For many years, the British Museum’s hard “no” to the repatriation question has set the tone for the global reputation of the UK museum sector’s stance on the subject.

In the meantime, other European countries have made rapid progress on repatriation, beginning with the 2018 Sarr-Savoy Report, commissioned by French president Emmanuel Macron, which seemed to indicate that France was ready to return all stolen African belongings in its collections.

Then in 2019, Germany released a framework and guidelines for repatriation issues. These developments, alongside other European countries releasing national policies and even passing new laws, have gained momentum and been widely reported in the press.

This widespread awareness of the advancements in national policy elsewhere in Europe, coupled with the UK government’s anti-repatriation stance, has all served to make the UK sector disillusioned with its own progress towards repatriation.

Threats from the government have left some people fearful of the term “decolonisation”, let alone acting on returning stolen collections.

Lots has been written about the lack of action Britain is taking towards repatriation, and how we are falling behind our European colleagues. But when one digs deeper, the picture of progress across Europe is not as it seems. Fewer than 60 items have been returned to African countries from France, for example.

While museums cannot afford to take the pressure off the UK government to change its position on repatriation, it is important to acknowledge the number of returns that have happened in recent years.

These have been made possible by Indigenous activists and a small number of museum curators committed to making this work happen.

Organisations that have repatriated items include the Horniman Museum, University of Aberdeen, University of Cambridge, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Manchester Museum, Buxton Museum, Bristol Museums, National Museums Scotland and Glasgow Museums.

These returns demonstrate the huge amount of work happening in the UK. Repatriation is a long process, so for these returns to have happened in spite of the government’s posturing and critics saying the sector is not taking enough action, is quite an achievement.

I describe them as “achievements”, not for museums to pat themselves on the back, but because our global reputation prevents more Indigenous Nations making claims with UK museums, as they believe it will be a blanket “no”.

This is partly because the narrative about the UK government and our perceived backwardness on the topic overshadows what many in the sector would like to promote – an openness to return akin to our European colleagues.

So how do museums in the UK change this reputation and communicate that they are open to repatriation claims? Given the number of returns that are happening, we have the opportunity to be leading on repatriation in Europe – but nobody would know that from the current narrative.

And, if all this work can be done in spite of the government, imagine the progress we will make when there is a national push to repatriate. Let’s keep going and raise awareness that while we might not have huge resources, we’re open to returning ancestors and belongings home.

Amy Shakespeare is an AHRC-funded PhD researcher at the University of Exeter and a freelance consultant

Amy's article was first published in the Museums Journal on 29 November 2023.

“These were legally acquired at the time.” Of all the sound bites heard during this week’s furor on the Parthenon Sculptures, that one (attributed to a spokesman for Rishi Sunak) is among the most depressing.

There are several ways to respond.

First, there are some interesting arguments about the various, wildly contradictory documents that were issued by the Ottoman officials during the period when the marbles were extracted and transported to England.

One of those documents, penned in June 1801, apparently authorized Lord Elgin’s associates to collect “some pieces of stone” lying around the Acropolis. But, as they admitted, they exploited a sweet moment in Anglo-Ottoman relations to stretch outrageously the meaning of that text – and systematically strip the Parthenon, using threats and bribes to silence objectors.

The fundamental principle of British democracy is that laws are made by the people’s representatives and that holders of high office are subject to man-made laws.

But there is a deeper point of principle, and it goes to the heart of the reason why liberal-minded people call the sculptures of Pheidias a vital piece of humanity’s heritage.

Among citizens of today’s liberal democracies, the age of Pericles is admired precisely because it foreshadowed the ideal of the law-based state. A state where laws are freely debated and approved with the involvement of all citizens, and then applied impartially.

A state where office-holders are accountable to every citizen, and can be removed if they violate the law. Ancient Athens had its flaws, but so too do modern democracies. In any case, the ancient Athenian ideal is one we can recognize and admire.

These points have been well argued by Professor Paul Cartledge, vice chairman of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

The Ottoman Empire in the age of Elgin was not a law-based state in anything like the modern sense. It was a kind of theocracy, where power flowed from the sultan, who in turn derived his authority from God. Arguably, modern Britain also has vestiges of theocracy, in the sense that it has a monarchy and an established church. But they are only vestiges: The fundamental principle of British democracy is that laws are made by the people’s representatives and that holders of high office are subject to man-made laws.

That is why it seems so odd for a British government to be citing the decrees of a theocratic empire as grounds for rejecting the legitimate aspirations of a fellow democracy – and refusing to meet the leader of a duly elected government.

The Ottoman Empire was not a law-based state in the modern understanding of the term. It was a theocracy in which supreme authority sat with the sultan-caliph who ruled by divine authority and divine inspiration.

This Opinion arrticle was published in ekathimerini.com on 05 December 2023

Bruce Clark, is international security editor at The Economist, author of a number of books, including his latest book, which is entitled “Athens: City of Wisdom.” Bruce is a member of BCRPM.

A growing number of the British public believe that the sculptures held in the British Museum should be reunified with those in the Acropolis Museum in Athens. So why did Rishi Sunak seem so offended by Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s remarks?

The morning after Greece went into meltdown at the cancellation of a scheduled meeting between the Greek and the British prime ministers, a spokesperson for Rishi Sunak said the Greek government had “provided reassurances that they would not use the visit [of Kyriakos Mitsotakis] to relitigate long-settled matters relating to the ownership of the Parthenon sculptures”.

It was news to me that discussions over ownership of those sculptures were “long-settled”. Since when? The discussion is very much alive – and more hotly debated than ever. Not only do surveys continue to  indicate that the British public believe that the sculptures held in the British Museum should be reunified with those in the Acropolis Museum in Athens, but the debate constantly grows over ownership of many other cultural artefacts and treasures that have been housed there from the days of empire.

But there is an even more significant factor with the Parthenon sculptures. And this is to do with what I will bluntly call daylight robbery.

I suspect that Sunak, like many British politicians, has not read enough around the detailed facts of what actually happened back in the 19th century when Elgin employed a team of people to hack and crowbar those beautiful treasures from the Parthenon in Athens. Most significantly, perhaps, he doesn’t know (and I am giving him the benefit of the doubt) that Elgin did not have permission from the Ottoman authorities to do this. He merely had a letter which stated he could take impressions of the sculptures in order to make copies. He was not supposed to steal the originals.

Another fact (not hearsay, but fact) is that Elgin took them with the intention of decorating his own mansion in Scotland. The only reason they found their way to the British Museum (where they were eventually scrubbed with wire wool to “clean them up” and were thereby damaged) was that Elgin was bankrupt by the time the sculptures reached the English shores, and he needed to flog them. So yes, money was paid for them by the British government, but they were purchasing stolen goods.

The British Museum does nothing to dispel the myth of Elgin’s supposed “saving” of the marbles from the Ottoman empire which might not respect their value and beauty. And they have the nerve to talk about a “loan” to Greece. It is patronising beyond words.

The British Museum still has the shadow of a scandal over it – no one has yet been arrested for the systematic thefts of items from its collections. It has not explained why they ignored all the information that was being passed to them about this, for over two years. They have still not appointed a new permanent director. I assume much is going on behind closed doors, but nothing that is being shared with us the public, odd given that this is an institution that receives plenty from the public purse. How well do they curate their artefacts (99 per cent of which live in a store that is invisible to us)?

So, if this meeting truly was cancelled because Sunak was offended in some way by Mr Mitsotakis’s comments on the sculptures during Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday programme, then this was a very unstatesmanlike reaction to say the least. Surely one of the skills of a politician is to discuss, debate, argue, and share differences.
So if Sunak was afraid of doing this, I think it massively reduces his reputation. He is already doing badly in the polls, so this will not have helped. And if it was because Mitsotakis had already spoken to Keir Starmer, it’s a manifestation of his weakness (as well as inability to pick decent advisers). The decision was rude, disrespectful, and an enormous diplomatic error.

Greece is in meltdown because of this slight. Post-Brexit, Britain has already lost a fair number of friends in Europe. Why did Sunak decide to alienate one of the oldest and most treasured among them? I am truly baffled.

Victoria Hislop is a member of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, and wrote this comment article for the Independent. Her latest novel, The Figurine, was inspired by the issue of archaeological theft.

NoHMATA ‘Meanings’ Personifications and Allegories from Antiquity to Today

How are Jealousy, Envy, Evil, Slander, human passions and emotions personified? And what about Eros (Love), Pothos (Longing), Himeros (Desire), Hypnos (Sleep), Dream and Death?

How about heavenly bodies (stars and planets), continents, islands, mountains and rivers? But also institutions, cities, fairness and unfairness, Justice and Injustice? Personified concepts and meanings with human or animal form and allegorical stories, all placed together and becoming visible in the new exhibition titled NoHMATA ‘Meanings’. Personifications and Allegories from Antiquity to Today, at the Acropolis Museum, starting December 4th 2023 until April 14th 2024.

This exhibition forms a unique Tetralogy, where the greek word NoΗΜΑ (meaning) becomes a NΗMA (thread), and includes various artworks – statues, reliefs and vases, coins, jewellery and icons, paintings, uniting for the first time Antiquity with Byzantium, with Renaissance and Modern Art.

A mix of artworks in marble, clay, metal, canvas and colour, most of which are travelling for the first time and come together to delight and inspire, to puzzle and to make you think. Among the artworks that will be presented is the painting of Rubens from the Museo del Prado showing Cronos, the personification of Time, devouring his children, the personified Painting of Bourdon from a private Collection in Rome, the bronze statuette of Hypnos from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the famous Nike Sandalbinder from the Acropolis Museum, a vase by the Meidias Painter from the British Museum, the mosaics of Sea and Ocean from the Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, the Allegory of Divine Ascension from the Byzantine & Christian Museum of Athens, the sculpture of Eros and Psyche from the Musei Capitolini in Rome, the Seasons from the National Archaeological Museum, alongside the Seasons of Yannis Tsarouchis from a private Athenian Collection, the Allegory of Slander by Botticelli and his botega, etc.

Time, Nature, Deities, Man, Institutions and Allegories, are uniquely interwoven in the exhibition sections, leading to the final part of the exhibition with the bronze Chimera from 400 B.C., from the Archaeological Museum of Florence. An exhibition, a Chimera, like all things human!

Curation: Professor Nikolaos Chr. Stampolidis and his associates at the Acropolis Museum.

Professor Paul Cartledge's  letter to the Times, was published on Saturday 01 December.

Sir

It is good to know that Louis de Bernières (letter, Nov 30) is a philhellene, but his assertion that Lord Elgin took the marbles with Ottoman permission is doubly untrue. There is no verifiable documentary evidence to support the claim that what Elgin did was officially authorised nor did he merely take what he had removed and sold to the British government. Your headline 'Surrendering the Elgin Marbles to Athens' is also unfortunate: this is not a matter of war but diplomacy, and the only Marbles in question are those removed from the Parthenon, not the entirety of the Elgin collection of marble sculptures now in the BM.

Paul Cartledge
(Vice-Chair, British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles)

And on Sunday with Michael Portillo, fast forwad to 1:07:30 to catch the discussion on the Oarthenon Marbles. Paul wore a Thalassa tie, the same creators of the tie worn by King Charles III at COP28. Paul's tie isn't woven with the motif of the Greek flag but has the letters of the Greek alphabet. 

Earlier in the week Paul also spoke on NTD, a New York-based, global television network as well as Ta Nea: "Britain is isolated on the issue of the Parthenon Marbles. Greece's request for reunification will remain on the table, as it has been for more than four decades since it was submitted to UNESCO. We will continue our campaign and urge Greece to continue to ask the trustees of the British Museum to do what is right: return the sculptures, but not as loans, to their natural environment, the Acropolis Museum."

In TA NEA today, an article by Yannis Andritsopoulos, UK corresondent.

Below quote from two exceptional supporters in the UK House of Lords, exceptional because of their support for our campaign too.

“I believe Rishi Sunak's decision to cancel the meeting with the Greek PM was shocking and discourteous. It was embarrassing for the UK to be behaving like a small child,” Alf Dubs, the veteran Labour peer, said.

He added: “I hope we can repair UK relations with Greece, maybe we'll need a Labour government to do that. I believe the Marbles should be returned, maybe on a long-term loan if necessary.”

"The adolescent petulance of cancelling the Greek premier is unworthy of any aspiring statesman. Contrast Mr Sunak’s cringe-worthy job interview with Elon Musk and our Prime Minister’s leadership looks even more erratic,” said Shami Chakrabarti, the Labour peer and former shadow attorney general for England and Wales.

“One minute he hosts international summits on Advanced Intelligence; the next he spurns so-called foreign courts in both London and Strasbourg over his treatment of refugees. Basic intelligence suggests Britain needs friends not enemies. We need cultural exchange not culture war,” added Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, who is a member of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM).

“A Labour Government should strive to reunite the Parthenon Sculptures in their beautiful Athenian home,” she said.

The British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles are grateful to both Alf and Shami for their continued support to this cause, and our campaigning.