The Parthenon Marbles, extensively believed to be one of many “most essential collections of classical artwork in existence”, have been stolen from the Acropolis of Athens in Greece, on the daybreak of the nineteenth century, by an Englishman entrusted to function an envoy.
Not too long ago, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled a slated assembly with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis a day after Mitsotakis had informed the BBC that the marbles needs to be returned. Sunak’s clumsy resolution has thrown the difficulty of the marbles again into international headlines, particularly at a time when colonialist behaviour and cultural theft are more and more newsworthy.
For two,500 years, by means of instances of warfare and peace, the magnificent sculptural artworks that kind the Parthenon graced Athens as a spot of nationwide focus honouring historic gods and civic virtues. Then, between 1801 and 1805, the UK’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, ordered the removing of core components of the Parthenon’s frieze for “safekeeping” abroad, with the permission of native authorities.
So what precisely did that appear to be?
“Elimination” concerned Elgin’s males climbing ladders and irreparably damaging the Parthenon with saws — by employees who’d been engaged at Elgin’s expense (his authorities had refused), initially solely to analysis and doc — leaving in Athens solely “30% of the unique remaining sculptures” whereas taking the remainder to Britain.
The “authorities” weren’t native. Elgin claimed to have secured written permission from the Ottomans, the occupying pressure that the Greeks would overthrow within the Revolutionary Warfare a mere 20 years later. No copy of any such authority doc exists in Turkey, and the standing of a letter within the British Museum’s assortment stays disputed.
“Safekeeping” meant personal storage at numerous places, together with Elgin’s residence — some have been misplaced in a shipwreck, solely to be recovered at nice private expense over three painstaking years. (Once more, he was unable to safe authorities or personal backers; in a single plea for funds, he described the misplaced sculptures as “stones of no worth”.) At an excellent monetary loss to Elgin, overlaying lower than half of his bills, Greece’s nationwide treasures have been then solely offered to the British Museum, when the previous ambassador was approaching chapter over a decade later after the top of his marriage to the heiress who’d funded his exploits.
It’s a sordid story in anybody’s ebook. Lord Byron, who died defending Greece within the 1821 Revolutionary Warfare, famously known as Elgin’s actions vandalism.
What’s modified this time is that the chair of the British Museum, George Osborne, has been keen to name Rishi Sunak out politically in addition to ethically. Regardless of being constrained by a 1963 regulation that forestalls the return of any historic object in its assortment — and some extent of competition remaining concerning the Greek authorities’s refusal to acknowledge the British Museum’s possession of the sculptures — the British Museum has been actively exploring long-term mortgage and cultural trade choices.
“That’s, I feel, one thing price exploring,” stated Osborne, “and we are able to go on doing it whether or not or not Rishi Sunak meets the Greek prime minister. The truth is, if something, issues have been slightly clarified by this week. We clearly know we’re not going to get any explicit help from the Conservative authorities.”
Even King Charles selected to shirtfront Sunak publicly at their very subsequent encounter, selecting the yr’s most crucial international discussion board to greet his prime minister at COP28 carrying a tie boldly that includes the Greek flag, prepared with a smile for all of the world’s media to {photograph}.
Within the more moderen years in Greece’s two-century-long progress in direction of securing the return of their property, the nation has constructed a bespoke museum to make sure its protected, culturally acceptable exhibition in an ongoing analysis surroundings.
The award-winning structure of Bernard Tschumi and Michael Photiadis Associates’ Acropolis Museum rests elegantly atop a working archaeological dig, whereas inside, guests can see conservation and restoration work carried out proper earlier than their eyes. Transparency is constructed into the museum’s design, with see-through flooring and plentiful pure mild.
Whereas the Acropolis is a part of on a regular basis life for Greeks, 64% of Britons have by no means visited the British Museum, its trustees are “the world’s largest receivers of stolen property” in line with Geoffrey Robertson QC, and earlier this yr it was revealed that one of many museum’s workers had stolen some 2,000 objects from its assortment, together with Greek treasures, throughout a number of years.
Additionally embedded within the Acropolis Museum’s design are values of constancy and integrity. In a daring transfer clearly expressed in its structure, the museum’s high flooring shifts in orientation to face the Parthenon, and its dimensions match it exactly. This area has been designed to exhibit the sculptures because the one coherent art work that guests to the Acropolis have been all the time meant to expertise. All that’s lacking are the stolen artworks.
The return of the Parthenon Marbles is inevitable, whether or not completely or beneath a long-term mortgage association. In the meantime, Sunak has a number of onerous work to do to rebuild belief with Europe in addition to with the UK’s substantial Greek diaspora neighborhood. Archbishop Elpidophoros, chief of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, stated that Sunak’s disrespect “deeply insults Greeks worldwide”. He’s proper, however the actuality of the offence is extra advanced.
On the coronary heart of this matter are useless makes an attempt by the post-Brexit UK to cling on to European cultural authority, by sustaining an outdated colonial stance more and more recognised as fraudulent. Whereas museum follow worldwide has lengthy since advanced to take an specific stance towards the parable of cultural neutrality, UK politics lags effectively behind.
Sawtooth diplomacy helps no-one; sledgehammer strategies finish solely in destruction. It’s time for the UK to personal its cultural historical past and prepared the ground in constructing significant, respectful relationships.