Why are the Parthenon Marbles Still Here?
By Heloise Pinto
Amid reports that the ongoing ‘secret’ negotiations between the chair of the British Museum, George Osborne, and the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, about the Parthenon Marbles’ potential return to Greece were making progress, Rishi Sunak’s official spokesperson has this week ruled out changing the de-accession policy of the British Museum. At the moment, by law, the museum may only ‘sell, exchange, give away or otherwise dispose of’ any artefact if it is either a duplicate, is declared unfit for the collection and of no interest to the public or to scholars, or is ‘useless’ to the museum as a result of damage – requirements undeniably elusive to the Parthenon Marbles, the centre of this longstanding and frustrating stalemate. The Greek government does not recognise the British Museum’s ownership of the marbles and wants them returned and displayed in their birthplace, at the foot of the Acropolis, from which they were infamously removed by Lord Elgin in 1802. The museum claims their acquisition was legal, and that loans to Greece would be happily considered if they did not legally require Greek acknowledgement of British ownership. The British government insists it is a matter for the operationally independent museum.
The temple of Athena Parthenos was built in the 5th century BC as the statesman Pericles’ great monument to the glory of Athens following its victory in the Greco-Persian wars. Attributed to the famed Greek sculptor, Phidias, the marbles decorated various sections of the temple, which became, from around 500 AD, a Christian church, resulting in the systematic removal, destruction or defacement of many of them. The temple next became a mosque, after mainland Greece was conquered by the Ottoman Empire in 1460, before being used as a gunpowder store during the venetian siege of Athens in 1687, when an explosion severely damaged the structure, meaning that when Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, began harvesting the Acropolis in 1802, he had only about half of the original, intact set of sculptures from which to choose.
The document legally allowing him to do so (according to the British Museum and government), granted to him by the Ottoman Sultan, has not yet been recovered, but the Acropolis Museum argues it authorised Elgin only to investigate the site – not to help himself to its treasures. He did, however, and transported 17 pediment figures, 15 of the 92 metopes, 247ft of the original 524ft of the frieze, and some further architectural details, to London, where he petitioned the government to purchase them from him. According to the British Museum, a thorough investigation of the legality of Elgin’s acquisition of the marbles was carried out before their purchase in 1816.
Conflict: Centaur and Lapith from the Southern Metopes. Photo: The British Museum
Their repatriation was first officially called for in 1982 by Melina Mercouri, former Greek minister for culture and sports. In 1986, she was invited to debate the subject at the Oxford Union by its then-president, Boris Johnson, who supported her motion – until he was in a position to do something about it; as Prime Minister he avoided taking action when urged to by Mitsotakis, reciting instead the traditional line which, of course, fails to account for the fact that the British parliament would have to approve any change to the act declaring the trustees’ ownership, anyway.
Arguably, the point is not whether or not the sculptures’ removal was legal at the time. The British Museum and government are not doing everything in their combined power to relinquish control over the marbles; they’re arguing with Greece – why? Technicalities are insignificant in the face of the moral decorum which constitutes the willing cooperation required to ensure the freedom of any country to display its heritage as it sees fit.
Bibliography
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https://www.britishmuseum.org/sites/default/files/2019-10/De-accession_Policy_Nov2018.pdf