Why The British Museum Has The Parthenon Marbles

 

SOURCES

William St. Clair, "Lord Elgin and The Marbles"

MUSIC (via Epidemic Sound)

Mary Riddle, "Trade and Fortune"
George Prokopiou, "Olympus Mountain

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The Nerdwriter is a series of video essays about art, culture, politics, philosophy and more.

[illneas]

Hi, I'm Greek so I'm kinda biased. Despite the barbarous nature of the removal, an argument can be made that the British museum was a great place for safekeeping an international treasure through the years of European and Greek instability. Right now Athens has a state of the art museum next to the Parthenon and Greece is as stable as any other European country. The marbles have to come back, there is no excuse other than pride and profit, the Greek citizens want them back and have the means to preserve and showcase them in their natural environment. It's about time...

[Syco]

Imagine the Parthenon still standing today. The initial mortar round is a tragedy of its own.

[Resuarus]

How did these priceless cultural artifacts end up in a British museum? Join us on this 194 part series.

[Dev._.]

“Why are there Pyramids in Giza?” “Because they’re too big to put in a British museum”

[xisumavoid]

I was there just last week! These things and many others should absolutely be returned. Although wonderful to visit, the Museum is sadly a testament to the ways of times gone by and we should figure out a new way to enjoy history and cultural without uprooting it for display elsewhere.

[washipuppy]

I know it's not normally the 'done thing' for old art, but the fact that the Museum hasn't made themselves replicas of the Parthenon Marbles to keep in situ and sent the originals back is so weird to me. You can keep the exhibit, you can keep the story - you just add another chapter now, stating when and how the originals were returned. Same with a lot of the carvings that the British Museum has nicked - You can make replicas, return the originals and tell the story / provenience of them. We do casts all the time for prehistoric animal skeletons, even filling in the bones that are missing with sculpted replicas from other known skeletons. You have the known history to say "Yes, we sure did have the original carvings at one time, and we made these highly detailed casts / replicas of them while we did. They are exact copies. We acquired the originals though some jiggery pokery though, and we've since returned them to their home country." and still keep the exhibit up as long as you'd like, with all the information it originally contained.

[TheZabadabadoo]

For those making the argument that the Marbles should still not go back because the BM can take care of them now, it should be noted that only 50 years ago, the British Museum conservation team decided to "clean" the marbles by chiseling and scraping the marble itself so as to make the white marble more brilliant, thus damaging the marbles themselves.

[JaffaCakeGecko]

I personally feel that the marbles are not well-served by their current environment. The Duveen Gallery feels dingy and cramped. By comparison, the Acropolis Museum looks spectacular - in the parthenon gallery the friezes are displayed around a central core which has the same dimensions of the original building, and the entire gallery has glass walls, out of which you can directly see the monument from which the marbles came. You can't get better than that for placing historical artefacts within context!

[FelicitasSews]

The Elgin's really made a business of looting historical architecture didn't they? his son destroyed the old summer palace in Beijing. this video sent me down a bit of a wiki hole because I recognized his name from like a million streets and towns here. it turns out his son was governor general of Canada for a while and also loved looting

[PNEfc]

As a Brit, I absolutely agree that they should be returned to their rightful home. The Acropolis museum in Athens that's been built specifically to house them is the perfect place and I'm sure as a swap the Greeks will allow us to have their plaster mould replicas that currently are in that museum. It's a crime that we even try to justify us keeping them. It's embarrassing, and to make it worse we have the audacity to call them the 'Elgin marbles', truly cringeworthy. They should be returned. So should every Egyptian artifact, and everything else we've robbed from countries we've previously invaded and plundered.

[LongBonbon]

As a historian those anachronistic maps give me the chills.

[littlston]

There is an australian podcast called "Stuff the british stole" which tells stories of a lot more stuff the british stole, there is an episode on the marbles, but also two season worth of other stories, that I can recommend

[basilb]

the making plaster molds for architectural research to ransacking cultural symbols pipeline

[LoukasAitherovamon]

Immagine that the UK was occupied by a foreign power, and that power gave permission for the Stonehenge to be dismembered and shipped to Greece. That's what happened with the Parthenon Marbles; the fact that some people rely on the Ottoman firman to claim that the removal was legal is hurtful and and infuriating. Furthermore, we have to keep in mind that monuments are not created in vacuo; Parthenon was made to be seen overlooking the city of Athens, in close contact with the city's hills, under the bright light of Attica's sun. This is why the Parthenon Gallery in the Acropolis Museum is designed to be covered in sunlight and why seing the Marbles in the British Museum is diminished experience.
Finally, keep in mind that the Parthenon Friezes are a continuous visual naration. Elgin stealing pieces of the Frieze was like taking off some crucial letters from a text, because they look shiny and beautiful. The narative continuity of the Parthenon is broken, and the only way for it to be restored is for the Sculptures to return home.

6:53 I tried to find more about Broomhall, but I couldn’t find anything in that area on Wikipedia. Turns out, it’s Broomhall castle, and it does not have a Wikipedia page.

[yunleung]

Kind of insane that the 7th Earl of Elgin was basically bankrupt but left SUCH a lasting legacy...

Also, his son ordered for the looting of the Old Summer Palace in the 2nd Opium War.

[chris]

Thanks for the support Nerdwriter ❤️ Every bit of pressure upon the British Museum is much needed. Also im going to add the argument that a permission from a country's foreign conquerors as were the ottomans does not hold much value ethically

[hugocampbell]

Hi there,

I am very keen on the Parthenon sculptures on remaining at the British museum. But I can understand why some want to return them, I really like your win-win attitude for both the British and acropolis museums. I was Wondering if complete replicas of the sculptures be made from the same marble as the originals could occupy the Parthenon gallery in London whilst the originals go to Athens. This is a win-win for everyone the Parthenon sculptures can be compared with other cultures in the British museum, whilst the originals are sent to Athens. Both the British and Greeks can admire the marble. Another solution that can benefits both museums is sharing the Parthenon marbles between the museums. The marbles should be shared between the British museum and the Acropolis museum in Athens I believe the British Museum should loan Them to Greece for a decade then they come back the uk for a decade and repeat the process, a decade in Greece and a decade in Britain. Both the Greeks and the British people can admire the marbles. 🇬🇧🤝🇬🇷

[christosthemelis]

Update 6/2024
Turkey’s spokesperson at a meeting of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit Appropriation (ICPRCP) last week denied knowledge of a written authorization allowing Britain’s Lord Elgin to sell large sections of the Parthenon’s sculptural decorations that had been removed from the ancient Greek citadel between 1801 and 1812, when Athens was under Ottoman rule.

“We are not aware of any document legitimizing this purchase, ” Zeynep Boz, who heads the Turkish Culture Ministry’s department for combating trafficking in antiquities, told the 24th session of the committee, which took place in Paris on May 29-31.

[handsfree]

Would be interesting to see the acropolis sympathetically restored