athens are, of course, fully able to conserve and preserve the material in their care and we enjoy friendly and constructive relations with them. More information on joint projects between the British Museum and Greek museum colleagues is also available online.
The division of the Parthenon sculptures is a unique case. The sculptures can only be appreciated as a complete set
This is not so. Europe’s complex history has often resulted in cultural objects, such as medieval and renaissance altarpieces from one original location being divided and distributed through museums in many countries. Bringing the Parthenon sculptures back together into a unified whole is impossible – the complicated history of the Parthenon meant that already by 1800 half of the sculptures had been destroyed.
The sculptures could be reunited on the Parthenon
This is not possible. Though partially reconstructed, the Parthenon is a ruin. It is universally recognised that the sculptures that still exist could never be safely returned to the building: they are best seen and conserved in museums.
The matter could be solved by the British Museum setting up an outpost in Athens
This is not so. The Trustees of the British Museum believe that the sculptures need to continue to be seen within the context of the world collection of the British Museum in order to deepen our understanding of their significance within world cultural history. This provides the ideal complement to the display in the Acropolis Museum, where the Parthenon sculptures in Athens will be seen within the context of ancient Greek and Athenian history. Both museums together allow the fullest appreciation of the meaning and importance of the Parthenon sculptures and maximise the number of people that can appreciate them.
Looks like for the foreseeable future things will be status quo. But things can change when the time is right. We will see but in the meanwhile the Greeks will have to wait! At the least though I know that whatever is left of the 'Marbles' they are safe and being taken care of for posterity in both museums. So for me it's off again to London and then to Greece. I don't mind!
Looks like for the foreseeable future things will be status quo. But things can change when the time is right. We will see but in the meanwhile the Greeks will have to wait! At the least though I know that whatever is left of the 'Marbles' they are safe and being taken care of for posterity in both museums. So for me it's off again to London and then to Greece. I don't mind!
We might work together even more closely with the Greeks in the future and the Marbles may be shared to a greater extent. The fact that both the British Museum and the Acropolis Museum are taking even better care of the marbles being good news for everyone who cares about the plight of the marbles.
As for the Greeks they are a difficult race, and as I have pointed out already we helped them obtain national status back in 1830, whilst in terms of WW2, we tried to defend Greece and Crete as part of our 1939 commitment to do so despite many military strategists believing that we would have been better off concentrating our forces in North Africa against Rommel.
In 1944 we again rushed to help the Greeks as Soviet Russian Communist forces marched towards Greece, only for British and Commonwealth forces to face attack from Greek Communist forces. In the end we helped saved Greece from becoming part of the Eastern Bloc.
Similarly in relation to Cyprus, the Greek Nationalist Cypriots terrorists wanted Cyprus reunited with Greece, whilst the Turkish Cypriots merely wanted Cypriot independence. British soldiers were caught in the middle with 371 British Military Personnel being murdered in places such as Nicosia's famous murder mile. Perhaps we should have just withdrew and left them to get their backsides kicked by the Turkey rather than attempt to resolve the situation.
The Greeks kept on at the Turks who were spread across the Island until 1974 when after the Cypriot coup d'état by the Cypriot National Guard supported by the Greek military junta, the Turks had enough and invaded the Northern part of Cyprus kicking the Greeks out of the area altogether and establishing a proper Turkish territory on the island. There is now a demilitarised Zone on Cyprus and a British Army Peacekeeping force, although why 11 million Greeks seemed to think they can take on the quite powerful and much larger Turkish, who have a population today of 76 million people is any ones guess. The Greeks as usual being deluded and no doubt blaming everyone but themselves as usual.
Having been subject to political instability since WW2 ranging from all out Civil War through to Military Dictatorship the Greeks decided to join the EU and then the Euro and everything was fine when their economy was reaping the rewards, however since the Economic Crisis the Germans have become the target of Greek fury. I suggest they read the small print when signing up to agreements such as the Euro zone.
The Greeks love to protest and shout loudly whenever things don't go their way but they bring most of their problems on themselves and whilst we are more than willing to collaborate in terms of the Marbles, I don't feel we owe the Greeks that much to be honest and as I have already pointed out they haven't look after a lot of the vast array of historic architecture and artefacts they already hold without taking back all those items which are very well cared for by other European Museums.
Last edited by Bamford; 07-12-2014 at 09:56 AM..
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