UK's Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, Oliver Dowden has written to museums and galleries (22 September 2020):'The significant support that you receive from the taxpayer is an acknowledgement of the important cultural role you play for the entire country.' He urged institutions to 'continue to act impartially', something he described as 'especially important' as the Government conducts its Comprehensive Spending Review - an apparent threat that funding could be at risk. 

The British Museum said in a statement: 'The British Museum has no intention of removing controversial objects from public display. 'Instead, it will seek where appropriate to contextualise or reinterpret them in a way that enables the public to learn about them in their entirety.'

Mr Dowden's letter, seen by the Telegraph, comes after a summer of cultural clashes over Britain's colonial past. The letter sent to museums and galleries  including the British Museum, Tate galleries, Imperial War museums, National Portrait Gallery, National Museums Liverpool, the Royal Armouries, the Science Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the British Library.

Mr Dowden said in the letter: 'The Government does not support the removal of statues or other similar objects.' 

'Historic England, as the Government's adviser on the historic environment, have said that removing difficult and contentious parts of it risks harming our understanding of our collective past.'

The letter continued: 'As publicly funded bodies, you should not be taking actions motivated by activism or politics.'

• This smacks of disingenuousness. Or even a sort of cultural bribery. Any object in a ‘universal museum’ is a political acquisition, activated by the then colonial power - namely Britain. For 'activism' read looted or just taken. Britain took artefacts just because it could, not with malign intent perhaps but more out of consuming interest and curiosity. However, the cultural importance to the country from which objects were abducted was of no interest to to the colonialists. The British Empire is no more and times have changed and a certain respect for other countries’ history must now enter the museum equation. Our understanding of Britain’s past would be hugely enhanced were Elgin’s stolen Marbles returned to their rightful place in Greece.

The British Museum's most controversial artefacts , the Elgin Marbles are a collection of classical Greek marble sculptures, inscriptions and architectural members that were mostly created by Phidias and his assistants.

• These only became ‘a collection' when they were 'collected’ by Lord Elgin. FACT: these figures and bas reliefs were carved into the Pentelic marble blocks of which the Parthenon was constructed, and were thus part and parcel of the architectural structure of the building itself. Phidias built the Parthenon for Periclean Athens to celebrate the goddess Athena - an historic rite which remains a mystery to modern Britons, even though the beauty of the sculptures as idealised human beings is unmistakeable.

The 7th Earl of Elgin, Thomas Bruce, removed the Parthenon Marble pieces from the Acropolis in Athens while serving as the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799 to 1803.

FACT: in so doing he destroyed many parts of the building no thanks to the crude methods his people used to detach the figures from their places, catastrophically damaging the structure of this architectural masterpiece.

In 1801, the Earl claimed to have obtained a permit from the Ottoman authorities to remove pieces from the Parthenon.

FACT: His claim has never been substantiated and thus far not a shred of evidence has been found to support Elgin’s claim.

As the Acropolis was still an Ottoman military fort, Elgin required permission to enter the site.

FACT: ostensibly for a few pieces already fallen to the ground, ('qualche pezzi’ in the Italian of the one and only extant permission) but NOT to hack them off the structure.

His agents subsequently removed half of the surviving sculptures, as well as architectural members and sculpture from the Propylaea and Erechtheum.

FACT: no proof of any permission to do so has ever been found.

The excavation and removal was completed in 1812 at a personal cost of around £70,000

FACT: His ‘personal costs’ included large amounts given as bribes to Ottoman functionaries, often no doubt to turn a blind eye to his depredations. Most of his bribes are carefully recorded.

The sculptures were shipped to Britain at the expense of the British Crown in a naval ship but in Greece, the Scots aristocrat was accused of looting and vandalism.

FACT: rightly so. Elgin had no intention of displaying his collection to the public but intended them solely for his Scottish seat and his own enjoyment. Only when he later went bankrupt was he forced to sell them.

They were bought by the British Government in 1816 and placed in the British Museum.

FACT: They were bought for £35,000 to be placed under the protection of the Trustees, who still hold them in Trust. Trustees cannot own, they can only hold in Trust. And they could decide to cease doing so by returning the Marbles. Good sense and decency demands it.

They still stand on view in the purpose-built Duveen Gallery.

FACT: They have been there for more than 200 years. Isn’t that long enough?

FACT: The visitor is not told the full story: that these pedimental figures are separated from the other half of that pediment in Athens; that most of the frieze - which once galloped right round the building depicting the pan-Atheniac procession - have been so crudely split that the front hooves of a horse, say, can be seen in Britain and the back half in Athens. These are senseless and crude divisions which deprive visitors in Britain and in Greece of seeing the completed work of sculptural art.

Greece has sought their return from the British Museum through the years, to no avail.

The British Minister for Culture has recently stated: “[the British Museum] will seek where appropriate to contextualise or reinterpret them (the artifact) in a way that enables the public to learn about them in their entirety.”

FACT: The BM offers no information for the public to learn the full history of the Marbles 'in their entirety’. They are displayed out of context and the manner of their acquisition is not openly and fully recounted, so how is the public to learn that the building from which they were so crudely torn still stands above Athens for all to see? How are they to know Elgin had no official permission to take them? This makes these pieces unique, because no other building from the ancient world has boasted such transcendent carving as an integral part of it and yet still stands in the 21st Century.

The authenticity of Elgin's permit to remove the sculptures from the Parthenon has been widely disputed, especially as the original document has been lost. Many claim it was not legal.

FACT: This is of prime importance in the dispute: there is no indication that the original document ever existed, let alone that it was ‘legal.'

However, others argue that since the Ottomans had controlled Athens since 1460, their claims to the artefacts were legal and recognisable.

FACT: This is a weak argument that falls under the heading of mere Opinion. Independent Greece does not recognise these claims. Furthermore, the Marbles mark the highest expression of its culture at its height - the remarkable civilisation that was to Hellenise the Western world. The Ottoman occupying powers had no interest in preserving such an alien culture and used the Parthenon merely as an armoury. It was blown up by a Venetian attack on Athens, gravely ruining some of the building. Elgin did the rest.

When the Greeks fought for their independence the so-called legality of Ottoman rule came to an end, and so surely must the legality of the sculptures being held by the BM. Is there such a thing as ‘perpetuity’? For 200 years The British Museum may indeed have protected them from any further depredations by unwelcome visitors or weather, they have duly fed the Enlightenment flame, inspired classical research and artistic inspiration - but now their job is done. They stand at the very heart of Greek national pride and must be returned home to the stunning modern museum - The New Acropolis Museum - built in plain sight of the Parthenon itself. Next year the Greeks celebrate their 200th year of independence from Ottoman rule and crave for their Marbles to be celebrated with them. THEY MUST GO BACK WHERE THEY BELONG.

Janet Suzman, Chair of BCRPM

More on this story in the Daily Mailand  GTP - in the latter the article concludes on this note: Greece has officially requested the temporary return of the Parthenon Marbles to Athens, for the bicentennial events.

Thursday, 6 February 2020 from 18:00 to 20:00, Kings College London, a panel discussion: "Who owns history" with Geoffrey Robertson QC,  plus Professor Edith Hall, Department of Classics, King's College London and Professor John Tasioulas, Director of the Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy and Law, King's College London, Chaired by Professor Philippa Webb, Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London

Event was held at:

SW1.18, Somerset House East Wing
The Dickson Poon School of Law, King's College London
Strand
London WC2R 2LS
United Kingdom

The panel featured a discussion of Geoffrey Robertson's recently published book, "Who Owns History? Elgin's Loot and the Case for Returning Plundered Treasure".

The biggest question in the world of art and culture concerns the return of property taken without consent. Throughout history, conquerors or colonial masters have taken artefacts from subjugated peoples, who now want them returned from museums and private collections in Europe and the USA.

The controversy rages on over the Elgin Marbles, and has been given immediacy by figures such as France's President Macron, who says he will order French museums to return hundreds of artworks acquired by force or fraud in Africa, and by British opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has pledged that a Labour government would return the Elgin Marbles to Greece. Elsewhere, there is a debate in Belgium about whether the Africa Museum, newly opened with 120,000 items acquired mainly by armed forces in the Congo, should close.

Although there is an international convention dated 1970 that deals with the restoration of artefacts stolen since that time, there is no agreement on the rules of law or ethics which should govern the fate of objects forcefully or lawlessly acquired in previous centuries.

Who Owns History? delves into the crucial debate over the Elgin Marbles, but also offers a system for the return of cultural property based on human rights law principles that are being developed by the courts. It is not a legal text, but rather an examination of how the past can be experienced by everyone, as well as by the people of the country of origin.

Follow the link to read Professor John Tasioulas' paper in response to Geoffrey Robertson's 'Who Owns History' panel discussion at Kings College London.

28 July 2011

 John Melville-Jones writes for neokosmos.com

In recent years the nature of the document that was presented to the British Parliament in 1816, which authorised Lord Elgin to study and copy the ancient Greek sculptures on the Acropolis of Athens, has been investigated.

It is clear that it was not, as has so often been claimed, a 'firman' from the Ottoman sultan, because it lacks some of the formal elements that a true 'firman' would have had. Its exact nature is, however difficult to define. If an official 'firman' was ever issued (and no evidence now exists to prove that this happened), the Italian text that Lord Elgin laid before the parliament with an English translation may have been a précis of this. But it is more probable that it was a more or less accurate translation of an ad hoc document created by an Ottoman official in Athens. For this reason the translation of the document into English that was made by Lord Elgin's chaplain the Reverend Philip Hunt should have been faultless. But it contains a small but significant mistake.

The authorization to remove material from the Acropolis was repeated in the document, essentially in the same words (Hunt's translations follow): e quando volessero portar via qualche pezzi di pietra con vechie inscrizioni, e figure, non sia fatta lor' oposizione …'and should they wish to take away any pieces of stone with old inscriptions, and figures, that no opposition be made …' and: non si faccia opposizione al portar via qualche pezzi di pietra con inscrizioni, e figure … 'nor hinder them from taking away any pieces of stone with inscriptions, and figures …' Two other translations of this document have been made (as noted in the article by Williams cited above).
 
They all translate the Italian phrase 'qualche pezzi di pietra' in the same way, as 'any pieces of stone'. But this is wrong. Anyone who looks up qualche in an Italian-English dictionary will find that 'any' is one of its meanings. But dictionaries often lead the unwary astray, and 'any' is only a permissible translation in some circumstances. For example, hai qualche libro che posso leggere? might be translated as 'Do you have any book(s) that I can read?' But the proper translation of qualche pezzi di pietra is not 'any pieces of stone' but 'a few pieces of stone' (the Italian of the document is not the best in this case - it is normal to use the singular form of a noun with qualche, so we would expect to read qualche pezzo, but this is not important).

The only time, to my knowledge, that this phrase has been translated correctly into English was in a speech made by Melina Mercouri (the Greek Minister for Culture) to the Oxford Union in 1986.

This does not seem to have attracted any general attention. How many 'pieces of stone' would be implied by qualche pezzi? It is possible to suspect that the language is deliberately vague, but if you ask an Italian what number the phrase might imply, he will smile happily and make supportive gestures if you suggest three or five or seven, but when you reach ten or a larger number he will begin to look doubtful.

So if the conditions of the alleged 'firman' had been strictly observed, Lord Elgin would not have been allowed to take away as many pieces of stone from the Parthenon and other buildings as he did. And if the British Parliamentary Select Committee had had a more exact translation before it in 1816 when it was formed to discuss the possible acquisition of the Elgin Marbles, this might have led to some modification of their decision.

There is no record of any objection from the Ottoman authorities to Lord Elgin's removal of the large number of 'pieces of stone' that he did in fact take, so the mistranslation of this phrase in the 'firman' now has little force in the current argument concerning the repatriation of the Parthenon sculptures. But it is desirable to put the correct translation of the Italian text on the record.

John Melville-Jones is an associate Professor in Classics and Ancient History at University of Western Australia. This note has been prepared on behalf of the Australian Macedonian Advisory Council.

Boris Johnson has long hailed Pericles as his political hero. How does the British Prime Minister compare to the ancient Athenian statesman?

For Professor Paul Cartledge, it’s straightforward: “Johnson and Pericles? No comparison. Johnson v Pericles? No contest,” he says.

The Cambridge classicist has spent more than 50 years studying the history and civilization of ancient Greece. An eminent Hellenist, a prolific writer (he has written, edited or co-edited more than 30 books) and a long-standing philhellene (he has been visiting Greece since 1970 and he is a staunch supporter of the Parthenon Marbles’ reunification), Cartledge will on Monday be named Commander of the Order of Honour (Ταξιάρχης τοῦ Τάγματος τῆς Τιμῆς). It is one of the highest honours that the Greek state awards. The decision to bestow the title on Cartledge for his “contribution to enhancing Greece’s stature abroad” was taken by Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou.

Cartledge has contributed to several television and radio programmes and publications on issues related to ancient Greece.

The renowned academic is author of popular history books such as The Spartans: An Epic History, Thermopylae: The Battle that Changed the World, The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others, Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past and Democracy: A Life. His latest book is Thebes: The forgotten city of Ancient Greece (Picador, 2020). In 1998 he was the joint winner of the Criticos (now London Hellenic) Prize for The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece.

Cartledge, 74, is A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture emeritus at the University of Cambridge, A.G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge, and Member of the European Advisory Board of Princeton University Press.

He is Vice-Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM) and elected Vice-President of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS). He is also President of The Hellenic Society, Chair of the London Hellenic Prize, member of the International Honorary Committee of the Thermopylae-Salamis 2500 Anniversary framework and Honorary Citizen of Sparta.

In an interview with Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea, Professor Paul Cartledge spoke about his relationship with Greece, ancient history (including its connection and relevance to our times), democracy (ancient and modern) and the Parthenon Marbles.

Q: Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou has named you Commander of the Order of Honour in recognition of your contribution in enhancing Greece's stature abroad. What does it mean to you to receive this award?

A: It means the world to me, since it's a public and visible confirmation that somehow both my academic research (and publications) and my attempted media interventions on cultural and other issues affecting modern as well as ancient Greece have been to a satisfactory degree successful. I see myself, perhaps rather grandiosely, as a 'public intellectual', and since around 1990 I have both tried to publish work that, though academically based and scrupulously researched, is also 'accessible' to a wider public than just my specialist university colleagues and students, and to intervene on major public cultural issues, such as the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, a cause very dear to my heart. I tried to sum up these points as part of my Inaugural Lecture as the founding A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture in the University of Cambridge (delivered 2009, and published by the C.U.P., 2009): 'Forever Young: Why Cambridge has a Professorship of Greek Culture'.

Q: When did you first become interested in Greek history and culture? Why did you choose to study the Classics?

A: I can almost pinpoint the moment to a precise year: I was given for my 8th birthday (1955) a copy of a simplified, children's version of Homer's Odyssey. We all know the famous episode when Odysseus, after 20 years away, at last returns to his island-kingdom of Ithaca, only to find that his palace has been taken over and is being trashed by 108 'suitors' (of his faithful Spartan wife Penelope). Outside the palace back door, full of ticks and generally in a very bad way, lies amid the dirt and squalor a dog - Argos. Once he had been Odysseus' favourite hunting dog, but now he is abandoned and degraded. Odysseus comes upon him and, though he is in disguise as a poor beggar man, Argos recognises his master! But the effort is too much - Argos has a heart attack and dies. Odysseus secretly sheds a tear - I wept out loud for half an hour...

That's the symbolic moment of origin of my classical career. Just as crucial, obviously, was the fact that I attended private schools in which the teaching of Latin was begun at the very same age - 8, and of Greek at age 11. And the learning of Latin and Greek was privileged: if you were good at these languages, as I was, then you found yourself placed in the 'top' forms or sets. And so it went, as I progressed from Colet Court in London to the senior St Paul's School, a famous Classics school founded in 1509 by humanist John Colet, a friend of Erasmus. And from there on to New College Oxford, to read 'Mods' and 'Greats', i.e. Classics (1965-69). I graduated with a 'Double First' and, since by 1969 I'd decided I wanted as a career to teach ancient history at university, I embarked on a course of doctoral (DPhil) research into early Spartan history and archaeology under the supervision of John Boardman - then plain 'Mr Boardman', now 'Sir John'.

Q: When did you first visit Greece and what do you recall from your first visit to the country?

A: I am rather ashamed - retrospectively - that I did not visit Greece until 1970 - as part of my doctoral programme. My first serious venture on Greek soil was on Crete, to take part in (in fact oversee the pottery shed for) Hugh Sackett & Mervyn Popham's excavation for the BSA (British School at Athens) of the so-called Unexplored Mansion site at Knossos. Mainly Roman levels were what we were hitting in summer 1970 - but that's not all we British and American students were hitting, by any means. A couple of local mpouats (boîtes) engaged our interest of an evening, and at weekends we went on ekdhromes, expeditions, either solo (as I did once - and when I asked directions, a local farmer asked me very fiercely 'Germanos eisai?' 'Oxi, Anglos!', I replied. Huge smiles all round - this was only a generation after the Nazi occupation) or in a group.

Participation in that excavation gave me a series of lasting and deep friendships, some now interrupted by distance or death but others still alive and well. It was also my introduction to Greek politics - under the 'dictatorship' of 'the Colonels'. Members of the BSA were required - by the Greek state - to swear that they wouldn't get involved in any political activity. I duly signed, but did not abide by my oath, not on Crete (where I listened and learned to how the fiercely independent Cretans saw Athens, regardless of which regime held power there) so much as back in Athens.

I signed the oath at the British School under the watchful eye of the then Director, Mr PM Fraser (All Souls Oxford). That would have been in about June 1970, when I arrived in Greece for the very first time. On Crete (BSA dig at Knossos) in summer 1970 I talked a lot of politics - the Cretans I spoke with (workers on the dig) were openly contemptuous of the Colonels. (Except for the Dig Foreman, Andonis - who was a Colonels' supporter. He had gained the position because his brother, a communist, had been sacked from it...) We weren't supposed even to 'talk' politics. Back in Athens in 1971 I had friends who were part of the underground resistance. e.g. I attended with them a 'secret' talk given by Cambridge economics prof Joan Robinson and went around with them distributing resistance literature to private addresses in the city. (No mobile phones, no internet...). On one occasion I agreed to act as a courier - between the resistance and (Lady) Amalia Fleming, widow of Sir Alexander (discoverer of penicillin), who lived in London. I was given - I can't now remember by whom - a fairly large packet (no idea what it contained!) to take through customs at Athens airport and then on to London, where I mailed it to Lady Fleming through the normal post. I was very very nervous going through Athens airport security and customs - but my carry-on bag wasn't searched.

Q: In Greece we have debates from time to time about the usefulness of studying Ancient Greek. Do you think that there is value in learning this ancient language?

A: I could hardly say 'no', could I? Let me start from the fact - I believe it is one - that the Greek poetic tradition is the longest continuous poetic tradition in the world, barring only - possibly - the Chinese. From Homer to the present day. One easy way of assimilating this is through The Penguin Book of Greek Verse, expertly edited and translated in 1971 by Constantine Trypanis. There are other such compendiums, but that one has the original Greek versions as well as a serviceable English (prose) translation. Then there is the fact - of this I have no doubt - that ancient Greek is the richest member of the Indo-European language family, capable of expressing the minutest nuances of emotion and description, blessed with several voices and moods and declensions and conjugations... Then - and directly consequent upon that latter fact - it's a fact that, if you don't know Greek, you can't speak a whole slew of English: so many are the loan words or invented words taken from Greek into English - e.g. photography ('light-writing/drawing') or xenophobia ('fear of strangers/foreigners/outsiders'). But of course, the chief value of learning ancient Greek is to read ancient Greek texts in the original - Homer, the world's greatest epic poet, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, some of the world's greatest tragic dramatists, Hippocrates, father of Western medicine, Herodotus and Thucydides, founding fathers of my own discipline of History, Plato and Aristotle, twin founders of Western philosophy - need I continue??

Q: Britain has a rich tradition over many centuries in teaching and studying the Classics – from which you have benefited and to which you have contributed immensely. Why would someone study ancient history now? How is it relevant to us?

A: In my last answer I mentioned my intellectual roots in ancient Greece: the Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. 484-425 BCE), the History of the Atheno-Peloponnesian war by Thucydides of Athens (c. 460-400). Most people who become professional classicists do not become as I did ancient historians; for them, the literature or the philosophy are what attract and engage them. But - like one of my own English history heroes, Edward Gibbon - I have known from the age of 8 or so that I wanted to be a historian, and, since I'm a Classicist, that means I'm an 'ancient' historian. But I insist: I am a historian who happens to specialise in ancient (Graeco-Roman, Mediterranean) history, not some peculiar species of historian. Like Herodotus what engages me above all are causality and causation - why did things happen, and happen the way they did, and in no other way? I mean really significant things such as the birth, development, spread and demise of (ancient, direct) democracy, the conquest of Greece by Republican Rome, the fall of the Roman Empire in the West and East. Like Thucydides, I'm particularly preoccupied with trying to understand and explain politics - the political process, the methods of politicians, the involvement of the masses in decision-making.

Q: Which ancient Greek figure stands out for you, and why?

A: May I choose two, please? One female, one male. My female choice is a Spartan, not just any Spartan female, I admit, but a princess of the blood (more precisely, of the Eurypontid blood). Sparta uniquely in the 5th and 4th centuries - still - had two royal houses, the senior males of which ruled as joint kings (basileis). Women in Sparta were unusually empowered, by contrast to the relatively lowly status of Greek women in others of the 1000 or so Greek cities. But even Sparta couldn't contemplate a ruling Queen. Nor - I am assuming - did wives choose the names of their daughters, so I am assuming that it was her father, King Archidamus II (r. c. 465-427), who chose the name of his daughter - my female choice - Kyniska. The name means 'little dog' or 'puppy', and it's the female equivalent of Kyniskos, a name attested elsewhere in the 5th-century Peloponnese. I infer that the name gives a nod to the fact that Spartans bred particularly excellent hunting dogs, especially females, which they used in pursuit of the greatest of all 'big game', the wild boar of the lower Taygetus mountain slopes. We don't know exactly when Kyniska was born - her full brother Agesilaus II saw the light of day in about 445, so I suppose that 440 or so would be a reasonable birthdate. In which case she was about 45 when she made the biggest possible splash in the world of sports normally restricted exclusively to Greek males: the equestrian competition at the Olympic Games. In 396 she won the top-notch 4-horse chariot race - and four years later repeated that amazing feat. And she was no shrinking violet. A statue base happens to have survived from Olympia on which Kyniska had engraved a boastful epigram, telling anyone who'd listen that she was 'the first woman in all Hellas (the Greek world) to have won this crown' - the victor's olive wreath. Of course, she hadn't actually driven the winning chariots, but she had reared and trained the horses in her own stables in Sparta, where there was a considerable number of successful (male) owners and trainers already. So just to ram the point home, she opened her epigram by stating her own aristocratic breeding pedigree and bloodline: 'kings are my father and brothers', that is, the aforementioned Archidamus II and Agesilaus II and her half-brother Agis II. By 396 both Archidamus and Agis were dead: how well did Kyniska's boast go down with her full brother, reigning co-king Agesilaus? Not well at all, I think. Agesilaus's encomiastic biographer, the Athenian Xenophon, took time out to insist that, although Kyniska had indeed won an Olympic victory, it was Agesilaus's idea in the first place that she compete at all, and anyway rearing race-horses was far less important than rearing war-horses!

My male choice is a different kettle of fish altogether: not a Spartan - nor an Athenian, nor a Syracusan, nor even a Macedonian but... a Theban. We don't know exactly when he was born, some time in the last quarter of the 5th century, nor do we know much about his family background or upbringing because - unlike that of his contemporary and sidekick Pelopidas - Epaminondas's biography by fellow-Boeotian Plutarch is lost. We assume he was high status and well educated, so his career and alleged espousal of Pythagoreanism would suggest. What we do know that, unlike Pelopidas again, who went into exile, Epameinondas remained in Thebes while it was under Spartan military occupation between 382 and 379 and did what he could to keep up Theban morale and resistance from the inside - until the daring stroke of Pelopidas and a small band of brothers effected Thebes's liberation in winter 379/8. Thereafter Epaminondas was in the frontline both physically and morally. On three fronts mainly: 1. the field of battle - he was a strategist and tactician of genius, winning for Thebes and its allies two major battles, Leuktra (371) and Mantineia (362); 2. federalism: Thebes was itself the chief city of a - moderately - democratic federal state, the Boeotians; in the 360s Epameinondas extended that principle to the Peloponnese with the foundation of Megalopolis as capital of the federal state of the Arcadians; and, not least, 3: liberation: in 369 Epameinondas was key to liberating the Helots of Messenia, Greeks who for centuries had been the unfree compulsory labour-force of the Spartans. Nor was he unconventional only in religion; so too in his private life. He never married, and he died (on the battlefield of Mantineia) and was buried side by side with his current male lover.

Q: In your recently released book Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece you write that democracy in ancient Greece "was not just a matter of institutions but also a matter of deep culture". What do you mean by that and, given recent political developments in several parts of the world, is democracy still deeply ingrained in our culture?

A: I'm almost inclined to say that the difference between any ancient form of democracy and any modern version is like the difference between chalk and cheese, or apples and pears... All ancient versions of demokratia were direct - in antiquity 'we the people' (demos) did not merely choose others to rule for/instead of them but ruled directly themselves. That in itself gave ancient Greek democratic citizens - free, legitimate adult males only, of course - a participatory stake in governance that is not available to the vast majority of citizens in representative democratic systems like our own today. That participatory stake was not felt or exercised only occasionally but almost on an everyday basis: in the 4th century BCE the Athenian Assembly met every 9 days, yes, really, the decision-making organ of the Athenian democratic state made major decisions of religious and other political policy every 9 days. The 6000 citizens who put themselves forward to be enrolled, by lot, on the annual panel of jurors might sit on average every other day - for which they were paid a small fee out of state funds. Every year the Athenians staged two religious play-festivals, for which audience members who were too poor to afford the entrance fee to the Theatre of Dionysus were given a small subsidy. Decisions as to who were the winning playwrights and impresarios - the ancient Athenian Oscars - were made by democratic majority vote. All that implies that democracy was for them not just a matter of institutions but also a matter of deep culture. That implication was made manifest in the second half of the 4th century when a new goddess was added to the official Athenian democratic pantheon, the personification of none other than Demokratia, herself.

Q: The title of a BBC Radio 4 series you recently participated in was Could an ancient Athenian Fix Britain? What is the answer to that question? And, do you think an ancient Athenian could fix modern Greece as well?

A: There is no answer to that question! I mean, no answer to 'how could or should Britain be fixed?', if by that is meant - how do we overcome the utterly disgraceful and shameful class divide between rich and poor (which in Covid-ridden Britain equates pretty much to healthy and unhealthy Britain)? or between the well and the less well educated? or between the rich and poor regions of not just England but also Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? or between those regions - in favour of the strengthening or shoring-up of our now very shaky Union? I could go on. The ancient Athenian polis and the modern British state are simply not commensurable. However, at another level, there are ways in which, it could be suggested, ancient Athenian practices - I mean democratic political practices - could and should be re-evaluated with a view to seeing whether and how they might improve our own. Take the present - unelected - House of Lords: scandalously un-democratic as such (and that's without mentioning the 80-plus 'hereditaries'!!). And what about having far more in the way of genuinely democratic input into legislation - via constitutional assemblies of bodies selected by lot to be genuinely representative of all relevant sections of society, who would then put forward measured recommendations to Parliament? What about genuinely democratic referendums or plebiscites - in which all parties to a debate have to put forward a manifesto for which, if they win, they will be held responsible and accountable, if necessary through the courts?

Q: Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, has made no secret of his classical education and love for Greece. He has also said that Pericles is his hero. Do you see any similarities between the two statesmen? What is your opinion of Mr Johnson?

A: I am an academic, not a politician, but I am also a committed citizen, and not a supporter of the Party that chose Mr Johnson as its leader and thereby - at a stroke - originally as our Prime Minister. Very undemocratic, that. The office of the UK Prime Minister has infinitely more discretionary powers than Pericles ever held. Pericles was regularly elected to the top executive Athenian office, but he was as such a member of a board of ten, and any moment almost of any day he might be impeached - as he in fact was in 429 (deposed and fined). For ancient Athenian democrats, all officials however selected had to be made constantly to realise they were accountable - to the People. Johnson and Pericles? No comparison. Johnson v Pericles? No contest.

Q: In his recent interview with Ta Nea, Johnson said that “the (Parthenon) Sculptures were legally acquired by Lord Elginand have been legally owned by the British Museum’s Trustees since their acquisition.” I know that you have been campaigning for decades for the Marbles’ reunification. What did you think when you read his comments? Why do you think that the Parthenon Marbles should return to Greece?

A: How would a French person feel if the Bayeux tapestry were cut in half, and half were to remain in Bayeux, while the other half was transported to Berlin? How would an Italian feel if the Mona Lisa were cut in half and one half was transported and permanently housed in Milan while the other half remained in Paris? How would one feel about either of those - as a cultured European, or as a citizen of the world? What the British Museum currently holds of the Parthenon Marbles were removed when Athens was part of the Ottoman Empire, a power whose local functionaries on the spot could not give a fig for what Britain's Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Lord Elgin, did to or with the Parthenon Marbles. There is no evidence yet discovered to prove that what Elgin in fact did (sheer vandalism, according to Lord Byron and many of us since) was literally authorised by the Ottoman Sultan. But, even if there were, so what? What - moral - authority could possibly legitimise the removal of artefacts from a building under alien control to the jurisdiction of a foreign power which then claims them as spoils by a supposedly legal enactment? There is in Athens on the Acropolis the very substantial remnant of a once aesthetically magnificent temple, the shadow of which extends from antiquity to modernity. There is in Athens a simply amazing modern Museum with a dedicated gallery intervisible with the Acropolis in which what the Greeks hold of the Parthenon sculptures are properly - I mean scientifically, art-historically correctly - displayed. Reunification? Q.E.D.

Q: Greece is celebrating this year the bicentennial of its War of Independence, as well as the 2,500th anniversary of the Battle of Thermopylae and naval battle of Salamis. How do you evaluate the historic importance of the War of Independence and do you agree that Thermopylae and Salamis were of seminal importance for the course of Western Civilisation as we know it?

A: I am a historian of ancient Greece and Rome, not of early 19th-century Greece and Europe - and by extension the world. But I have of course read widely in the accessible literature and am aware that there has been a ton of new research issuing forth especially since the 150th anniversary, in 1971, and now at the bicentennial. As I understand it, that research tends to emphasise the singularity, the crucially influential singularity, of what Greeks both inside and outside the boundaries of the Ottoman empire achieved during the crucial first three decades of the 19th century (not coincidentally precisely the period of Lord Elgin's vandalism). In short, the Rising of 1821 saw the birth of modernity, political modernity, both in Greece and elsewhere.

As for the 2500th anniversary - or rather the anniversaries in 2021 of the two battles of 480 BCE and the anniversary in 2022 of the finally decisive battle of Plataea in 479 BCE - the issue hinges on a massive 'what if?' What if the invading Persians under Xerxes had won, rather than the 32 or 33 resisting Greek cities? (And what if at precisely the same moment, in 480 BCE, the Carthaginians of north Africa had defeated Greek Syracuse and taken over Greek Sicily?) There are many imponderables here, and as a historian I have to insist first that we must not talk of 'Greece' or 'Greeks' as if they were a unitary political force in the way that 'the Persians' were. Most Greeks of the Aegean area did NOT choose to resist the Persian invasion, and many of them fought for rather than against the Persians. Consider only Thebes: rather than join Sparta and Athens, the leading resisters, Thebes sided with almost all Greeks from Boeotia to the Hellespont and took the Persian side. And it would be hard to find two Greek cities more UNalike than Sparta and Athens in 480-479 BCE. No doubt all the resisters agreed equally that they were fighting for freedom FROM a potential Persian takeover; but within Sparta and Athens 'freedom' could have very different meanings for different sectors of the population - for male citizens as opposed to female; for all citizens as opposed to legally unfree Helots or chattel slaves. So, for me, the question of what difference did the loyalist Greeks' victory over the Persians make on a grand, world-historical/civilisational scale boils down to - would the Athenians' precious and still infant democracy have been allowed to survive, had the Persians won? To which my answer is: unquestionably not. And - therefore - but for the loyalist Greeks' victory, there would have been no "Persians" tragedy by Aeschylus (472 BCE), and indeed no flowering of the tragic and later comic drama that constitutes the very foundation of all Western drama. No democracy would have meant no free speech, no free exchange of scientific and philosophical and other ideas, ideas which sometimes challenged even the very basis of conventional norms not least in religion. But even so, it is not of course the ancient Greeks or Athenians themselves who directly ensured that their original creations should influence subsequent civilisations including our own today - for that, we have to thank the Romans, the Byzantine Greeks, the European Renaissance, the European and American Enlightenments... 'Legacy' or cultural inheritance is a dynamic, two-way, dialectical and constantly renegotiable process - currently being rather fiercely debated so far as 'Classics' is concerned, along the two axes of racism and sexism above all. Let a thousand flowers bloom...

This interview was written by  Ioannis Andritsopoulos, UK Correspondent for Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea and published on 17 April 2021

Professor Paul Cartledge received his Commander of the Order of Honour from H.E Ambassador Ioannis Raptakis in London on 22 April 2021, at the Ambassador's Residence . This  was organised on the occasion of Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day and Greece's 1821 Bicentennial. John Kittmer,  Kevin Featherstone, Stephen Fry and Robin Lane Fox  were awarded the Commander of the Order of Phoenix and Professor Paul Cartledge with the Commander of the Order of Honour . H. E Ambassador of Greece, Ioannis Raptakis, presented the medals on behalf of the President of the Hellenic Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, recognising each distinguished philhellene for their contribution in enhancing knowledge about Greece in the UK and reinforcing the ties between the two countries.

H.E. Ambassador Raptakis with Professor Cartledge, awarded  the medal of Commander of the Order of Honour  and  second photo John Kitmer with Ambassador Raptakis and Professor Cartledge.

Stephen Fry with Ambassador Raptakis, second photo Ambassador Raptais with Kevin Featherstone and  last image is Lane Fox.

12 March 2021

Yannis Andritsopoulos, London Correspondent for the Greek daily newspaper Ta Neain an exclusive interview asked UK Prime Minister Johnson about the Parthenon Marbles.

Prime Minister Johnson was asked specificlly about Prime Minister Mitsotakis' plea to have the Parthenon Marbles back in Greece.

Sadly PM Johnson chose to answer the question by repeating that the UK governments standpoint is based on legal ownership. Yet the question remains, if the legality was uncontestable, why did the UK government not retain ownership and instead transfered it to the British Museum?

In today's exclusive interview with the Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea, when asked about the Parthenon Marbles, British PM Johnson said: “I understand the strong feelings of the Greek people – and indeed Prime Minister Mitsotakis – on the issue.But the UK Government has a firm longstanding position on the sculptures, which is that they were legally acquired by Lord Elgin under the appropriate laws of the time and have been legally owned by the British Museum’s Trustees since their acquisition.” 

In this wide-ranging interview, Prime Minister Johnson also covered topics from post-Brexit Britain to ‘Global Britain’ serving UK citizens and defending UK values by extending the UK’s international influence.

He also said the UK: "remains committed to working alongside our partners in the region and the UN to find a just and sustainable solution to the Cyprus problem.” Adding that Britain is following developments in the region closely and "welcomes the resumption of Greece-Turkey talks" urging all all parties to prioritise dialogue and diplomacy.

"I am of course a keen scholar of Greek history, the decisive impact of Navarino on the success of the Greek War of Independence and Britain’s crucial role in it. The Ancient Greeks founded western civilisation and gave us science, culture, philosophy, comedy, tragedy, poetry, mathematics, literature, democracy – to name just a few. But modern Greece’s emergence on the international scene as an independent nation state has also had enormous significance for the world. Greece plays an important role in Europe, NATO and in a pivotal region connecting Europe to the Middle East.

Despite some of the challenges the country has faced over the past two hundred years, Greece today is a well-governed, prosperous, creative, peace-loving international partner in the family of nations and makes a crucial contribution to the world stage." Concluded Prime Minister Johnson.

And BCRPM would add: the halves from the Parthenon currently displayed the wrong way round in the British Museum's Room 18, were removed when Greece had no voice. As an independent nation, Greece has been asking politely for some time for the UK to find a way to reunite the sculptures in Athens, so that the surviving pieces may be viewed as close as possible to the Parthenon. The BCRPM sincerely hopes that the UK can begin talks to find a solution to this unecessary division of this peerless collection of sculptures from the Parthenon.   

The interview by Yannis Andritsopoulos was published in the Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea (www.tanea.gr), today 12 March 2021. To read the interview in English, visit the linkhere. 

Professor Armand D'Angour, is Professor of Classics at Jesus College Oxford, and as the newest member of BCRPM, outlines his thoughts on the continued plight of the Parthenon Marbles: 

When I was at school studying Classics in the 1970s, the general view in the UK was that the Elgin Marbles had been legally acquired from the Greeks (via the Turks), that they were the essential centrepiece of the British Museum collection, that they had been nobly rescued from destruction by Elgin, that they were far safer in the clean air of London than in traffic-plagued Athens, and that returning them would set a terrible precedent that could lead to the world's museums being denuded.

Now, as a Classics Professor, I know that none of those arguments hold true. First, the acquisition by Elgin was for his personal profit and aggrandisement, and was dubiously legal - his alleged firman seems not even to exist; and it was completed through agreement with Turkish rulers of Greece and not Greeks themselves. Secondly, the display of the marbles in the Duveen Gallery is far from ideal; a colourful and well lit set of replicas would be much more appealing - not to mention the wonderful objects Greece might offer on loan in return, or a display of some of the BM's many other millions of objects currently in storage. Thirdly, the Marbles were not kept safe, but damaged with inappropriate cleaning fluids; the beautiful new museum on the Acropolis is a much worthier site today, and traffic is far worse in London than it is in Athens! Few objects have such iconic national status - and if they do, there would be a strong case for their return too to their place of origin.

These are arguments from common sense and history. The main arguments, though, that have persuaded me personally that the time has come for the reunification of the marbles in Athens are moral and emotional. It feels to many, Greeks and non-Greeks as if they are a vital part of the Greek land and soul; and that their theft by Elgin, compounded by a high-handed attitude to their return, remains an open wound.

The tale is told that when the Greeks were fighting for their independence, a group of soldiers observed the Turks stripping lead from between the stones of the Parthenon for use as bullets. Relatively uneducated and rustic Christians as the soldiers were, they felt strongly that this was a dreadful desecration of this pagan monument that had eternal significance to Greeks. They sent a delegation to the Turkish commander with a box of bullets - the very means of their own possible deaths - telling him that they would prefer them to be used than for the great ancient monument to be fatally damaged. Unhistorical as this anecdote undoubtedly is, the fact that it has often been told by Greeks is indicative of their strong feelings about this unique monument.

The emotional resonance of the Parthenon to Greeks - something increasingly recognised and appreciated by British people - makes for me one of the strongest cases for the reunification of the Marbles.

The 14 texts which follow, each reflecting the writer’s viewpoint, are so rich and comprehensive that it is impossible for an introduction to fully encompass their essence. In most cases, the beginning, middle and end of the text refers to the barbaric act committed by Elgin.

I have therefore chosen not to repeat those well-known, well-rehearsed and well-discussed issues. Instead, I chose to contribute certain new arguments to the cause of returning and reunifying the marbles or sculptures of the Parthenon in the Acropolis Museum, which is their newly designated place of protection and display, a place that stands in close dialogue with the very monument from which those severed members originally came.

As a rich body of international bibliography on the subject makes clear, it is now obvious to all that the so-called firman which Thomas Bruce, the Earl of Elgin and ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799-1803, is supposed to have procured from the Supreme Porte, in other words from Sultan Selim III, does not exist. If such a document had existed, it would have been submitted to the examining committee of the British House of Commons in 1816 – and the whole question of legality, and restitution claims by the Greek state, would have taken a different turn.

According to Elgin’s testimony to the committee, the original document sent by the Turkish authorities to Athens was lost. The Reverend Philip Hunt, the ambassador’s assistant, offered in testimony what he could recollect, 14 years later, of a translation of a French version of the original firman into Italian and later rendered into English.

However:

ONE

Official firmans of the sultan were always made in two copies, of which one was kept in the official archives and the other was sent to the designated recipient. In the course ofall the investigations made hitherto, the original, archived version of the firman has never been found.

TWO
Genuine firmans were despatched through a special designated messenger or an authorized individual or delivered by captains of the Turkish navy. In this case the so-called firman was brought to Athens by Philip Hunt, Elgin’s assistant.

THREE
For the actions that Elgin was seeking to undertake on the Acropolis, formal permission was indeed necessary because according to an unwritten Ottoman law, marble in all its forms – works of art, ancient or otherwise, and the raw material itself – belonged to the sultan. All the more so if marbles were to be removed from such a well preserved surviving decoration of a monument that was well respected by Ottoman officials as a “temple of the idols” – namely the Parthenon.

Thanks to the authentic firmans that were issued over the years for various purposes, we can ascertain what a genuine sultan’s firman looked like, what formalities it observed, what turns of phrase and calligraphy were used, and all its other features. I will not enumerate the hundreds of examples that might be mentioned. I will focus instead on two sultan’s firmans which are of immediate relevance, because they concern two protagonists of our story – Lord Elgin and Lord Byron. They are also, of course, close chronologically. The first is dated 1802 and was brought to light by Dyfri Williams. It is the official passport-firman granted to Elgin which authorized his trip to Athens and the Aegean archipelago. The second was granted to Byron in 1810 and is presented here for the first time, thanks to the generosity of a particular individual. It is the official travel document which was issued to Byron: its interpretation and presentation are the work of Ilias Kolovos, a scholar of Ottoman history.

When one compares these two original passport-firmans, they turn out to be very much alike in format, despite the fact that Sultan Selim III died in 1808 and was replaced on the throne by Mustafa IV. If we then compare those two documents – the one issued to Elgin and the one granted to Byron, which is available to us in Turkish (in Roman script) as well as English translation – with the so-called firman granted to Elgin which supposedly allowed him to remove sculptures from the Parthenon – at least according to the Italian translation, and its later English rendering. It becomes clear – as was demonstrated by the Ottomanist scholar Vasilis Dimitriadis at a conference on the Parthenon and its sculptures – that Elgin’s so-called permit is anything but a genuine sultan’s firman. He would have needed to get the personal authorization of the sultan, instead of merely relying – as he did - on the deputy to the Grand Vizier, Sejid Abdullah. That deputy was standing in because the actual Grand Vizier – Kor Yusuf Ziyauddin Pasha, otherwise known as Djezzar, (the butcher) – was at the time in Egypt.

Given that the so-called permit for the removal of the sculptures was not a genuine sultan’s act, but merely a decision issued by the deputy to the Grand Vizier – assuming that the Italian translation is real and accurate –how can anyone justify the still-adamant denial by the British authorities and the British Museum that what took place was an act of vandalism – indeed, a plundering of sculptures that were integral to the monument, constituent parts of the Parthenon? Or justify their refusal to return and reunify the marbles in the Acropolis Museum?

To put it more bluntly, how is it that certain officials – in the British Museum and elsewhere in Britain – still regard as acceptable a flawed purchase in 1816, and an arbitrary decision by Parliament in 1963, insofar as these relate to the ongoing captivity of the Parthenon marbles?

This is not the place to delve deep into the reasons for that insistence. Let me focus instead on some initiatives aimed at resolving the issue, in accordance with the realities of the 21st century. In addition to the strong and respectable arguments laid out by many people over two centuries – especially by Melina Mercouri in 1982-83 – all the way up to 2021, a number of developments stand out.

ONE
In September 2021, UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property (ICPRCP) adopted a decision which clearly recognizes Greece’s aspirations as rational, justified and ethical. It also affirmed the intergovernmental nature of the dispute and called for consultations between Britain and Greece.

TWO
A particular methodology was followed in the return and reintegration of the so-called Fagan fragment from Palermo. This was the first return which was treated as a matter from State to State. Initially, in January 2022, the return was presented as an unspecified “deposit” – and then, in June 2022, came the permanent reintegration of the fragment into the Parthenon frieze: an act that was underpinned not merely by legal norms and technicalities but also by the friendship between two nations - Greece on one hand, Italy and in particular Sicily on the other – who share common values.

THREE
In March 2023, Pope Francis returned three fragments of the Parthenon, as an expression of universal truth, for the definitive reunification of the monument’s scattered sculptures.
The British government and the British Museum would do well to ponder the significance all these developments, while also considering certain other factors such as:

ONE
The consistent majority of British public opinion [in favour of return]

TWO
The continued support expressed by the near-entirety of the British press

THREE
International public opinion, which favours the reunification of this world-renowned monument…so that it can be properly presented in all its integrity as a work of supreme architectural and sculptural beauty; and experienced as a symbol of democracy by people of allgenerations and national origins.

And in case those arguments fail to persuade doubters of the moral soundness of Greece’s case, I will add yet another one.

Over the past few decades, there have been some well-known cases of restitution of art works – for example to Italy or to Africa. Such returns have even been made by Britain. Let me specify one example.

On August 1, 2008, the upper section of a funerary monument was returned to Greece from New York.

It was made of Pentelic marble and it dates from the late fifth century – about 410 BCE, shortly after the completion of the Parthenon. Μy Professor George Despinis, as early as 1993, had proven that the piece came from a funerary monument whose lower half had been discovered in the soil of Attica – in Porto Rafti – and was then conserved in the Museum of Βrauron in Attica.

After some negotiations, the purchasers of the upper part – who were American citizens –gave that segment back to Greece, while Greece acknowledged that the purchase had been made in good faith. The matter was settled and the two parts of the funerary monument are reunited in a Greek museum.

I will now refer to a rather similar case, concerning the Parthenon. The lower part of segment number XXVII of the Parthenon frieze – showing a charioteer, part of a chariot and a stable lad –is in the Parthenon Gallery, while the upper part is in the Duveen Gallery of the British Museum.

Just about anybody will readily understand the similarity of the two stories. In particular, the morally equivalent fate of the piece of marble that was broken off and plundered by Elgin’s team and the severed upper part of the funerary monument – while in both cases, the lower sections remained in the place where the works had been fashioned.

So given that the principle of repatriation was applied in the case of the artefact in New York, exactly the same norm should apply in the case of the broken segment from the northern side of the Parthenon frieze.

One could of course take the argument further and note that in the case of the funerary monument, the buyer was in legal terms an individual rather than a state; and then observe that under international law, no state can retroactively justify illegal acts by one of its citizens on foreign soil - given that in such cases international law supersedes anything enacted by local or national legislatures.

In view of all that, how can it be that a state, in this instance the British state, vindicates the vandalism and plunder perpetrated by one of its subjects? Considering that Elgin, as a private individual, committed an act of vandalism, along with his associates, and broke off sculptures from the Parthenon - only to transport them to England in order to decorate his home, where they would have stayed if he had not gone bankrupt.

People who persist in justifying the purchase of 1816 must surely accept this: the mostone might say is that this decision amounted to a “receipt of stolen goods” in good faith – as was the case with the purchase of upper part of the funerary monument from Brauron.

In no way can they justify the illegal actions of a British subject, Lord Elgin – in view of the considerations I have laid out.

Nor, by the same token, should any government οr state wish to carry the moral burden that results from such tainted acts. I believe the moment has come for our British friends to take a noble decision and rid themselves of the moral burden which Elgin - rashly, and in pursuit of personal gain – laid on Britain, the British Museum and the people of Britain.

The above text was the lead article in a Kathimerini supplement published 17 March 2024, entitled:H AΡΠΑΓΗ, 'Tthe Grab, Elgin and the Parthenon Sculptures'

In the same supplement BCRPM member Bruce Clark's article 'Laws, democracy and hypocrisy' was also plublished.

Photo credit for the images of Professor Stampolidis: Paris Tavitian 

Wednesday 29 January 2020 at the Acropolis Museum, the launch of the published proceedings of the 15 April 2019 International Conference: 'The Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures'. The conference was held under the auspices of the President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopios Pavlopoulos. A number of campaigning committees attended and some also spoke at the conference, including Professor Louis Godart, Chair of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS), Dame Janet Suzman as Chair of the BCRPM and Professor Paul Cartledge as Vice Chair of the BCRPM.  

Both Professor Louis Godart as the Former Chair for the International Assciation and the current Chair Christiiane Tytgat, spoke at the event held on the 29th of January this year and their respective speeches can be read below. 

Chair of the International Association, Christiane Tytgat's address:

President of the International Association, Dr Christiane Tytgat's address at the launch of the Proceedings of the International Conference on the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, held at the Acropolis Museum on April 15, 2019:
Your Excellency, Mr President, Your Excellency, Madam Minister, Dear Friends and Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank His Excellency, the President of the Hellenic Republic, Mr Pavlopoulos, the Minister of Culture and Sports, Dr Mendoni and the President of the Acropolis Museum, Professor Pantermalis for the honour of inviting me to be here with you today.

It is a great pleasure to be here again, in this wonderful Museum which celebrated its 10th anniversary last year with a series of events. Among these events, the key event was the opening of the archaeological excavation beneath the museum on the 20th of June 2019. Hence the Museum adds again an element to its precious wealth and shows, once again, that it is a museum always in motion, a museum that offers continually something new to its visitors. I wonder, how many other museums can say this without organising a temporary exhibition and bringing artefacts from elsewhere? Increasingly the Acropolis Museum evokes the image of the sacred rock: the Parthenon Room, at the top of the Acropolis Museum, which is waiting for more than 10 years to be completed, now dominates an ancient neighbourhood of Athens, as in ancient times the Acropolis was dominating the ancient city.

The conference "Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures" was part of these anniversary festivities. I would add that after 10 years of the Museum's operation, it is a pity that we still have to hold another conference on this subject, however we can look at this in a positive way too. Many speakers from Greece, but also from all over the world made the journey to participate in the conference and show their interest in the issue of reunification. Each intervention embraced the issue from a different perspective, from the results of recent research and proposals for a solution to actions to keep the case in the news until we achieve our goal. The conference was resounding in its message, delivered so eloquently by so many speakers.

But "words are transient, yet the written texts remain forever". That is why it is very important that the Proceedings of the conference were published. There is also no better time to present them, since today begins the Year of Melina Mercouri, the great protagonist for the return of the Sculptures. We cannot honour her in a better way: her campaign for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures from the British Museum continues and her vision is more alive than ever.

Melina's campaign is no longer the struggle of any one person or the Hellenic Government who made the first request to the British Museum for the return in 1842. The struggle was transferred - and rightly so - globally, since the Parthenon and its Sculptures are a world cultural heritage.

In 1981, the first Committee was established in Australia, headed up by its President Emanuel Comino. It remains very active to this day. Following Melina's passionate appeal to UNESCO in 1982, the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles was founded in 1983. This was followed by the formation of many more committees worldwide.

At a conference organized in November 2005 by the Hellenic Government, 12 national committees established the International Association for the Reunification of Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS) with the aim of supporting the Hellenic Government in its repatriation efforts and the reunification of all the surviving parts of the Sculptures in the new Acropolis Museum. Since then, other new national committees have joined the International Association, most recently France (2016), Austria (2017), and - as strange as it may seem - the oldest committee from Australia (2018). In January 2020 we were delighted to also welcome the new Luxembourg committee.

Today, the IARPS has a total of 21 national committees spanning 19 countries. Every now and then a committee, like Russia in recent years, had fallen by the wayside but Moscow has given the committee a new impetus for the last six months and with great enthusiasm is organising its first lecture in February this year under the auspices of the Greek Ambassador in Moscow.

The IARPS works closely with the Greek authorities and supports the policy of cultural diplomacy, which Greece has been pursuing for years. The return of the Sculptures is a moral problem rather than a legal one. The International Association, which coordinates the activities of the national committees, observes that the public interest continues to grow, clearly illustrated by the continuously growing number of participants in our activities. The general climate helps us probably: the call for the repatriation of cultural heritage artefacts is global. There isn’t a day when a new article is not published and new activities are taking place. And in England, key voices grow louder too. Big museums are under pressure every day. So we are all optimistic that the time will come when theses museums will be able to do nothing less than return the stolen parts of the Parthenon to the place they rightfully belong: the Acropolis Museum in Athens, where one can see the sculptures by Pheidias on display in the best possible conditions, in direct visual contact with the Parthenon, where they are an integral part of. It would be a very happy coincidence if this would happen in 2021, the 200nd anniversary of the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence.

In conclusion, as Chair of the International Association and its 21 national Committees, I extend a very warm thank you to H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic, Mr Pavlopoulos for his support over the years for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures.

 To read more about the conference held on 15 April 2019, click here.

Professor Louis Godart, Former Chair of the International Association (2016-2019)

The stars in the skies of Attica and Greece saw the birth of Western Civilization, just as they saw the watchman above the palace of Mycenae catch the first evidence of the fall of Troy, and as they witnessed the enthusiasm of Pericles and of all the Athenians, when after 480 BC the city reinvented democracy, and rebuilt the monuments of Acropolis, the only place in the world where spirit and courage dwell together.

These are the very stars that also witnessed Elgin's assault when without any respect from 1801 to 1804 he violated the sanctity of the Parthenon, the temple, a global symbol of Democracy.

Inside the Acropolis Museum there is the stele of Mourning Athena. She is standing in front of another small stele. She is not wearing her aegis breastplate, her helmet doesn't cover her face. Her spear has its point on the base of the stele. What did the sculptor want to tell us when in about 460 BCE he carved this masterpiece?

Athena is the goddess of the intellect. She is also the goddess who is ready at all times for battle.

I believe that the stele bore the names of those Athenians who died at Marathon, Salamis and Plataea. Mourning Athena is showing the Athenians respect for those who saved Greece and Western Civilization. In our midst, the notion that Democracy must always be fought for is being honoured. We must always be ready, like the goddess, with our spear close to hand if we want to defend something of value and distinction.

So anyone who loves Greece and democracy - the Parthenon being as I said a symbol of Greece - must fight for the repatriation of Pheidias' sculptures.

I do not forget that in 1940 England - glory to the pilots of the RAF - saved European democracy. That Churchill said at the time: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." England cannot today fail to heed the cry of everyone in the world who wants the sculptures to be near to the temple of the goddess. Today a lot of people in England are fighting alongside us. We will help them.

I hope that soon the stars of the heavens of Greece will again see the goddess' marbles beside the sacred rock.

22 September 2018

When the Parthenon in Athens fell into ruins in early the 1800s, a British ambassador with permission from the Ottoman Empire preserved about half the sculptures, which are now at the British Museum. But Greeks for centuries have wanted them back; the deal was made before their country fought for independence from the monarchy. NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Christopher Livesay reports.

Watch the PBS Newshour podcast here or listen to the audio here.

Read the Full Transcript

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

A highlight of London's British Museum is one of its earliest acquisitions, the Parthenon Marbles. These sculptures once decorated the great 5th century BCE temple on the Acropolis in Greece. Considered among the great achievements of the classical world, they depict mythical creatures, stories of the gods along with average people.

• HANNAH BOULTON:

They are very significant and important masterpieces, really, of the ancient Greek world.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

Hannah Boulton is the spokesperson for the British Museum. She admits that how these classical works came to be in England is a sensitive subject, one the museum takes some pains to explain.

• HANNAH BOULTON:

I think it, obviously, has always been a topic of debate ever since the objects came to London and into the British Museum. It's not a new debate.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

The story starts in the early 1800s. The Parthenon had fallen to ruin. Half the marbles were destroyed by neglect and war. Then, a British ambassador, Lord Elgin, made an agreement with Ottoman authorities who were in control of Athens at the time to remove some of statues and friezes. He took about half of the remaining sculptures.

• HANNAH BOULTON:

And then he shipped that back to the UK. For a long time it remained part of his personal collection so he put it on display and then he made the decision to sell the collection to the nation. And the Parliament chose to acquire it and then pass it on the British Museum. So we would certainly say that Lord Elgin had performed a great service in terms of rescuing some of these examples.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

But Greeks don't see it that way. For decades now, they have argued that the Ottomans were occupiers, so the deal with Elgin wasn't valid, and the marbles belong in Greece. Why does Greece want to have the Parthenon Marbles back in Athens?

• LYDIA KONIORDOU:

It's not just bringing them back to Athens or to Greece. That's where they were created. But this is not our claim. Our claim is to put back a unique piece of art. To put it back together. Bring it back together.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

Lydia Koniordou was Greece's Minister of Culture from 2016 to 2018. We met her at the Acropolis where the Parthenon temple stands overlooking Athens.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

So first it was Lord Elgin who removed 50 percent.

• LYDIA KONIORDOU:

Almost 50 percent.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

All of the marbles, she says, have now been removed from the monument for protection from the elements. Then it was Greece that consciously decided to remove the remaining.

• LYDIA KONIORDOU:

Yes, the scientists that were responsible decided to remove and take them to the Acropolis Museum. It was nine years ago when the Acropolis Museum was completed.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

In fact, the Acropolis Museum was built in part as a response to the British Museum's claim that Greece did not have a proper place to display the sculptures. The glass and steel structure has a dramatic view of the Acropolis, so while you're observing the art you can see the actual Parthenon. The third floor is set up just like the Parthenon, with the same proportions. These friezes, from the west side of the temple, are nearly all original. On the other three sides, there are some originals but also a lot of gaps, as well as white plaster copies of the friezes and statues now in Britain.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

We believe that one day we could replace the copies with the orginals to show all this unique art in its grandeur. Every block has two or three figures and here is only one.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

Dimitrios Pandermalis is the Director of the Acropolis Museum where the story of the missing marbles differs widely from that of the British Museum. Presentations for visitors portray Lord Elgin critically. One film shows the marbles flying off the Parthenon and calls it the uncontrollable plundering of the Acropolis. You have these videos that actually show how the pieces were removed. Another film depicts how one of the marbles was crudely split by Elgin's workmen.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

He damaged the art pieces, yes.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

He did damage some of these pieces.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

Of course, it was to be expected.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

The British Museum disputes the claim Elgin damaged the sculptures. It also sees it as a plus that half the collection is in Britain and half in Greece.

• HANNAH BOULTON:

I think the situation we find ourselves in now we feel is quite beneficial. It ensures that examples of the wonderful sculptures from the Parthenon can be seen by a world audience here at the British Museum and in a world context in terms of being able to compare with Egypt and Rome and so on and so forth. But we feel the two narratives we are able to tell with the objects being in two different places is beneficial to everybody.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

But Pandermalis says rather than being in two places the sculptures should be reunified, literally. He showed us examples around the museum, including one that is almost complete save for one thing.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

So this sculpture is original except the right foot.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

And this. The chest of the god Poseidon. So the marble portion in the center where we can see clearly defined the abdomen, that's original but the surrounding portion in plaster, the shoulders, that's in London. So the piece has been completely split in half.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

Yes.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

And perhaps most dramatic, this frieze. So the darker stone is the original and the white plaster that represents what's in the British Museum.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

Yes. Exactly.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

And here it is in the British Museum. The missing marble head and chest floating in a display space.

• LYDIA KONIORDOU:

It just doesn't make sense. It's like cutting, for instance, the Last Supper of Da Vinci and taking one apostle to one museum and another apostle to another museum. We feel also it's a symbolic act today to bring back this emblem of our world. To put it back together.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

If you bring back this emblem, aren't there untold other emblems that need to be brought back. Is this a slippery slope?

• LYDIA KONIORDOU:

We do not claim, as Greek state, we do not claim other treasures. We feel that this is unique. This claim will never be abandoned by this country because we feel this is our duty.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

As for visitors to the Acropolis museum. How do you feel about the fact that half the collection is in the British Museum?

• MAN:

Not good.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

The Roscoe family is from Ohio. What do you guys think?

• JIM ROSCOE:

I think it would be nice to have them in one spot where they originated.

• EMMA ROSCOE:

You're coming here to see the history of it so it would be nice to see the complete history rather than replicas.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

You've seen them in the British Museum. So what do you think about the fact that the collection is kind of split.

• TIM:

It's sad. When you see this. I think this museum is a phenomenal place to display them. It's beautiful and they way it's been built almost waiting to have them back. It's interesting.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

As recently as May the Greek President, Prokopios Pavlopoulos, told Prince Charles that he hoped the Marbles would be returned. And the British opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn has said he too is in favor of returning the Marbles to Greece. But the British Museum's position is the marbles in its collection are legally theirs. They would, however, consider a loan. After all, the British Museum regularly loans pieces from its collection to other museums around the world.

• HANNAH BOULTON:

I think we would certainly see there being a great benefit in extending that lending and trying to find ways to collaborate with colleagues, not just in Greece but elsewhere in the world to share the Parthenon sculptures that we have in our collection.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

But sharing the sculptures is not what the ancient Greeks who created them would have wanted claims Pandermalis.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

They would be very angry.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

The ancient Greeks would be very angry?

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

Yes

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

Why?

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

Because they were crazy for perfection. It was a perfection but today it is not.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

As for whether he will ever see all the remaining Parthenon Marbles together under this roof.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

I'm sure.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

You' re sure that you will see them.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

But I don't know when.

Ta Nea, 01 August 2020

UK correspondent for Ta Nea, Yannis Andritsopoulos wrote on Saturday 01 August 2020:

A new chapter in the campaign for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures will start next week, aimed at raising awareness of the public opinion and mobilizing politicians, organizations and public figures in the UK.

The main slogan of the campaign, run by the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, is "Tell the real story", with the BCRPM inviting the British Museum to reveal to its visitors the truth about how the sculptures, displayed in London since 1817, were acquired.

“We urge the British Museum to tell the full story as Greece is preparing to celebrate 200 years of independence. The Parthenon Marbles were removed by Lord Elgin when Greece could not speak out. Reuniting the surviving sculptures from the Parthenon would be a friendly and just act by a nation looking to take the lead in responding to global challenges,” Dame Janet Suzman, Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, told Ta Nea newspaper.

The BCRPM is made up of respected British scholars, academics and artists, such as Emeritus Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies Judith Herrin, fellow of the British Academy Professor Oliver Taplin and archaeologist Anthony Snodgrass.

“The Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum (since 1817) are a, perhaps the classic illustration of the colonialist-imperialist complex that so disfigures that august collection today. The large fortune acquired by the Museum’s founding collector and benefactor, Dr Hans Sloane, was itself deeply mired in the slave trade, and Lord Elgin, ambassador to the Sublime Porte, was able to loot the Parthenon marbles only thanks to Britain’s being an enemy of the Ottoman Sultan’s enemy, Napoleonic France, at a time when Greece was a possession of the Ottoman Empire. Next March 25, 2021, will mark the bicentenary of the Greeks’ declaration of independence from the Ottoman yoke after a subjection of nearly 37 decades. Is it too much to hope that it will also mark a significant moment in the decolonisation of the British Museum” said Professor Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture emeritus, University of Cambridge, Vice-Chair of the BCRPM.

The BCRPM has produced a leaflet aimed at deconstructing the British Museum's arguments which are included in a leaflet distributed to visitors of Room 18 - also known as the Duveen Gallery - which houses the Sculptures. It says that this leaflet contains "inaccuracies and untruths" (the Museum goes so far as to claim that the Greek authorities completed Elgin's work because they transferred the Sculptures to the Acropolis Museum!).

Therefore, the BCRPM produced its own leaflet which contains the "true story" of the Parthenon Sculptures. It will soon send it to the British government, political parties and MPs, trustees of the British Museum and the British media. In addition, on specific dates in the fall, activists will distribute the booklet to British Museum visitors.

The campaign, which will unfold in the coming months, accompanied by the hashtags #TellTheStory, #TimeIsNow and #BMJustDoIt, is dedicated to the inspirers of the campaign in Britain, Eleni and James Cubitt, who had been urged to launch it by Melina Mercouri.

"Lusieri, the artist hired by Lord Elgin, literally demolished the temple so that he could extract the Sculptures," Robert Browning, a professor of Classics at the University of London and first Chair of the BCRPM, said on April 16, 1983, interviewed by Hara Kiosse for Ta Nea.

"That is why, when I hear that Elgin took the marbles so that they do not end up becoming quicklime in the hands of the Greeks, or that the British Museum keeps them because they are in danger due to air pollution of Athens, I feel that what they say is sacrilege."

Thirty-seven years on, the Museum still houses Pheidias's masterpieces, with its spokesperson telling Ta Nea that "the possibility of their permanent return is not being considered" and Marlen Godwin, the BCRPM's International Relations Officer, responding: "We will not give up. We will continue to call for the reunification of the Sculptures. Until then, we call on the Museum to reveal the truth to those who visit it to see the Marbles. That's the least it can do. "

Main points of the leaflet here.

Ta Nea, 01 August 2020

Ta Nea, 12 March 2019 

Greece’s daily newspaper, Ta Nea, has seen, studied and photographed the controversial ‘firman’, the Ottoman document used by Lord Elgin to remove the Parthenon Sculptures and bring them to London. It is the Italian version of the ‘firman’ which was acquired by the British Museum 13 years ago and has since been kept in its Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

Ioannis Andritsopoulos,Ta Nea's UK Correspondant

The original ‘firman’ allegedly written in the Ottoman language has been lost, with several experts questioning both if it ever existed and the authenticity of the document currently held in London. The so-called firman played a key role in the House of Commons’ decision to buy the Sculptures from Elgin in 1816.

To read Yannis Andritsopulos' article in Ta Nea, follow the link here.

Several historians and lawyers cast doubt on whether Elgin legitimately removed the Marbles from the Acropolis site.

“Concerning the precise wording of the two 'firmans' (legally binding official royal permits) that the Ottoman Sultanate is said to have granted to His Britannic Majesty's Ambassador to the Sublime Porte (Thomas Bruce, the 7th Lord Elgin), all or almost all is smoke and mirrors. For no literal transcripts of the original Turkish documents exist - or are known to exist - today. One thing, however, all sane commentators agree on: no firman can possibly have granted Elgin explicit permission to do what he and his agents in fact did, namely destroy rather than remove to safekeeping significant portions of the original Parthenon marbles.”, said Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture emeritus, University of Cambridge, and Vice Chairman of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

Professor Paul Cartlege

“The so-called 'firman' was an official communication from the Grand Vizier or in his absence his deputy to the Governor and Judge of Athens. It was not, as has been claimed by staff of the British Museum 'permission given to Lord Elgin'. Plentiful contemporary historical sources confirm that the local Ottoman officials exceed the terms of the document, as the Ottoman Government itself acknowledged. It was their understanding that the pieces had been removed 'without remonstrance' that persuaded a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 to recommend the purchase of the Elgin collection. They had, of course, no authority to pronounce on Ottoman law, nor did their decision to waive doubts about legality, on which they did not make a recommendation, amount to asserting legal ownership. What some may take from Dr Fischer's remark is that he is claiming that an act of the British Parliament could somehow give legitimacy to a messy business of what in modern terms would be described as bribes, threats, and political pressures” commented renowned William St. Clair, senior research fellow at the Institute of English Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London.

William St Clair

Nina Kelly is a London student studying A level Mathematics, Further Mathematics, History and Biology. She had always wanted to know more about the Parthenon Marbles and last year she made use of her EPQ (rs) as an opportunity to find out more.

Nina's research had her attend the BP or not BP? prtotest at the British Museum on 08 February 2020, travel to Athens and interview both Prof Paul Cartledge in Cambridge and William St Clair in London.

Professor Paul Cartledge

To watch her video, kindly follow the link here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbD-0qGwg08&feature=youtu.be

Nina's conclusion is one we can all take note of: "the more we know and understand about the Parthenon Marbles, the more we can all do to encourage and appreciate a fairer world. The outcome on the debate of this specific collection of sculptures is likely to go on forever or until the oldest of stories is being told in the most holistic setting possible." 

BCRPM wish Nina all the best with her University studies. 

18 December 2021, TA NEA,  Yannis Andritsopoulos, London Correspondent for the Greek daily newspaper

Boris Johnson as student in 1986 wrote that the Parthenon Marbles were pillaged and should be returned to Greece. A position the British PM has recently rejected when Greece requests the reunification of these antiquities, and insisting they were 'legally acquired'.

Boris Johnson’s insistence as Prime Minister that the Parthenon Marbles were legally acquired by Lord Elgin and should remain in the British Museum is a complete reversal of the position he previously held, Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea can exclusively reveal.

In fact, as a university student, Johnson urged the British government to return the artefacts to Greece, arguing that they had been unlawfully removed from the ancient temple in Athens.

It is the first time evidence has emerged that the British Prime Minister advocated the reunification of the 2,500-year-old sculptures, a request he has repeatedly rejected publicly in recent years.

In an article written in April 1986 for the Oxford Union’s magazine, Johnson, then an undergraduate at Oxford University, accused Lord Elgin of ‘wholesale pillage’ of the Parthenon.

As British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Elgin removed the sculptures from the Parthenon in the early 19th century, when Greece was under Ottoman rule. He then sold them to the British government which passed them on to the British Museum in 1817.

Writing as president of the Oxford Union 35 years ago, Johnson claimed in his article that an Act of Parliament to hand the Marbles back “could be passed in an afternoon.”

The future Prime Minister went on to accuse the British government of ‘sophistry and intransigence’, saying that Whitehall’s claim that the ‘transaction had been conducted with the recognised legitimate authorities of the time’ is “invalid”.

“A letter from Elgin of 1811 reveals that the Turkish authorities denied ‘that the persons who had sold those marbles to him had any right to dispose of them’,” Johnson wrote.

He added that Elgin “secured from the Sultan a firman to remove 'qualche pezzi di pietra’ - a few pieces of stone - that happened to be lying about on the Acropolis. Elgin's interpretation of this phrase was liberal to say the least.”

This statement contradicts Johnson’s recent remarks regarding the legality of Elgin’s actions. In an exclusive interviewwith Ta Nea published in March, the British Prime Minister claimed that the Parthenon Marbles “were legally acquired by Lord Elgin under the appropriate laws of the time and have been legally owned by the British Museum’s Trustees since their acquisition.” He stressed that this view is “the UK Government’s firm longstanding position on the sculptures”.

“It seems that Boris Johnson was aware of concrete evidence that Lord Elgin’s actions were unlawful from as early as 1986. This begs the question: did he mislead the public when he recently claimed that the sculptures were legally acquired by Elgin?”, a Greek official told Ta Nea.

It is the first time since its publication in 1986 that this article has been made public.

The Daily Telegraph reported last month that Johnson “wrote an article for a student magazine arguing that (the Marbles) should stay here”. In actual fact, though, it is now clear that he argued the exact opposite.

Titled “Elgin goes to Athens – The President marbles at the Grandeur that was (in) Greece …,” the 978-word article was published in Debate, the official magazine of the Oxford Union Society (Vol. 1, No. 3, Trinity Term 1986, p. 22).

Ta Nea found the an unknown article in an Oxford library last week. It is not available online, nor is there any reference to it in the press or on the Internet. Two Oxford sources confirmed its authenticity.

Greece has repeatedly called for the return of the Parthenon Marbles, arguing that Lord Elgin had not secured permission to remove them from the ancient temple. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Culture Minister Lina Mendoni have said that the sculptures were 'stolen'. In his 1986 article, Mr Johnson appears to accept that view.

However, when he met with his Greek counterpart in Downing Street last month, the British leader rebuffed Mitsotakis’s request for the Marbles to be returned. He claimed that the issue was "one for the trustees of the British Museum".

This is inconsistent with the view he expressed in his 1986 article, in which he said that it is for the British Parliament to decide the Marbles’ fate.

“In 1816 (Elgin) sold them to the British government for £35,000. Therefore, it would require an Act of Parliament to hand them back. This, needless to say, seems to be a more or less insuperable brake on the process of return - yet it could be passed in an afternoon,” Johnson, who graduated from Balliol College with a BA in Classics, wrote.

The sculptures held in the British Museum make up about half of the 160-metre frieze which adorned the Parthenon, a 5th century BC architectural masterpiece. Most of the other surviving sculptures (around 50 metres) are in Athens.

Britain has repeatedly rejected Greece's request to hold talks on returning the Marbles. Earlier this year, a UNESCO committee said that Greece’s request for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures is “legitimate and rightful,” stressing that “the case has an intergovernmental character and, therefore, the obligation to return the Parthenon Sculptures lies squarely on the UK Government”. It also called on Britain “to reconsider its stand and proceed to a bona fide dialogue with Greece on the matter”.

In his magazine article, Johnson, then 21, called on the UK to return Phidias’s masterpieces to Greece so that they can be “displayed where they belong”.
“The reasons for taking the marbles were good. The reasons for handing them back are better still,” the future Prime Minister and Tory leader stressed.

“They will be housed in a new museum a few hundred yards from the Acropolis. They will be meticulously cared for. They will not, as they were in the British Museum in 1938, be severely damaged by manic washerwomen scrubbing them with copper brushes,” he wrote.

It had been claimed that as a student Johnson was "sympathetic" to the Greek request, but no evidence to support this had been presented until now. All his past public comments express the view that the Marbles should stay in the UK.

In 2014, he criticised George Clooney for suggesting Britain should return the Parthenon marbles to Greece. Johnson said at the time the actor needed his “marbles” restored, claiming Clooney was “advocating nothing less than the Hitlerian agenda for London's cultural treasures”.

In a 2012 letter shared with the Guardiannewspaper, Johnson, then mayor of London, wrote that “in an ideal world, it is of course true that the Parthenon marbles would never have been removed from the Acropolis,” but concluded that if the sculptures were removed from London, it would amount to “grievous and irremediable loss”. Therefore, he added, “I feel that on balance I must defend the interests of London.”

In March, the Prime Minister posed for Ta Nea in his parliamentary office next to a plaster cast bust of his “personal hero”, Pericles. The Athenian statesman is credited with ordering the design and construction of the Parthenon from which Elgin took the marbles.

As president of the Oxford Union, Johnson invited the then Greek Culture Minister Melina Mercouri to participate in a June 1986 debate titled: “[This House believes] that the Elgin Marbles must be returned to Athens.” She won the vote.
The Greek government says that the sculptures were illegally removed during the Ottoman occupation of Greece in the early 1800s.

It seems Greece has found an unlikely ally in its quest to reunite the Marbles in the form of the 21-year-old Johnson, who thought that “the Elgin Marbles should leave this northern whisky-drinking guilt-culture” and be displayed “where they belong: in a country of bright sunlight and the landscape of Achilles, 'the shadowy mountains and the echoing sea'.”

Boris Johnson’s article in full:

Elgin goes to Athens

The President marbles at the Grandeur that was (in) Greece …

On Thursday 12 June Melina Mercouri, the Greek Minister of Culture, is coming to the Oxford Union. Her subject, thanks to dynamic lobbying has a ring of familiarity all around the world: the return of the Elgin Marbles. Powerful forces will cause her to fly to Britain. They are on the one hand the passionate national feeling of the Greek people, and on the other the sophistry and intransigence of the British Government. And caught between these forces is, not a sack of old balls, but the supreme artistic treasure of the ancient world. The debate on 12 June will mark the climax of a renewed campaign by the Greek government to restore to Greece the sculptural embodiment of the spirit of the nation. The vote in Oxford - the centre of British Classical scholarship - will without question affect the decision in Whitehall. To put it crudely, your choice will count.

The background
In 450 BC Pericles, the ruler who steered Athens to her greatness, launched an ambitious programme of monumental public works. The Acropolis, the ancient citadel of Athens, was to become the glory and envy of the world. Puritan spirits objected, claiming that he was wrongfully using tribute from Athenian dependencies to ‘tart up the city like a whore'. But posterity has faulted their judgement. The craftsmen Phidias, Ictinus and Callicrates, with the personal encouragement of Pericles, created buildings and sculpture which are wholly emblematic of the pride and intellectual vigour of Athens. It is on the Panathenaic frieze, which ran along the wall behind the Parthenon's columns, that we see classical art at its most sublime. The technical control is minute, the features calm and passionless. The detachment and self-control of the figures are in harmony with the Periclean vision: of the city and citizens of the virgin goddess independent, self-reliant, and superior to the common calls of the flesh. The Panathenaic Frieze consisted of 111 panels. 97 survive. 56 of them are in the British Museum.

The Parthenon, the temple of Athena the Virgin, has suffered two major catastrophes in its history. The first was in 1678, when a cunning Turkish general, under siege from the Venetians, decided to use it as a munitions dump - like hiding a tank in a Red Cross tent. But the Venetian general Morosini reached for his gun, like Goering, at the mention of culture, shelled it, and blew up most of the central portion. The second major catastrophe was the wholesale pillage of the ancient shrine by Lord Elgin from 1801 to 1811.

Greece was at this time a tumbledown outpost of the Ottoman Empire. The national identity which Pericles glimpsed, and which has returned so conspicuously in the 20th century, had shimmered and vanished. Lord Elgin was Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, and had left behind him in England a young and skittish wife, with a pampered girl's insatiable desire for presents. It was in the Acropolis that he realised he had found a few things that might amuse here. Manipulating Turkish dependence in Britain for military support, he secured from the Sultan a firman to remove 'qualche pezzi di pietra’ - a few pieces of stone - that happened to be lying about on the Acropolis. Elgin's interpretation of this phrase was liberal to say the least. For ten years a team of labourers, under the direction of a rapacious Italian called Lusieri, sawed and hacked at the sculptures of Phidias. Huge ox-wagons daily lumbered down to the Piraeus laden with their pathetic cargo: Hermes’ Knee is still in Athens. The rest of him is in the British Museum.

It was the near-anarchy of the Ottoman Empire that allowed Elgin to get away with it. ‘Do you mind if I borrow these bits of stone for a while?’ was how he might have put it to the local sergeant, and the man would have shrugged and returned to his harem in the Erechtheum. And yet it was on precisely this point that the Whiteheall mandarins rejected, in 1983, the formal request of the Greek government for the return of the marbles: that ‘transaction had been conducted with the recognised legitimate authorities of the time.’ As it turns out, even this paltry defence is invalid: a letter from Elgin of 1811 reveals that the Turkish authorities denied ‘that the persons who had sold those marbles to him had any right to dispose of them.’

To be fair, Elgin did humanity a service by bagging the sculptures before they could be quarried for the construction of Turkish hovels. He lost a fortune on the enterprise, and his wife, who probably found them too cold and immodest, was not happy with them either. In 1816 he sold them to the British government for £35,000. Therefore it would require an Act of Parliament to hand them back. This, needless to say, seems to be a more or less insuperable brake on the process of return - yet it could be passed in an afternoon. The reasons for taking the marbles were good. The reasons for handing them back are better still.

The Elgin Marbles should leave this northern whisky-drinking guilt-culture, and be displayed where they belong: in a country of bright sunlight and the landscape of Achilles, 'the shadowy mountains and the echoing sea'. They will be housed in a new museum a few hundred yards from the Acropolis. They will be meticulously cared for. They will not, as they were in the British Museum in 1938, be severely damaged by manic washerwomen scrubbing them with copper brushes. Legend tells that the statues of the gods shrieked as they were torn from the Parthenon. It is now almost two centuries since Lord Elgin's deed, and the gods are not mocked.

Boris Johnson
Balliol

1986

 Guardian 18 December 2021

Helena Smith writes: 'The extent of Boris Johnson’s U-turn on the Parthenon marbles has been laid bare in a 1986 article unearthed in an Oxford library in which the then classics student argued passionately for their return to Athens.

Deploying language that would make campaigners proud, Johnson not only believed the fifth century BC antiquities should be displayed “where they belong”, but deplored how they had been “sawed and hacked” from the magisterial edifice they once adorned.

“The Elgin marbles should leave this northern whisky-drinking guilt-culture, and be displayed where they belong: in a country of bright sunshine and the landscape of Achilles, ‘the shadowy mountains and the echoing sea,’” he wrote in the article, republished by the Greek daily, Ta Nea, on Saturday.'

To read the article in full, follow the link here

Telegraph 18 December 2021

Steve Bird also took up the story: 'Thirty-five years ago, Johnson wrote how the UK’s claim to the artefacts relied on the “invalid” suggestion that Elgin had received the approval to remove them from “the legitimate authorities of the time”.

Johnson wrote: “As it turns out, even this paltry defence is invalid: a letter from Elgin of 1811 reveals that the Turkish authorities denied ‘that the persons who had sold those marbles to him had any right to dispose of them.’”

Greece has repeatedly insisted that because the Ottomans were an occupying force in Greece they had no right to sanction the removal of the frieze to anyone.

To read the Telgraph article, follow the link here(there is a paywall). 

What do the Parthenon and a weird Brazilian dinosaur known as “Ubirajara jubatus”* have in common? Apparently, not much. Yet, they are both protagonists of international restitution claims. On one side, Greece’s claim for the return of the Parthenon sculptures held in the British Museum, which will soon become a bicentenary dispute. On the other, Brazil’s claim for the restitution of a fossil holotype previously held in the State Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe and demanded since early 2021. While Brazilians got to see their fossil return home this month, Greece’s claim remains the longest-standing dispute in the field.

Despite the obviously distinct nature of both claims, they complete each other so as to form a perfect example of how relentlessly repetitive and fallacious the “arguments” presented by retentionists are. In my Master's Thesis (Munich, 2020) I analyzed Greece’s claim against the British Museum and the United Kingdom under the International Human Rights Law framework. For that, I had to deconstruct a recurrent argument for dismissing Greece’s stance: that Lord Elgin had the authorization to remove and export the sculptures.

The argument goes: Elgin obtained a written authorization (the famous “firman”) to remove and export the Parthenon Sculptures, issued in 1801 by the competent Ottoman authority, as Greece was under Ottoman rule. This claim is deeply flawed for a myriad of reasons I explored in the Thesis, but let us assume, for argument’s sake, that the surviving versions of the “firman” do reflect the content of a real document issued prior to the Parthenon’s dismemberment and the dispatch of the sculptures.

Under Ottoman Law in the early 1800s, the Sultan had absolute control over antiquities and only he could authorize such removal. Nonetheless, the document so often relied upon by the UK and the British Museum is signed by Caimacan Seged Abdullah, an acting Grand Vizier who, regardless of his high status in the Ottoman Government, had no authority to issue a firman – definitely not one concerning the export of antiquities.

Likewise, when arguing that the “Ubirajara” fossil was legally exported from Brazil, the authors that described the species claimed they had a written export authorization from an agent of the National Department for Mineral Production. The claim completely ignores that Brazilian Law forbids any export of holotypes (as the “Ubirajara”) and that, even if it were a regular fossil, the competent authority to issue such an authorization would be the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq).

Back to the other side of the Atlantic, let us look at what this “firman” actually states. The supposed text of the 1801 Document (as the original has never been found) begins with a description of the activities Elgin wanted his workers to conduct – with no indication that he sought permission to remove any sculptures. The second part of the document expresses that it is the desire of the Ottoman Court to favor Elgin’s requests. The widespread argument that the “firman” authorized the removal of the Parthenon Sculptures relies on an extract from the last paragraph: “[no one should] hinder them from taking away any pieces of stone with inscriptions or figures”. The decontextualized interpretation of this quote ignores that, just above, the document presents an express condition to the authorization: “particularly as there is no harm in the said figures and edifices being thus viewed, contemplated, and designed”.

The sculptures were affixed to the Parthenon and were an integral part of the building. There is simply no good faith interpretation that could lead to the conclusion that the document allowed for the Parthenon’s dismantling. This quote, when properly contextualized, clearly refers to objects dug from the rubble of the Parthenon’s surroundings, which is compatible with what Elgin requested. Thus, even if we were to deem this document reliable, there is no way it authorized the export of the sculptures. What probably happened is that they left Greece in packages with misleading content descriptions (and under heavy bribes, but that's a story for another day...).

Now, it is time to zoom in on the authorization that supposedly allowed for the “Ubirajara” fossil to be exported from Brazil. As explained by Aline Ghilardi, a leading Brazilian paleontologist in the #UbirajaraBelongstoBR campaign, the “authorization” presented by the authors does not mention anything about definitively exporting the materials and does not specify the boxes’ content. In her words, “as it was written, the authors could continue to describe new species for the next 20 years alleging that all holotypes were inside of it”. In any event, the narrative by the authors was considered untrue by German authorities (but that’s another story for another day...).

Almost 200 years separate Greece's first claim over the Parthenon Sculptures and the #UbirajaraBelongstoBR campaign. Apparently, not enough to come up with better excuses for illegal and unethical behavior. Their arguments are old, weak, and honestly – and I say this as a Brazilian – offensive. We will continue to counter them all.

I end this brief commentary by drawing a last parallel between Greece and Brazil, Sculpture and Dinosaur. Two obvious statements that somehow still must be echoed:

#UbirajaraBelongstoBR

#ParthenonBelongstoGreece.

* In case you are wondering about the quotation marks, the article describing the species has since been retracted, which means that this name currently holds no taxonomic value.

Letícia Machado Haertel, Master of Laws (LMU), Specialist in Int. Cultural Heritage Law

BCRPM would like to thank Letícia  for this excellent article.

Editorial Footnote: on the pseudo-legality of Elgin’s in fact theft, see now, definitively, Catharine Titi The Parthenon Sculptures and International Law(Springer, 2023).

‘Scaped from the ravage of the Turk and Goth,

Thy country sends a spoiler worse than both’

In 1809, the young Lord Byron, one of the prominent figures of the Romantic Movement and the most liberal voice of the time, during his first trip to Greece, visited the Parthenon. The mutilation of the monument by Lord Elgin was still fresh and the magnitude of the crime shocked the young philhellene. In the poem-complaint "The Curse of Minerva", which he wrote in Athens on March 17, 1811, he asks the goddess Athena (Minerva) to punish the perpetrator, who took advantage of his position against an enslaved people.

The vandalized Temple of the Athena Parthenos was rendered by foreign traveler painters, such as the Irish painter and antiquarian E. Dodwell, sparking an international outcry, along with the "Curse of Minerva" and the " Childe Harold's Pilgrimage " written by Lord Byron a year later.

On March 10, 1812, John Murrey, publisher and friend of Byron, published Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. In this long poem, the hero wanders in countries and places, records his impressions, making bitter thoughts about the looting of monuments by Elgin. Five hundred copies, priced at 30 shillings each, sold out in three days. Over the next two days, another 3,000 copies of a 12-pound version was released, causing Byron to exclaim, "I awoke one morning and found myself famous!"

The enormous success of Childe Harold's Songs, and its translations into European languages, meant that Byron's thoughts and references to Greece were read by more readers than all travel books combined.

From 1812 onwards, Greece entered the consciousness of Western Europeans and Americans as a place inhabited by modern people, whose political future began to be recognized as a problem that should be addressed, contributing to the strengthening of philhellenism.

Ironically, the depredations to the Acropolis of Athens by Elgin and the acquisition, in 1817, of the "Elgin Marbles" by the British Museum were a decisive factor in Britain in the ascendancy of classical Greece. (St Clair 1998; King 2006). In Germany, the process had begun earlier, around 1750, through the writings of the scholar art historian Johann Winckelmann, father of classical archeology and founder of the movement of neoclassicism.

The condemnation of Elgin's activities in his country by prominent personalities contributed to the Parthenon Sculptures being evidence of the living conscience of the Greeks, who, as descendants of the Ancients, acted as custodians of their ancestral heritage.

The presence of the Sculptures in London and the discussion they provoked significantly influenced the aesthetic perception in British society and beyond. At a time when classicism - still a dominant trend - was heavily attacked by proponents of Romanticism, the Sculptures helped to reshape artistic taste as they represented a model different from abstract Roman art, being the leading example of the new naturalistic Grecian Gusto (Y. Hamilakis, 1999).

The admiration of European travelers for classical Greece often led to attempts to appropriate it, with the formation of private collections and the sale of antiquities culminating in the 19th century. As early as the end of the 18th century, the territories of the Ottoman Empire and the Italian peninsula were part of the Grand Tour, a monthslong journey of spiritual and aesthetic culture made by European nobles after completing their studies.

The French philhellene writer, politician and traveler, viscount François-René de Chateaubriand, who had already visited Greece in 1806, took a leading role in the Philhellenic Committee of Paris, publishing in 1825 his “An appeal for the sacred cause of the Greeks” (  Appel en faveur de la cause sacrée des Grecs) and the "Note on Greece”.  Although in his Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem, just three years after the looting of the monument, he comments caustically on the theft of the Sculptures by Elgin, he mentions:

Descending from the Acropolis, I took with me a piece of marble from the Parthenon, as I had collected a piece of stone from the tomb of Agamemnon. And since then, I remove something from the monuments I visit, as a souvenir. Of course, they are not as nice as the ones snatched by Mr. de Choiseul and Lord Elgin, but they are enough for me.

Meanwhile, radical changes are taking place in Greece. The emerging new social class with European education and links with the western elites, discovered the heritage of their ancestors, cultivating self-awareness and participating in the creation of the community of the Greek Nation, a process that took on the dimensions of national rebirth. The looting of antiquities contributed to the awareness of the historical past. The establishment of the Greek state led to the systematic care, collection and study of antiquities, since they represented the visible material  proof of the national continuity and were deeply integrated in the newly constructed national memory (Y. Hamilakis, 1999).

The Nobel Prize awarded poet George Seferis records it masterfully. The weight of the marbles hurts, but it is impossible to let it down:

I woke up with this marble head in my hands

that exhausts my elbows and I do not know where to put it down.

In his essay "A Greek - Makriyannis" (1981), G. Seferis highlights the famous saying of General Makriyannis in his Memoirs, which we often mention in public speech:

"I had two wonderful statues, a woman and a prince, intact - the veins were visible, they were so perfect. When they destroyed Poros, some soldiers had taken them, and in Argos they would sell it to some Europeans; they were looking for a thousand thalers... I gathered the soldiers, I told them: ‘Even if they give you ten thousand thalers, never accept for them to leave our homeland. That's what we fought for ".

"You understand, says Seferis. It’s not Lord Byron speaking, neither the most learned, nor the archaeologist; a son of a shepherd of Roumeli speaks with a body full of wounds. ‘That's what we fought for’. Fifteen gilded academies are not worth the value of this man’s words. Because only in such feelings can the education of the Nation take root and flourish. In real feelings and not in abstract notions about the beauty of our ancient ancestors or in dried hearts that have become obfuscated by the fear of the mass mob".

Panagiotis Kanellopoulos in the History of the European Spirit, points out that the Sicilian historian Xavier Scrofani, who visited Greece in 1794-95, fifteen years before Lord Byron, observed, like the latter, the continuity of the language with that of the ancients.

Reşid Pasha, also known as Kütahı, in 1826, besieged the Acropolis, where Greek fighters were holding cover. From his reference to the Sublime Porte, it is clear that he had realized the connection of Greek antiquities with the birth of national consciousness in the enslaved Greeks and their great contribution to the creation of the philhellenic movement in Europe, which will play such a decisive role in the course and final outcome of the Struggle for Independence (Th. Veremis, 2020).

The Bonapartist colonel, Olivier Voutier, narrates that in 1822, many fighters besieging the Acropolis of Athens chose to retreat, in order to stop the besieged Turks from demolishing the surviving parts of the walls and breaking the columns of the Parthenon to grab the lead of ancient binders, which was useful for casting bullets. With the mediation of Kyriakos Pittakis, later curator of Antiquities of the newly formed Greek state, Odysseas Androutsos stopped the destruction of the monument by supplying the Turks with bullets.

The first poetic response to the outbreak of the Greek Revolution did not come from Byron but from his younger contemporary and friend and one of the most important English romantic poets, Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley's enthusiasm for the flame of independence that prevailed in Greece prompted him to write in 1822, the lyrical drama Hellas, which he dedicated to Prince Mavrokordato. In the preface he states: "We are all Greeks. Our laws, our literature, our religion, our arts have their roots in Greece".

John Keats, one of the most beloved romantic poets, with a permanent presence in the British textbooks, a close friend of Byron and Shelley, inspired by the myths of classical antiquity in his widely read poem Ode on a Grecian Urn, written in 1819, reaffirms his belief in ancient Greek art as an autonomous body of humanitarian values, through an exemplary expression for the aesthetics of the 19th century.

The British Hellenist Jennifer Wallace points out that two events at the beginning of 19th century heralded the institutionalisation of Hellenism in the British establishment and the supremacy of Greece over Rome as a cultural and aesthetic model. First, when between 1801 and 1806 Lord Elgin removed all the sculptures from the Parthenon and shipped them to England to improve British taste, and second, in 1807, when Oxford introduced classical degree examinations. Greece and its culture were now considered essential elements for the moral education of  the young and the touchstone for artists.

The reduction of classical antiquity as the cosmological cornerstone of Western European civilization had fundamental consequences in the recovery of national identity. The Sculptures of the Parthenon, being one of the most powerful landmarks of Hellenism, were to contribute decisively to the struggle of “paliggenesia” (regeneration).

Sophia Hiniadou Cambanis, is a lawyer specialized in public law and cultural management, Hellenic Parliament

* The text was based on the speech presented at the Conference "Political Patriotism and the Constitutions of the Greek Revolution", Theocharakis Foundation, 13-14.10.2021 and the article was also published in Ta Nea 15 November 2021. 

‘200 + 20 years in captivity. The Parthenon Sculptures from Elgin to Boris’

Paul Cartledge spoke at the Culture Through Politics online event on Sunday 11 April 17:00 BST. His talk followed on from Professor Pandermalis, President of the Acropolis Museum and was made alongside other distinguised speakers. 

‘Decolonising’ the Elgin-Parthenon Sculptures

First, may I begin with a huge vote of thanks: above all to the ‘Culture Through Politics’ group for organising this exceptionally important webinar, but also to my very distinguished fellow-invitees, for their important contributions.

Second, let me say a word about the title of our public webinar debate: it alludes of course to a very specific and very special anniversary, a famous bicentenary. And as a Greek historian colleague of mine has acutely observed, you tell me what anniversaries you want to celebrate/commemorate and I will tell you who you are. ‘1821’, in other words, is for Greece collectively and for Greeks individually a magical year – their ‘1789’, if you like. Or, in a way, our – English - ‘1066’! For it marks the beginning of a new Hellenic identity, but not only Hellenic: in retrospect, we can see that it was only the first step on the road to political freedom and ultimately to democratic self-determination throughout the continent of Europe.

To me, however, as a historian of ancient/Classical Greece/Hellas, 2021 has another signification as a major anniversary year: it is the 2500th anniversary of what the Western world’s first historian, Herodotus of Halikarnassos, called τα Μηδικα, what we ancient historians call the Graeco-Persian Wars. As in AD 1821, so in 480-479 BC, democracy as well as freedom was at stake – as I have tried to show in a number of lectures both in Athens and online. And at the beating heart of that ancient Greek – and more especially ancient Athenian – achievement of victory and liberation there lay and there still lies a building, a unique and quite extraordinary structure, one that we today – not quite accurately – refer to for short as ‘the Parthenon’.

What I want to do in my allotted 10 minutes is try briefly to con-textualise what (Lord) Elgin and his cohorts did TO – that is, against – that building and structure in and around 1801. I do so in the hope – probably a vain hope – of bringing the UK’s current, classically-educated Prime Minister to a proper appreciation both of the enormity of that long ago act of vandalism and of what now urgently needs to be done with and FOR those Parthenon Sculptures that are currently not in Athens. Which brings me to …

Thirdly, my own chosen title: “‘Decolonising’ the Elgin-Parthenon Sculptures”. If I may, I shall begin with a little autobiography. I was born in 1947, so that by my early teens I was well aware of the – literal – decolonisation, the shedding of imperial possessions, that Britain was – under its then also classically-educated PNM, Harold Macmillan – in the process of beginning. India had already ‘gone’, ‘been lost’, to the British Empire, so the focus in and around 1960 was on the continent of Africa, and I was at first puzzled to hear that the very word ‘empire’ had become – in some, enlightened quarters - a ‘dirty word’, something to be spoken of with distrust if not contempt. As I entered my late teens – and Oxford University (to read Classics, pretty much the same degree as Macmillan read before me and Johnson read after me) – I became even more acutely aware that there was something called ‘the Third World’, encompassing huge swathes of Asia, Latin America and – of course – Africa. It seemed obvious to me that the ‘Third World’ did not exist as if by nature, but was the direct product of self-interested intervention and depredation, mainly economic but also cultural, by the countries of the ‘First World’.

By the time Melina Mercouri ,in the early 1980s, launched her campaign for the repatriation and reunification of what were then usually called ‘the Elgin Marbles’ in the British Museum, it was becoming clear to me that the fact that the British Museum held the Marbles of the Parthenon (and other Athenian monuments) was part of a broader, imperial or imperial-colonial story.

I became a very early member of the British Committee for the Restitution (now Reunification) of the Parthenon Marbles [BCRPM], as it became ever clearer to me that the ‘British Museum’ should really be known as the ‘British Imperial War Museum’. As regards specifically the Parthenon Marbles in the BM, this was not only because those Marbles had been acquired – stolen – when the British Empire was at its height and as part of a very dirty deal between Britain’s imperial representative in Constantinople and the local Ottoman authorities but also because the attitude of the British Museum Trustees towards their possession of the Marbles was – still, in the 1980s - precisely imperialist or colonialist: not only – in their view – had the Marbles been legitimately (as well as legally) acquired but also they thought the BM deserved to continue to hold them because, under the stewardship of the Trustees and the relevant Keepers and other curatorial staff since 1817, the intrinsic aesthetic and cultural value of the Marbles – the Marbles in London only, that is – had been somehow enhanced. Somehow, their stay in London was represented as so much part of the overall ‘story’ of ‘the Marbles’ that reunification of the ‘Elgin Marbles’ to Athens would somehow diminish them, all of the Marbles.

That indeed remained the status quo down to 2009 – when the entire BM colonialist-imperialist ‘narrative’ was disrupted, rendered null and void, by the foundation of the (New) Acropolis Museum (NAM), under the genial Directorship of Professor Pandermalis. A new justificatory strategy was therefore required by the BM’s Trustees, and they fell back on a supposedly decisive, and incontestable, distinction of hierarchy between ‘universal’ museums such as the BM and supposedly inferior (merely) local or national museums such as the NAM. All the while, the colonialist-imperialist line remained intact for the Trustees, who even invoked the ultimate absurdity that the Parthenon Marbles that were in the BM were better understood IN the BM – better there than anywhere else indeed, because they could be seen and appreciated in the context of all other ‘world’ cultures represented artefactually in that same (8 million…) collection. What the BM Trustees could not, however, either see or anticipate was that a big anti-colonial head of steam was building up, focused especially though not of course uniquely on artefacts looted from Africa.

I know a good deal about that anti-colonial head of steam because it has come to affect not only the Marbles but even my own discipline and profession of Classics, especially since the beginning of this year but not only since then by any means. In the very same decade that the BCRPM was founded (in 1983) scholars who were not actually Classicists began to put it about that Classics as a discipline was fundamentally flawed at its very roots and conception: it was at best an ethnocentric, at worst a racist and sexist, project of Western and male and white supremacy, rooted in the study of societies that were themselves based on slavery and generally sexist too. So, why bother to study two main ancient civilisations – the Greek and the Roman - that had so little that was admirable let alone imitable to offer us?

Needless to say, there are defences – very good defences – available to those who believe (as I do) that Classics has a great deal that is positive still to offer us, and that a key part of that is a story about freedom and democracy, a story that has at - and as - its centre the Parthenon. In my ‘Salamis 2500’ lectures I always end with the Parthenon and its place within the entire Athenian Acropolis building programme of the second half of the 5th century BC. I do so because the Athenians decided democratically to have the Parthenon built, in a quite extraordinary way, as an overpowering symbol: both of what it meant to be Greek, as the Athenians of the 5th century BC understood that – free both personally (free from) and politically (free to), self-governing, and of what it meant to be democratic – that is, giving the lion’s share of the political power of self-determination to the demos of the Athenians, the poor majority of the empowered (free, adult, male) Athenian citizens.

Of course, we must not hide the many features of ancient Athenian democracy that we today would not choose to repeat – the exclusion of women, the exploitation of non-Greek slaves – but these must be understood within the context of those, very different times. The positives also need to be emphasised, unashamedly. Which is why it matters so much to me that ALL surviving sculptures from the Parthenon currently outside Athens – not only but especially those in the BM – should be returned and reunified in Athens. As regards the BM in particular, the case for reunification is not only scholarly, not only aesthetic, but also – and perhaps above all – ethical and moral. And in that regard it is above all anti-colonial: an attempt both to repair the damage both physical and metaphorical done by Britain’s colonial representative Elgin 200 years + 20 ago, and at the same time to make a progressive statement of anti-colonialism today. It is a unique case but also one that is completely in line with and in sympathy with other campaigns affecting other museums and other cultures for the repossession and reintegration of culturally identifying material artefacts.

Professor Paul Cartledge 

Taxiarches, Order of Honour, Greece

A.G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow, Clare College, Cambridge

A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture emeritus, University of Cambridge

08 March 2022 

Your Excellency, Mrs. President of the Hellenic Republic, Madam Vardinoyannis, Mr. President of the Acropolis Museum, honoured guests, women of the world.

Let me begin by thanking the Vardinoyannis Foundation and the Acropolis Museum for the very kind invitation to join with you all in Athens this evening. This is one of my favourite places in the world. I was here at the opening of the museum in 2009 and have been back on many occasions since. So it’s an enormous pleasure and honour to be amongst you and to see Professor Pandermalis again.

I found myself writing these words a week ago at a moment when for the first time in my life I sensed a genuine existential threat to the world order. That feeling of unease was amplified by the fact that my eldest son found himself stranded in Moscow where he has been teaching English for the past seven months to Russian schoolchildren. Restricted air travel into and out of Russia last week meant that he had to fly to Egypt in order to find a connecting flight back to London. But at least he got home safe. Not so, sadly, the numerous Ukrainian children trapped in their bombarded cities or trekking to safety in freezing temperatures under heavy artillery fire. I had hoped that by the time I delivered this talk the situation would have calmed down, but sadly the signs are ominous in the extreme. Encouragingly, however, the international community has shown rare solidarity in opposing the invasion of Ukraine.

So unity is one of the themes I’d like to explore this evening, to emphasise the importance of building and sustaining unity in Europe and where possible across the world. And culture can play a significant part in the process of unification. You can probably already see where I’m going with this, so let me turn to the main event. We are gathered here to celebrate International Women’s Day and I applaud the Foundation for linking the event to the topic of the Parthenon Marbles. At least I assume that is why I was invited? Because, yes, the Marbles are indeed a topic close to my heart, as close to my heart as are the women in my life for I am blessed with three sisters, which has given me invaluable insights into how feminine instinct is so often the right one and the masculine instinct frequently misguided.

So allow me to briefly explain the genesis of my commitment to the Marbles issue. I wrote an article for The Spectator magazine some years ago on the topic of museum deaccessioning. One person who saw that article was Eleni Cubitt, a founder and for many years the driving force behind the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, and who I’m sure will be remembered fondly by many of you here this evening. Eleni contacted me shortly after the article appeared and invited me for lunch at her favourite Greek restaurant in Islington. It became the first of many lunches and afternoon teas at her cosy little house in Highbury where we exchanged ideas and books over apple pastries and discussed the ways in which we might persuade more people to the Marbles cause. Eleni was a dear friend and a huge inspiration to me and to everyone involved in the Reunification campaign and her death a few years ago left a big hole in our lives.

My friend the American sculptor Richard Rhodes gave a TedTalk in Seattle recently in which he quoted the writer David Brooks, who advised that one should always have a permanent commitment to tasks that cannot be completed in a single lifetime. This resonated with me, for it prompted me into asking myself whether I was committed to anything, the completion of which might not be achievable in my lifetime. I concluded that the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles represents an issue about which I care deeply but that I have frequently despaired of ever seeing come to fruition. And yet, seemingly insurmountable tasks occasionally have a tendency to loosen under pressure from other forces — social, economic, geopolitical — that suddenly offer a glimmer of light. Such, I believe is the case with the Parthenon Marbles.

I was in my late teens when I first visited Athens and since then I have returned to this beautiful place more often than to any other European city. And this is where the beautiful goddesses enter the picture. I wrote my doctoral thesis on the great chryselephantine statue of Athena erected in the cella of the Parthenon during what is often referred to as the Periclean Building Programme of the mid-fifth century BCE. It was not the statue of the goddess that interested me so much as the nineteenth-century British reactions to her physical composition. As you are aware, she was constructed out of gold and ivory — and here I acknowledge the work of my American colleague Kenneth Lapatin, who has written the definitive account of the chryselephantine technique in the ancient world, which remains an invaluable resource on the subject. While I too became fascinated by Pheidias’s great gold and ivory creations, how and why they were made, what they might have meant to Athenian citizenry and so on, my own research was concerned with the controversy that grew up among European artists, critics, and academics in the early nineteenth century.

Archaeological and philological speculations about the lost statue of Athena, and the Zeus at Olympia began to appear around the same time that the Parthenon Marbles arrived in London. One of the most significant of such studies was the Jupiter Olympien, a reconstruction of the ancient chryselephantine technique assembled by the French academic Quatremère de Quincy in 1805. These various researches divided the artistic community, separating those who saw the gold and ivory tradition as evidence of the widespread use of polychrome sculpture among the ancient Greeks — and therefore an acceptable practice to emulate — and those who viewed it as antithetical to the aesthetic of pure white marble, which became the idée fixe of the neoclassical imagination. That cleaving to the neoclassical aesthetic survived into the twentieth century when even the Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum were subjected to the abrasive obsession of Joseph Duveen whose workmen misguidedly sought to restore the Marbles’ “original” whiteness by scrubbing them. It reminded me of the words of Richard Payne Knight, who, when confronted with the first lawnmowers in the early 19th century, said of their inventors: — “To improve, adorn, and polish they profess, but shave the goddess whom they came to dress.”

Of course, it was the luxurious and extremely valuable materials from which the Athena Parthenos was made that eventually brought about her terminal dismemberment. The gold plates were designed to be removable so that they could be used in the event of war or external threat. She was, then, literally a store of wealth, a convertible asset. The detachable nature of the gold plates may also have contributed to her eventual destruction for it seems possible that the tyrannical dictator Lachares fearing capture, stole the gold plates from the statue before fleeing Athens in disguise in the third century BCE.

In the early nineteenth century any number of lofty arguments were deployed to dissuade contemporary artists from emulating the ancient mixed media creations. For some critics the ‘realism’ suggested by their contrasting materials and particularly the use of ivory, veered dangerously close to waxworks, then commonly used for medical anatomical models and in Madame Tussauds lurid displays. Sculpture, it was argued, had a duty to rise above such carnivalesque persuasions. The liberal use of gold and ivory in the statue also unsettled those who looked to medieval ideas of the dubious moral connotations of luxuria. The Athena Parthenos as she was handed down in ancient testimony seemed to be the very embodiment of conspicuous consumption, luxury run rampant.

And so for me, while researching these critical reactions, the Athena Parthenos became an object of fantasy, of dreams, what she had really looked like was now lost in the mists of time, surviving only in the later written testimony of travellers like Pausanias, in a few small material fragments, and in several intriguing, small-scale souvenirs in marble of questionable reliability. An example of that category is the Varvakeion statue in the National Archaeological Museum here in Athens, which is a Roman copy and an approximation of how the Athena Parthenos might have looked. For me, Athena endures as a Parthenos Imaginaire, a figment of my fevered curiosity. Was she beautiful? I sense that is unlikely. Was she awesome? Sublime? My guess is she was all of these, a dazzling symbol of Athenian power, a triumph of the creative imagination and a demonstration of the collaborative nature of cultural production. 

Now if the composite nature of the ancient chryselephantine statues was the source of their eventual demise, in time it also came to fuel the various controversies surrounding the animated academic debates about polychrome sculpture that continued throughout the nineteenth century. The nineteenth century did indeed see a kind of chryselephantine revival, one of the most notable being the encouragement provided by King Leopold II of the Belgians, who donated ivory from the Congo to Belgian artists in the hope of persuading the Belgian people of the benefits of his colonial adventure in Africa.

If any single object came to embody the various debates about the mixed media of antiquity, it was surely the polychrome gilded bronze Minerva created by the French sculptor Pierre-Charles Simart for the Duc de Luynes, which was exhibited at the Exposition International in Paris in 1855. It survives today in its original location in the family château at Dampierre en Yvelines, outside Paris. On visiting the château I found myself pondering whether the Musée d’Orsay might be a better location for the Minerva where many more people would see her and learn of the archaeological research and fascinating currents of academic taste that surrounded her creation. Like the Parthenos, she was the product of diverse skills, crafts and materials – bronze, ivory, enamel, precious stones, silver and gold. But who am I to advise on where the Minerva ought to be displayed? Surely if I’m loyal to my Parthenon logic, the Minerva belongs in the place for which she was made, standing proudly in front of Ingres’ fresco L’Age D’Or,also commissioned by the Duke, and surrounded by the polychrome interior decorations of Félix Duban, a leading exponent of Beaux-Arts Néo-Grec architecture. Like the original Parthenon ensemble, the room in which the Minerva stands is a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk, a complete, total work of art in which all the individual elements are harmonically integrated into the whole. Remove one component and the magic evaporates.

So why am I rambling on about the chryselephantine statues when we’re really here to discuss the Parthenon Marbles. Well, here’s a thought experiment. Ancient testimony informs us that during the planning stages of the Parthenon building programme, Pheidias was for a time favouring constructing the statue of Athena out of marble. The demos objected, however, insisting on the use of precious materials. Had Pheidias prevailed, might we today have surviving fragments of a colossal acrolithic cult statue of Athena as we do for that of Constantine in Rome? And how might that have changed our knowledge of the temple and its purpose?        

Had such a thing survived, almost certainly Bernard Tschumi would have accommodated the ancient marble goddess as elegantly and sympathetically as he did with the surviving frieze and metopes upstairs. And here I will repeat another common criticism of the London display — the deliberate ‘inside out’ approach to their disposition. I’ll come back to this in a moment, but I think anyone who has visited this wonderful museum cannot fail to acknowledge the superior museology of the displays here in Athens.

I see this museum as unique among world museums in being an environment in which one can engage with the beauty and essential mystery of the ancient world in stunning proximity to the Parthenon itself, one of the greatest surviving monuments of the ancient world. It is not only a place to learn and dream. I see it as a kind of public studiolo, a place where the private imagination can enjoy free rein.

And here’s where I see another interesting parallel with the chryselephantine tradition. We know from the archaeological record that the Ergasterion, the workshop in which Pheidias constructed his chryselephantine Zeus at Olympia, stood alongside the site of the temple, and was orientated in such a way that its position mirrored that of the naos or cella of the temple for which the statue was destined. I meant to email Bernard Tschumi to ask whether this had been one of his reference points in deciding to position the Parthenon Galleries in relation to the temple itself — not that he needed any such pretext, for it is anyway a stroke of genius. In any event, I for one now see the orientation of the Parthenon Galleries as having an extra semantic charge, inviting me to ponder the creative practices of Pheidias and his contemporaries.

And this brings me to another point. When I was invited to speak to you this evening my first thought was: ‘What can be said about the Parthenon Marbles debate that has not been said already?” As the late great Sir Norman Palmer once quipped when getting up to speak last at a conference. ‘Everything has been said already, but not by everyone.’

I did not want to come here today to wheel out the now familiar arguments for reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. After all, I am in Athens with people far more knowledgeable about the issue than me. Over time, I have sought to focus my own contribution to the debate on the viability and sustainability of the concept of the Universal Museum, particularly as it is embodied in London. The ‘Universal’ component was eventually replaced by the notionally less controversial term, ‘Encyclopaedic Museum’, but the concept of universality has nevertheless become a fundamental tenet used by those seeking to retain the marbles in London. I don’t wish to rehearse my opposition to this concept here this evening as I vowed to try and adopt a positive outlook on this auspicious occasion. But I do want to draw attention to an aspect of the debate that is still not sufficiently explored. I refer to the continuing tendency of the British Museum to remove those specimens of the Marbles in London from their umbilical connection to the Parthenon. One former director of the museum went as far as to say, “The Elgin Marbles are no longer part of the story of the Parthenon. They are now part of another story.”

We may not understand the true meaning of the scenes enacted on the Parthenon Frieze, but we know that they are, and will remain, part of the story of the Parthenon. To suggest otherwise is akin to promulgating what recently became known as “alternative facts.” For it is arguably the very ‘story-based' nature of the Marbles that is their most notable feature. The frieze is among the earliest and most cohesive narrative projects in art history, a story of chthonic resonance to Athens and its citizenry. It is one thing to have wrenched half that story from the building itself, it is quite another to sever it altogether from its original meaning and context. Therein lies the pertinence of the concept of unification at this particular moment.

Today we are witnessing a hinge in history. A moment of potentially deep and lasting division in Europe. Countries from around the world and from all across the political spectrum have come together in unity to oppose a dangerous manifestation of fascism and a mortal threat to democracy. What is developing in Ukraine is, to borrow a phrase from Thomas Paine, “the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.”  

By now you might have guessed how I’m going to conclude this brief talk. The need for unity among nations is more urgent today than at any moment since the Second World War. Unity can be expressed as it has been of late, in diplomacy and in vocal opposition to the agents of oppression and division. Following the invasion of Ukraine unity has also manifested itself in the cultural sector, whereby international organisations whose activities normally bring the world together have elected almost unanimously to exclude Russia from major events. The Champions League Soccer Final has been moved from St Petersburg to Paris, the Russian Formula One Grand Prix has been cancelled, this year the Russia Pavilion will be excluded from the Venice Biennale and a season of performances by the Bolshoi Ballet at London’s Royal Opera House has been cancelled. And just this morning I heard that the director of the Bolshoi Ballet has resigned. And let’s not forget the Eurovision song contest, which has also decided to exclude Russia, although as a citizen of the United Kingdom I would perfectly understand if we too were banished from future Eurovisions, if only on account of the uniformly poor quality of our entries every year.

But now that we have this beautiful museum with its purpose-built Parthenon Galleries, there is surely no more appropriate moment at which to return the London specimens to Athens. What a deeply symbolic gesture it would be to unify a group of objects that until now have been a source of controversy and division. Would that gesture not resonate around the world?

Is there any prospect of that happening? Some have suggested that London could have replicas made to replace the current display. Technology now exists that would make it possible to create copies from marble that would be indistinguishable from the originals down to the minutest detail. The suggestion has already been rejected by the British Museum on the grounds that its visitors would need to wrestle with the idea of the copy rather than the authentic object. But how can we be sure that La Gioconda in the Louvre is the original Mona Lisa and not a replica exhibited in order to protect the original? It is conceivable that we are already at the beginning of an inevitable journey away from our Romantic obsession with originality and authenticity.

The Institute for Digital Archaeology, a joint project between Oxford University, Harvard University and the Museum of the Future in Dubai, a world leader in digital imaging techniques, claims to be able to produce convincing replicas of the Marbles in Pentelic marble. The Factum Arte company in Madrid, part of the Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation, are also among the leading practitioners in recreating the world’s cultural heritage through rigorous high-resolution recording and “re-materialisation” processes. Such techniques would be capable of creating replicas of the Parthenon Marbles down to the minutest degree such that the naked eye would be unable to tell the difference between the original and the copy. Now, I appreciate that the very idea of the British Museum displaying replica objects would likely be might be met with a raised eyebrow among curators. However, the two galleries adjoining the Marbles room at the British Museum already contain replicas of some Parthenon sculptures that are still in Greece. Technological replication may have the potential to resolve what often seems an unresolvable conundrum — providing each side with the “golden bridge” — an elegant face-saving compromise, but the idea is unlikely to succeed while we still cleave to the aura of the original. Meanwhile, the ethical arguments for full reunification and repatriation of all the surviving marbles to their home Athens remains the most forceful prospect for resolution. Few are aware that ethics were also at the very centre of the debate back in the 19th century.

I was looking again at the minutes of the debates in the House of Commons in 1816 which sought to answer the question of whether to purchase the Marbles from Lord Elgin and if so at what price. Some honourable members made clear their scepticism about the purchase, one person opining that “the mode in which the collection had been acquired partook of the nature of spoliation,” while another opposed the decision to buy the Marbles “on the grounds of the dishonesty of the transaction by which the collection was obtained.” Needless to say, I’m being selective here to make the point that despite the eventual decision to buy the sculptures, there was nevertheless moral and ethical opposition even then to the circumstances in which they were acquired by Lord Elgin. But another paragraph stands out. It was decided to pay Elgin £25,000 for the collection in order to — and I quote — “recover and keep it together for that government from which it has been improperly taken, and to which this committee is of the opinion that a communication would be immediately made stating that Great Britain holds these marbles only in trust till they are demanded by the present, or any future, possessors of the city of Athens, and upon such demand, engages, without question or negotiation, to restore them, as far as can be effected, to the places from whence they were taken and that they shall be in the meantime carefully preserved in the British Museum.”

Well, we know they failed on that final commitment, but we live in hope that one day the Marbles in London will be reunified with their brothers and sisters upstairs.     

Before closing I should mention that my connection to Athens was strengthened five years ago when my business partner Angelina and I founded our art provenance research agency. Angie is Greek and her family home is here in Athens. She was saddened to be unable to join us here this evening as she currently has her hands full with her lovely new baby boy. Needless to say, she is as passionate as I am about the cause of reunification. 

And it is on that note that I dedicate this talk to the women in Ukraine. I’m sure you all join with me in standing in support of their struggle for freedom and peace. They will prevail.  

Finally I have our beloved Mary Beard to thank for an amusing anecdote on which to end. In the frontispiece of her excellent book on the Parthenon she quotes from a moment when the American baseball star Shaquelle O’Neal visited Athens. On arriving home he was asked by a reporter:

“Did you visit the Parthenon during your time in Athens?” To which he replied,

“I don’t remember all the clubs we went to.”

So let me close by thanking you all for inviting me back to the most beautiful club in the world.

Efcharistó.

Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney (NY-12), Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Hellenic Issues, Congressman Gus Bilirakis (FL-12), Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Hellenic Issues, and Congressman Donald Payne, Jr. (NJ-10) introduced a resolution calling on Great Britain to return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece.

This Stateside call for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles made by three US Congress Representatives Maloney, Bilirakis and Payne, was issued the day after Greece celebrated Independence Day, on 26 March 2019.

The sculptures from the Parthenon remain fragmented and maily exhibited bbetween two world-lass mseums, the Acropolis Museum in Athens, due to celebrate its 10th anniversary this June and the British Museum in London.

Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin paid men to cut off with huge metal saws, hammers and chiselsabout half of the integral parts of the Parthenon to then transport them to Great Britain, destined originally for his ancestral home in Scotland. Of the 97 surviving blocks of the Parthenon frieze 56 removed by Lord Elgin's men, 40 remained in Athens. Of the 64 surviving metopes 48 are in Athens and 15 in London. And of the 28 preserved figures of the pediments, 19 are in London and 9 are in Athens.

In 1816, Lord Elgin in a fire sale saw British Parliament vote to purchase the Marbles. They have for over 200 years resided in the British Museum, despite requests for their return. The first request was made after Greece gained her independence and many more requests continue to date. Countless efforts to find a way forward have tragically been blocked by the British Museum and UK Goverment. All requests have fallen on deaf ears including attempts by UNESCO to mediate.

To read the article in full, please follow the link here.

“The Parthenon Marbles belong in Greece, with the Greek people,” said Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney. “The marbles are some the country’s greatest examples of artistic expression and beauty and are vital pieces of Greek history. The people of Greece and those who visit from all around the world to see the magnificence of the Acropolis should be able to enjoy the Marbles in their rightful home. This resolution calls upon Great Britain to finally return these treasures.”

“Art provides a window into history and is the ultimate freedom of expression,” said Congressman Gus Bilirakis. “The Parthenon Marbles were made by the citizens of Athens under the direction of renowned artist Phidias to celebrate the pride and majesty of the City of Athens. To not house and view these citizen contributions in the city they were originally intended does a disservice not only to the people of Athens, but also to the civilization that paved the path for modern democracy and freedom. I sincerely hope to see these original works and other important elements of Hellenic history finally returned to their rightful owner for future generations of proud Greeks to enjoy.”

“The Parthenon Marbles tell a story of celebration for Ancient Greece, and the marbles are important to Greek culture,” saidCongressman Donald Payne . “To best serve history and to ensure the world can enjoy ancient history in its proper context, the Parthenon Marbles should be returned to Greece.”

In the British Museum’s statement on the Parthenon Marbles, we come across the familiar claim of the legality of Elgin’s acquisition. ‘Lord Elgin’s activities,’ we read, ‘were thoroughly investigated by a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 and found to be entirely legal.’ Simple, succinct, almost convincing, this is the only legal argument in the Museum’s arsenal against repatriation. But is it true?

In early 1816, shortly after Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo and the return of his European loot, a parliamentary select committee was formed in London to evaluate Elgin’s request for the British government to buy his collection of marbles and other antiquities. The committee was assigned two tasks: to determine whether the government should acquire the collection, and to assess its monetary value.

Not being a court of justice, the select committee did not have the authority to decide questions of legality – not in the sense that those of us in the legal profession understand ‘legality’. Its official mandate did not explicitly include investigating the lawfulness of Elgin’s actions, although, ultimately, the committee did raise the question as an incidental concern. Did Elgin have permission to remove the Marbles?

The ‘firman’ that was not

Elgin claimed that he had obtained authorisation to carry out the removals. No original proof has ever been produced of that authorisation, the famous ‘firman’ that, if it existed, was not a firman at all (both Dr Philip Hunt, Elgin’s right-hand man, and its presumed Italian translation described the document as a ‘letter’).

At first, the select committee appeared to try to corroborate Elgin’s claim. Did Elgin have a document in his possession attesting permission? He didn’t. If someone had such a document, Elgin said, it would be his agent, Giovanni Battista Lusieri, who was still in Athens, or it would be the local Ottoman authorities in Athens. William Richard Hamilton, Elgin’s private secretary, had a more interesting story: when asked whether he knew anything about the permission, he admitted that he had no personal knowledge of the matter! But let us leave Hamilton aside. Elgin contended that surely the (written) permission must be in Athens. Now one expects that, to conduct a thorough investigation, the committee would need to send to Athens for Lusieri and the local authorities to look there for some proof of the ‘firman’ that was not. How else could the select committee, acting in good faith, decide the matter?

Yet, the committee showed no willingness to make the effort. In its report, it stated:

'The Turkish ministers of that day are, in fact, the only persons in the world capable (if they are still alive) of deciding the doubt; and it is probable that even they, if it were possible to consult them, might be unable to form any very distinct discrimination as to the character in consideration of which they acceded to Lord Elgin’s request.'

If they were still alive? If it were possible to consult them? The Sultan (the one with the authority to sign firmans) was still alive, and it would have been easy to consult him. The British government had an ambassador in Constantinople (Sir Robert Liston) – why not ask him? And why not call in as witness a former British ambassador to the Sublime Porte who openly affirmed that the Ottomans categorically denied Elgin’s ownership of the marbles? On 31 July 1811, Sir Robert Adair informed Elgin that ‘the Porte absolutely denied’ that he, Elgin, had ‘any property in those marbles’.

‘… the Porte absolutely denied your having any property in those marbles.’

Robert Adair’s draft letter to Elgin (31 July 1811). Collection of Theodore Theodorou. Used with permission. For a full transcript, see http://www.adairtoelgin.com.

It was not the first time that Adair shared this knowledge. In April 1811, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Charles Abbot, 1st Lord Colchester, recorded in his diary that Adair ‘was expressly informed by the Turkish Government that they entirely disavowed ever having given any authority to Lord Elgin for removing any part of his collection’. Even Elgin repeated, in an 1811 letter to the then prime minister, Spencer Perceval, that he did not lawfully own ‘his’ collection. People in government were fully aware of the fact that Elgin did not have permission to act as he did.

When the task was to persuade the Ottomans to permit the shipment of the part of Elgin’s collection that had remained in Athens, the government exerted pressure on both its ambassador (Adair at the time) and the Turkish officials. But when it came to determining whether Elgin had permission to act as he did, the select committee forgot it had a British ambassador (Liston) and appeared to hope that the Turkish officials were dead. Better let sleeping dogs lie. The committee took Elgin’s word and entirely ignored the fact that everything other than milord’s own impression pointed to the absence of permission.

The corruption

Then there was the issue of corruption. The select committee had Elgin’s admission of bribes. A list of his expenses incurred to procure the Marbles was published as an annexe to the select committee report. In it, we learn that Elgin paid 21,902 piastres (about £157,500 today) for ‘presents, found necessary for the local authorities, in Athens alone’. To grasp the significance of this sum, let us recall that, when parliament ultimately purchased the marbles, it paid Elgin a mere £35,000 (equivalent to about £4 million today). Corruption we assume just ‘happened’ in the Ottoman empire. But did it also ‘happen’ in Great Britain? Elgin was not an ordinary traveller in the Ottoman empire; he was the British ambassador, a representative of the Crown. Corruption was an offence in England and had been illegal since the time of the Magna Carta. Throughout the 18th century corruption was a crime punishable by English law. In the realm of electoral law, to bribe a voter had been an offence since the 1690s.

That bribes were a relevant legal consideration is also evident from the heated parliamentary debate on the corruption involved in obtaining the Marbles at the time. The acquisition was so inexplicable that some MPs even regarded it as a bribe to Elgin, and MP Preston remarked that, if ambassadors were allowed to get away with what Elgin had done, many would come back home as ‘merchants’. Yet the select committee did not act on the knowledge of the corruption.

The unpalatable truth is that the committee was expected to arrive at a predetermined conclusion: the Marbles should be bought for the nation. The absence of any statement in the committee’s report regarding the legality of the acquisition is significant. The committee repeated statements made by Elgin and his agents as if they reflected the truth. But never did it offer its own express conclusion that the acquisition was lawful. Nowhere in the select committee report do we find the committee’s opinion that Elgin’s actions were ‘legal’ – let alone ‘entirely legal’.

Catharine Titi

Catharine Titi is a tenured Research Associate Professor at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and author of 'The Parthenon Marbles and International Law' (Springer 2023).

Our recent trip to Athens after a 10 year hiatus, highlighted the favourable and unfavourable changes in this capital city. I travelled with my husband and daughter, and the main aim was to refresh our memories of the cultural magnificence we (as British born Greeks), take for granted.

Having worked in travel for 27 years, I have been lucky enough to travel to many parts of the world both near and far, and both positive and negative changes are inevitable, as was the case on this occasion, when visiting Athens.

The central areas of Athens known as Syntagma Square, Monastiraki and Plaka, somehow did not compare to previous years as I remember them, where the hustle and bustle was leisurely, and probably more traditionally Greek. This area of the city is busy with traditional buildings, luxury hotels, bars, restaurants, shops and crowds filling this space. Time doesn't stand still and Athens has expanded, its population now over 3 million. This central area in my view looked tired, and in need of revival. Perhaps, this was partly caused by the economic crisis of the last 10 years and more recently, Covid 19 and its aftermath.

I was keen for my daughter to experience the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, just off Syntagma Square, below the Hellenic Parliament; and also to visit the Acropolis and of course the main star attraction, the Parthenon.

Once we reached the top of  the Acropolis, Athens' iconic tourist attraction, we watched the Greek flag gently blowing in the wind against a blue cloudless sky, and soaked up the many years of ancient history. I was consumed by a sense of pride and honour of my Greek heritage.

Even in November, the citadel was buzzing with tourists from different parts of the world. The evening view of the Acropolis from Monastiraki was captivating in that one picture was just simply not enough!

We then made our way down to the newly built Acropolis Museum which focuses on the findings of the archaeological site of the Acropolis. The museum houses every artifact found on the rock and surrounding slopes dating back from the Greek Bronze age to Roman and Byzantine Greece. A plethora of artifacts with a wealth of information feeding the curious mind.

This modern museum, officially opened in June 2019, houses the original marble sculptures of the Parthenon, exhibited in the same way as they would have been on the monument. Sadly, it is obvious to also see, the missing sculptures, those so many refer to as the 'Elgin marbles', removed by Lord Elgin when Greece had no voice.

Lord Elgin was forced to sell what he had removed, to the British government in 1816, and in turn the government placed these treasures in trust with the British Museum.

The sculptures that are still in the British Museum's Room 18, have been replaced in the Acropolis Museum's Parthenon Gallery by contrasting, stark white plaster copies, further emphasising their harsh removal.

The importance of this collection of sculptures and why the calls for their return grows louder, and louder, is that these marbles deserve to be returned to their birthplace. They deserve to be housed in this amazing museum, to join their surviving halves, with direct views to the Parthenon. This would be the ultimate gesture of respect by the UK to Greece. The Parthenon Marbles were, and will always be referenced by the Parthenon, the jewel in the crown that is the Acropolis.

Athens will always hold a special place in my heart, and after this latest trip, in the hearts of my family too. Our short visit allowed us to re-engage with our Greek heritage but above all, enrich our minds with the profound cultural wealth present in this amazing ancient capital city.

We're looking forward to visiting again, this time, not leaving it so long.

Zoe Hawa