To think it’s reasonable to return the Elgin Marbles to Athens?

[Digita]

Learned I have to start a new thread rather than resurrect an existing one if I want to discuss this. Original zombie thread (learned new term!) FYI: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/776736-to-think-it-outrageous-that-Britain-refuses-to-give-back

Old thread still relevant imo because 13 years later and the Elgin (Parthenon) marbles have still not been returned to Athens. Still a topic that reoccurs in the news cycle. Most recent article was within last month.

Athens asked for marbles back nicely and waited patiently. Even through Brexit negotiations, apparently.

I think it’s reasonable to return the Parthenon marbles. Athens have asked for them and also shown they are capable of taking care of their own heritage too. Doesn’t seem fair to require Athenians to get flights to London if they want to see the Parthenon marbles that were dedicated to their city’s patron deity.

Even if the claims that Elgin ‘bought’ them from the occupying Ottomans are true, it could be counter-argued that the marbles are priceless and shouldn’t have had a material value on them. In fact, who decided the price? Doesn’t sound like the Greeks had a say at the time…

The point of being purchased seems to be used as a defence. I’d argue it’s not straightforward. How do you price the priceless?

The Greeks were muzzled because they were occupied by the Ottomans. No longer muzzled, the Greeks are trying to restore their heritage. The BM have their Parthenon marbles and requested them back. Sounds reasonable they are returned, even by negotiations and trade offs.

Those treasures had been destroyed in an earthquake, and were still, years later unavailable for the public to view. I assume they are now accessible.

How can the treasures be available to view if they were destroyed in an earthquake?

That sounds like a satisfying ending to the marbles Odyssey journey.

Vases can be mended. Takes time and money, but can be done

The Ottomans had the right to approve the sale because Greece was part of that empire and had been since the fifteenth century. That's no more than a matter of fact. Greece hadn't had its own independent state since antiquity, unless you count the Byzantine state as a Greek empire.

People want to project a Greek nation state in the past, when there simply wasn't one.

Let the Greek government buy the marbles at a fair price and have the Turks foot the bill if you really want to project present values on the past.

The same way you put a price on anything: bid what the seller is willing to accept.

But have the Greek government been given the opportunity to buy them?

I thought (and happy to be proved wrong) it’s the outright refusal to return them to Greece that’s the frustrating bit.

Possession in nine tenths of the law, but not the whole law.

Still going to argue hubris on this. You’re assuming you can price them.

As said, these were dedicated to a deity (who the city is still named after/for). Thinking you can put a price on the priceless is an example of human hubris.

But have the Greek government been given the opportunity to buy them?

It's had to overstate how fundamental the concept of property rights are to any discussion of "democracy". That includes the right not to sell no matter what the price. That is mirrored by the right to refuse to buy - again, at any price.

We put a price on everything including human lives which to mean are far more important than the historic god of a city

Ever read about this god?

Not one to be messed around with. If her city is asking for the marbles back and it’s made it to being a widely talked about issue, then the indications are that they should be returned.

Stephen Fry (who has also written about these deities in a truly brilliant trilogy) is behind returning the marbles, even citing alternative options.

Create virtual Elgin Marbles and return real thing, urges Stephen Fry

The diplomatic point is also a good one too.

Talking of priceless, the Lakota people have consistently refused all US government offers to buy the land that was stolen from the Lakota people despite SCOTUS ruling it should be returned.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Fort_Laramie_(1868)

Since we're talking about items of cultural significance, what about stolen land ? Diego Garcia now starts to float into the conversation. If the Elgin Marbles should be returned, how about peoples homelands ?

@FunsizedandFabulous ”they represent a long dead culture”

That would suggest you don’t know much about this culture. Athens is the cradle of democracy.

Arguably not a dead culture when it’s the culture that forms the foundations of human civilisation (especially in the West). In more than one way: maths, medicine, philosophy and the Olympics!

The ancients still have a lot to teach the modern.

Timeless wisdom is not dead.

.

So many colonial-centric views on this thread in an attempt to justify what was indeed a heist of cultural treasures on the grounds that the ‘natives’ can’t be trusted nor deserve sovereignty over their own past and that more deserving guardians were needed. I think particularly in the case of Greece , there is a
view that the current Greek population are somehow disassociated from the ancient Greeks -the study of the classics as if ancient Greeks were somehow a noble and unique people as opposed to flesh and blood - isn’t it referred to hellenomaia or something? Return the marbles to the context in which they were intended for and which they can be fully understood - displaying them in the BM in the present day has changed their meaning and they have now represent else entirely - past xenophobia and euro centric supremacy perhaps. In addition, I agree with the previous poster, Britain has a very rich past, put more of that on display. The Sutton Hoo exhibit, for example ,is far more relevant for a British Museum and of comparable merit in cultural and historical terms. I’m the wider world, the Greek and Egypt collections at the BM are no longer viewed as a celebration of those cultures , they are a legacy of a past world view.

That deserves its own thread. If you started a new thread off like that you may find yourself corrected by actual history.

Kohinoor was taken from a child; the diamond had been dear and sacred to his father. It was a way of Queen Victoria essentially saying “I own you and your people” when she wore it. Hence becoming Empress of India. At least that’s what it seems.

I read the following passage with disbelief and discomfort.

“Confident in their power over the boy, the British then forced a new legal document on Duleep. According to the Treaty of Lahore, the child was told he must sign over his kingdom and his fortune if he wished his British guardians to save his life from the violence threatening to engulf his palace. And so it was that with no one to counsel him, the Maharajah, aged eleven, signed away his kingdom, his fortune and his family’s future.”
(p.23, “Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary” by Anita Anand, Bloomsbury).

Another anti-British thread alert. Why am I not surprised...

And these types like the OP 'not understanding' why people voted for Brexit. Resurrecting a thread from 2009 FFS! The anti-British sentiment on here and may other places is shocking! Give over! Are you British OP?

Why don't you find something useful and productive with your time? Maybe do some work for a change

Because you're not very bright ?

I actually think Charles or William will return the Koh-i-Noor after the Queen dies. Not so much because it's the right thing to do but because male royals never wear it (there's a frightening curse in place)

That’s not really fair.

As Sathnam Sanghera points out, confronting unsavoury part of one’s history is part of getting to grips with the truth and bigger picture.

The Germans continue to love Germany. Confronting the darkness of their history doesn’t stop that.

But who would want to take a diamond with a frightening curse?

I read they give the Kohinoor to a woman, so the wife, to get around the frightening curse.

As Sathnam Sanghera points out, confronting unsavoury part of one’s history is part of getting to grips with the truth and bigger picture

Why should we care about what anti-Brirish people say?

If countries are only allowed to hold items made in their own country and about their own country's history, how culturally and intellectually impoverished and irrelevant museums will become. People from all of the world, in their millions, can access the Elgin marbles at the British Museum, for free. It's not like I s just being hoarded for English people.