The article 'British museums weigh the cost of repatriating exhibits', by the Marketplace, quotes Tiffany Jenkins: 

“It’s about knowledge, about understanding, about preservation, about audiences. And it’s not about righting the wrongs of history,” Tiffany Jenkins said. “We should be thinking where can these objects be safest and where can they do the most good? Are objects going to be safe if they are returned to Nigeria, are they going to be seen by many people? I’m not convinced they are.”

Janet Suzman writes to Tiffany Jenkins and questions: "but we live in an age entirely devoted to attempting to right the wrongs of history do we not? All sorts of histories, pre-eminently that of slavery and the colonial occupations of countries and their peoples - and thus of those people’s cultures and possessions - are being questioned. And rightly so. Received mythologies of modern history are increasingly being re-thought and re-interpreted since the end of colonial powers. Britain’s was the most powerful and extensive and we know it took things because it could. The British Museum itself is an astonishing hymn to that concept.

Papers have reached their 50-year limit and are being released or coming to light. Those people who were there to tell the tale reveal are moved to recount the facts as they lived them before it’s too late. Things don’t stay hidden for ever. Pictures are being very slowly restored to their owners having been taken by the SS. Awareness of so many cultural appropriations is higher than ever it has been. Respect for others, so often falling short in practise, is, willy-nilly, now front and centre.

I’m a little surprised, too, that you don’t expand on what you mean by the phrase ’do the most good’. You were, I guess, being Aristotelean, but you might be doing the most good to a nation were you to return what is rightfully theirs, be it a precious skull of some ancient folk-hero, or works of sculpture unsurpassed in all of ensuing history.

Where can certain objects be safest you ask? I would suggest in purpose-built modern museums whose roofs don’t leak and in which the latest technology of temperature control and air conditioning exists. You yourself are an admirer of the stunning New Acropolis Museum in Athens (now more than 13 years old) as I've heard you say so. You cannot surely have a quarrel with the conservatory and scholastic skills at work there?

What I really fail to understand, though, is what the case can possibly be for denying a country authentic works of its own art. I know great art belongs to everyone, but nothing predicates that London is the sole place through which this ‘everyone’ passes. London’s days of being the centre of the known world are long gone. The internet has happened, and digital sharing amongst places of learning are normal. So is travel.

In any case, jaw-droppingly accurate digital replicas are now possible. Why on earth should the British Museum have the originals of the Marbles while denying them to Athens? Reverse that insular notion and hey-presto justice is done and excitement beckons as the BM discovers that no-one can possibly tell the difference. Indeed with perfect replicas of all the objects that were sneakily lifted by Elgin the BM might even rise to a corrective by restoring the exquisite patinas that once graced the Parthenon Marbles before they were scrubbed by crude wire brushes into institutionally white supremacist versions. The exquisite replicas can still ’tell their story’ as the authorities always put it. They could even be painted in the colours they once wore if the BM decided to create a block-buster show, or would that be too, too vulgar?

And as to being seen by many people, I must tell you that the BCRPM took a poll of the proportion of the 6 million annual visitors boasted by the BM only to find that only one sixth of them visit Room 18, the Duveen Galleries. That figure is easily matched and surpassed by the Athens Museum so please don’t worry about numbers.

Righting the wrongs of history is a tussle that the Western world is going through in a big way as I write this, and, Tiffany Jenkins, it has to be lived through and responded to else the BM and like-minded finders-keepers mentalities will hold us in thrall to the high-handed days of yore, which are mainly despicable in the light of modern sensibilities. Take a leaf, say I, out of the thinking that prevails in the great Dutch museums where a certain humanity prevails. Other museums feel the same it seems. UNESCO certainly does, as a whole body.

Nothing bad will happen, only good, if arguably the greatest of the national museums were to behave like a mensch and give the blasted Parthenon Marbles back to the Greeks."

Respecfully and sincerely,
Janet Suzman

Simon Bertin invites Classics Professor Paul Cartledge to talk on the Parthenon Marbles and talks over returning them to Greece.

During the programme, Paul points that the Parthenon is the most complex, and most architecturally distinguished monument of ancient Greece. He goes on to explain the significance of the stunningly sculpted elements from the frieze, to the metopes and pedimental sculptures.

Paul also takes listeners through the story of Lord Elgin's removal of the best sculptued pieces. How just three decades after they had been removed, and  once Greece gained independence,  the new Greek state formally request the return of what Lord Elgin had removed from the Parthenon and sold to Parliament in 1816. The point on the 'permission' is also covered. "There is no firman", Paul points out but a letter written in Italian, which one can access at the British Museum, and this does not give Lord Elgin's men specific permission to remove all that was removed.

The fragments returned to Greece from Heidelberg, Palermo and most recently the Vatican Museums, although a fraction of what the British Museum holds, have made a great difference to Greece's continued request for the reunification of all of the surviving pieces from the Parthenon.

The support for finding a solution at UNESCO was overwhelming, and Paul praised Greece's efforts, highlighting how isolated the UK has become in this matter.

Paul concludes that the Parthenon and its sculptures are an astnishing feat of human social and political endevour.

 To listen to this programme follow the link, here.

01 April 2023

The Marbles - Panel Discussion

Join David Wilkinson, director of forthcoming documentary The Marbles, and an expert panel to discuss the story of the Parthenon Marbles.

By Greenlit

When and where, date and time: Saturday, 01 April,  5 - 6pm BST, online.

To read more about David's documentary film, follow the link here.

With talks between Greek authorities and The British Museum regarding the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles showing real promise, the UK’s Greek community, along with leading classicists and campaigners from the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM), have launched a new campaign to repay the funds used by Parliament in their acquisition.

Over two hundred years ago, Lord Elgin removed a number of exquisitely carved figures and friezes from the Parthenon, wreaking severe damage to the monument. He shipped the Parthenon Marbles from the site of the Acropolis to England, with the intention of decorating his ancestral home in Scotland. However, he became bankrupt and was obliged to offer the sculptures to British Parliament, who at the time paid £35,000 (roughly equivalent to 2.5 million today).

In 1816 the sculptures were placed in the care of The British Museum and thus became known as the Elgin Marbles. However, since Greece's declaration for independence in 1821, the Greek state has continued to appeal for their return, and responding to an ever-growing shift in popular opinion, the sculptures are now widely acknowledged as the Parthenon Marbles. Since the opening of the Acropolis Museum in 2009 there is an opportunity to see the surviving sculptures reunited as close as it is physically possible to the Parthenon.

Professor Paul Cartledge, Vice Chair of the Committee, explains: “Our intent is to symbolically repay the funds used in this acquisition as a gesture of goodwill, and to ensure that in the eventual reunification of these works of art to their peers in Athens, the part of Parliament in safeguarding these objects is properly recognised.”

Launching the campaign on Greek Independence Day, the Greek community with classicists and campaigners from the BCRPM are planning to raise the £35,000 and return it to the new Secretary of State for Culture, Media & Sport, the Right Hon Lucy Frazer KC MP.

The Greeks wish for the sculptures to be returned, so they can be placed alongside and reunited with their other halves, to be seen as one connected work of art, inside a stellar modern museum, built specially in eye viewing distance of the actual building from which they were taken.

Avgoustinos Galiassos, British & Greek Member of the Committee, adds: “It is hugely important that the role played by parliament be recognized and remembered. It matters to us as Greeks and Brits that we make this gesture of goodwill, and should the government be unwilling or unable to receive the funds, supportrs will be given their money back or they can if they wish leave it for more campaigning initiatives.”

Of the sculptures, Dame Janet Suzman, Chair of the Committee, says: “The arrival of these sculptures in London generated huge and lasting interest in ancient Greece. After two centuries, the support for their reunification in the Acropolis Museum with the public in the UK, Greece and throughout the globe, is at an all-time high. The time has now come for them to be returned home to be reunified with the remaining Marbles at the site they were wrongly torn from.”

The on-going talks between The British Museum and the Greek authorities represent the most substantive opportunity for progress in a generation. For the past twenty-three years, Greece has promised to send more Greek artefacts not seen outside of Greece to The British Museum. The British Museum has 108,184 Greek artefacts, of which only 6,493 are even on display.

The British Museum insists on informing its visitors, that these Marbles were legally acquired yet no official permit has ever come to light permitting Lord Elgin to decide which of the best pieces of sculpture from the Parthenon, damaged though it was, could be removed.

George Gabriel, British & Greek Member of the Committee, also adds: “Elgin was an opportunist, Parliament is not. Our hope is that by properly recognising the role of the United Kingdom in preserving these treasures we can further open space for them to be reunified in Athens where they belong. The purpose of these funds is the symbolic repayment of those used by Parliament, in recognition of the important role it played in preserving these antiquities. Going beyond a symbolic step such as this, given the well documented concerns about the legality and ethics of Elgin's acquisition of the Marbles would not be appropriate at this time.”

You can find details of the fundraising campaign here.

For further media enquiries please contact Marlen Godwin on 07789533791 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.