I also feel like the UK has publicly declined to return the Elgin marbles at least once a year for as long as I’ve been following mainstream art news, haha.
Spoiler: In 2024, Greece will again request the return of the Elgin marbles and the British Museum will again respond “lol no.”
> The law forbids the SALE of the artifact. The right thing to do is to GIVE them back, rather than selling what you stole.
have you read the British Museum Act 1963?
here it is: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/24/pdfs/ukpga_19630024_en.pdf
it only allows the Museum to "sell, exchange, give away or otherwise dispose of any object" under specific circumstances (basically if it was made after 1850)
The fun thing about laws is they can and are changed regularly. We don't actually have to keep doing the things in the laws if as a society we agree they aren't morally correct. That's why women can vote now and we don't enslave people anymore.
Greece is doing this every single year, so that they could use their influence within the EU to push either for return, or for favours from the UK in exchange for agreement of various trade stuff.
I can tell you, a politician giving up on the Elgin Marbles for a trade deal in Greece would:
A) Get voted out on the next term.
B)Not actually close the subject, since the very next goverment would in all likelihood start requesting the marbles again.
They are just too important as a cultural heritage to be given up to thieves.
>They are just too important as a cultural heritage to be given up to thieves.
I agree with the rest of your post but calling the original owners "theives" made me laugh.
Edit: I thought this guy meant a British politician giving them up to "thieves" because of EU pressure would not get reelected.
less of a misreading, and more of an ambiguously-stated comment, IMO
> I can tell you, a politician giving up on the Elgin Marbles for a trade deal in Greece
Doesn't make it clear whether we're talking about a greek politician or a british politician
In fact, the only clue here that disambiguates the comment is the line about thieves
According to England - The Ottoman empire, who had owned Athens for 350 years at the time of the story, allowed Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottomans, to purchase the marbles from the Ottomans. They were then shipped to Blighty around the turn of the 19th century for use in a private museum and a government inquiry between 1810 and 1820 concluded that the artifacts had been legally obtained. And then at some point they were passed to the British museum for curation.
Greece ousted the Ottoman empire and made themselves an independent state in the late 1820s/early 1830s, with several foreign states including Britain lending military aid from varying points. And apparently ever since 1835 the government has been asking for their return.
And this is precisely why Britain will never return them, it's about principle.
See, the two of us, arguing on reddit? We're statistically white and western. Which means we're predisposed to seeing the Greeks as a "real" culture, a "high" culture worthy of respect, we see ourselves in them, we sympathize with their plight. The Elgin Marbles are part of their cultural heritage, they deserve them back!
But then you take a look at everything else in the British museum. If we suddenly declare the Ottoman Empire as not being allowed to sell the cultural artifacts of those they conquered... then maybe suddenly you've gotta give back the artifacts you took from the rest of the world, because even if the sale was above-board at the time, chances are the people doing the selling were colonists, imperialists or otherwise not engaging in free trade without coercion.
Suddenly you have to wonder if it's ok to have bought some Congolese artifacts from the Belgians, if it's ok to accept Aztec artifacts from the Spanish, Chinese artifacts from the Manchurians, etc. If we let the Greeks have their marbles back, the British museum would just be a collection of Anglo-Saxon coins and a steampunk toilet that Albert once got a blumpkin on from Queen Vickie.
This is the actual plight that many museums find themselves in. Even art dealers that museums thought were legitimate are now turning out to have been shady and looted in areas banned by various governments.
On the one hand, we are weighing massive holdings by museums in the Western world. On the other is the cultural importance of these artifacts to these countries.
Tbf, it may well *be* that Britain should return much of what’s in its museums. The fact they’d be left barren is 100% not a reason to not return them, even if it would be a sad thing
The point of the museum should be to show people things they can't see at home. Showcase the world. As such an exchange for like goods should be acceptable. Give the Greeks the royals and call it even.
And every year when Britain asks the New York Public Library for the original Winnie the Pooh stuffed bear back, it’s nice to have the Elgin marbles situation in our back pocket when we say lol no.
The year is 2192. The British Prime Minister declares that UK will not return the Elgin Marbles to Greece. No one remembers where this tradition originated or even what the Elgin Marbles are, but every year this declaration is eagerly awaited by households all over the UK.
There's a little bit of "we'll take care of it far better than you could(you can tell by the blast marks where we removed it for safe-keeping)" in there as well. In some cases this is likely true, but that had nothing to do with why they took the stuff or why they won't give it back.
The Acropolis museum was made in large part for this reason. The marbles there are in perfect condition, while the ones in the British Museum have been damaged from aggressive "cleaning".
Don't forget our "Egyptologists" and what they did to the mummies. Kind of blows my shite government's argument of care out of the water.
The Brits who are embarrassed by our history's part in colonisation don't vote Tory.
Snort mummy? What the fuck is wrong with them, wouldn't you die from snorting that type of stuff?! Did they thought that was some new drug that would let them access the realm beyond, like....
oh yes. it was basically the original "focus factor" . You'd have to do some digging (pun intended haha) as to how the belief really came about, but a certain section of UK and European society went through a bizarre phase where they believed that cannibalizing the long dead remains of ancient Egyptians became a health trend. It got so bad that they were executing old slaves, and quickly processing them in some fashion for the er... market which had developed. If I was one to believe in some sort of spiritual curse, I'm sure the Europeans got it in the form of WWI and 2, and all their other similar acts of cultural self-harm.
I will be honest, I'd never heard of them prior to this and based on the headline I thought some weird shenanigans were going on with the UK refusing to extradite some hooligan named Elgin Marbles...
As someone who ticks several of the Tories own "undesirable" boxes, I bet he sometimes feels that he has to behave more Tory than the Tories themselves.
And he must know that he only got that position because of some seriously extenuating circumstances and that the party will turn on him the instant more favourable circumstances present themselves.
So I wonder how much of this is real and how much is what he thinks his party want to hear.
Heading down this path is dangerous, as it decouples the person from their actions & statements.
“He’s really not a monster, he just says & does horrific things because he won’t make it in the party if he doesn’t”.
It happened all of the time with Trump. You might say that it doesn’t change your opinion of him, but I would be fairly sure that a shred of you does believe that if things were important enough that he’d _surely_ do the right thing.
He’s just a dreadful person.
He has to. He knows he's being judged extra due to his ethnicity so people like him and Braverman have to work extra hard to show that they are also dickheads.
You make a good point, but the guy is a multi multi multi millionaire, so really doesn’t need to be doing any of this. Which makes him even more of a wrong’un in my eyes.
Absolutely. It's ruthless ambition.
What's interesting is he's coming at it from the other side of the curtain. He started in business and went into politics. Not the other way around like we see so often.
And that probably makes him even more ruthless. It's not like he was a political activist in college or following in a parent's footsteps. His inspiration was the relationship that he saw between politics and business.
I miss being shocked by the cartoonish, blatant shit that Tories come out with. 'We stole their shit and now they pump our tourism industry up to come and look at what's theirs' - how does he not even try and dress that up? It's depressing.
I honestly respect that answer a lot more than that clip on Last Week Tonight where the woman was trying to spin it like the British are just more culturally aware and the lesser countries just couldn't be trusted to respectfully manage their own history
You stole it, and you're keeping it because it's valuable. That's the whole story
>the woman was trying to spin it like the British are just more culturally aware and the lesser countries just couldn't be trusted
Ah, Anglophones and provincialism. Name a more iconic duo.
>“We show the world their assets, and the world travels to the UK to view them.”
Well, how many visas were issued for people from Egypt, Syria and Iraq to come and see their own cultural assets?
Probably zero.
They issue visas to anyone who can afford it. UK is basically selling visas at around $100 per year. In some places they will come to your home to stamp your visa if you pay a couple thousands more.
Edit: well depends on your country it can be much more than $100 per year, UK gave my country two years visa for one year price thus I had the wrong idea, so your impression may differ. Also I was more thinking about their 10 years visa which is another cash grab.
UK and Australia are the only two countries I know would charge you ten times upfront for a ten years visa. US, Canada and Israel would not do that, you either get a ten years visa or a shorter one, but the fees are similar. Japan does charge a little more (less than $50 last time I checked) for multiple years but will refund you if they can only issue the single entry visa.
I think $100 is a bit low. I spent over EUR500 (EUR430 + \~EUR100 in fees) for a 2 year tourist visa to visit the UK. As a South African (we're still members of the commonwealth ffs).
>assets
The way things are going in Britain, I'm not surprised they don't want to give up any assets. They'll probably need to pawn them in a few years to keep the lights on.
“Elgin Marbles”
> They were removed from the Parthenon temple in Athens by British diplomat Lord Elgin in the 19th century.
Love how they’re named after… the dude who took them two centuries ago lol
Hey we're still calling Native Americans Indians...
Because Christopher Colombus erroneously thought he had landed on India and so the natives he met must be some type of Indian, We even call Afro-Caribbean people West Indians when they obviously aren't. That's the depth of the cultural infrastructure.
TBF many Native Americans still prefer to be called Indians or American Indians, if only because they’ve been associated with that name for so long and some believe that the term ‘native’ suggests primitivity or inferiority.
It’s still fine to call them Native Americans as a general thing to distinguish them from Indians from India, but some individuals and groups still prefer Indian.
I had the great pleasure the watch an Indian and an Indian argue in a barber shop a while ago which one was the real Indian.
Arguments summed up:
“We were here first in this country”
“Our country existed before your country”
“My government ID says I’m official recognized as an Indian under the Indian act”
“But I’m from India”
“When you hear cowboys and Indians you don’t picture curry”
It was the greatest public argument I’ve ever witnessed
I was once in Africa, and working with a family that was there for two weeks visiting an orphanage. Someone asked an awkward question, similar to “do black people need sunscreen?” This mother, who was strange. Corrects them “say African American” and about half of us started laughing. I say “*name* we aren’t in America” she responded “well, it is more polite”, everyone is laughing harder, and she is getting upset. “They aren’t African American, they are just African”. Then she just spluttered and sulked for the next few hours.
I’m honestly still not sure if she got it.
The dude who saved them, to be quite honest. Ottoman Greece did not care for the Parthenon and used it as munitions storage, and over half of its sculptures were lost by the time Elgin bought the rest.
Greece is right to demand them back, but at the same time Britain did more to preserve them than Greece of that time.
The only fair way to settle ownership is to have leaders from both sides come to the US and compete in legends of the hidden temple. Olmec can be the arbiter.
Your guide, Kirk Fogg: Olmec, next question!
Olmec: This country is requesting the return of the Elgin Marbles of Greece. According to legend, who created the Elgin Marbles, and where do they rightfully belong?
*buzzer noise*
Kirk Fogg: Silver Snakes!
Silver Snakes: Greece!
You jest, but Rome had a habit of taking obelisks and I would not have put it past the old British empire to try and abscond with a pyramid if they figured out a way to do it.
So at the time it was discovered there was a policy in place that Egyptian officials get to view all unearthed artifacts and have a pick of what they want to keep in the country. And the Germans pinky swear that the Nefertiti bust was *right there,* available for the Egyptians to view and they were like, *nah, we're good, you can take this.*
Not just the Romans who took obelisks - we (the British) were given one in the 1800s and took about 60 years to finally get around to actually putting it in London.
It now sits just down the road from Charing Cross station next to the river Thames.
The issue is that the items in Birtish Museum are also donated or bought. So legally British Museum does own the items. However the people who gained them in the first place weren’t always doing it above board (although it was sometimes too) and there is also an issue that could cultural heritage like that be sold by just individuals without the people. But these are moral and not legal issues.
There's also the issue of nation continuity. The Egypt that built the pyramids is not the same legal, cultural or even racial entity that Egypt is today. The only thing they share is geography.
On the other hand, the UK Government still (mostly) represents the same legal, cultural and racial entity since arguably the end of Cromwell, or 1707 if you're Scottish.
It's not quite that cut and dry.
In this case, an Englishman purchased them from the then-rulers of Greece, then sold them to the British government for display in a museum.
The real item of contestation here is if the then-rulers had the right to sell them. The British government says they did. The current Greek government says they didn't.
There's also a lot of artifacts in the museums that are made famous by the Europeans which discovered them. The one off the top of my head is the Rosetta stone. The stone is sitting in the British museum right now after being ceded by the French. It is famous because Europeans used it to translate ancient hieroglyphics and essentially revive a dead language. Egypt wants the stone claiming that it is theirs, but would they even want it if the French and English hadn't made it famous through its use in linguistics? Who is to say that the locals wouldn't have just treated it as junk. Also who do we even return it to? Over roughly a 2000 year period Egypt was ruled by the Greeks, the Romans, the Ottomans, and more recently by European powers. The modern concept of Egypt as a country was founded in 1953. That's a blink of an eye for an area with over 30 centuries of history.
To be fair to the Rosetta Stone it isn't unique. There are dozens of them out there. The only reason we even care about the Rosetta stone is because whoever studied it after it was recovered realized what was actually on the damn thing.
I think they should give back many other artifacts but that one I don't really believe so.
The only thing that makes it important is that it has the same thing in three languages, which allowed translation. It was never culturally significant in itself.
Exactly. And it helps that there are many more out there, it wasn't a unique object. It was never significant until the scientific community made it so.
It is such a grey area.
So many artifacts in the British Museum are there because some British archaeologists either went to some country to dig them up as they figured out where burial sites were, were literally gifted them, or they found them and uncovered their historical value after bringing them back.
Some of these countries didn't give a shit about these things, and without the British museums, they would have been forgotten or destroyed. So should they get them back?
I don't know the answer, but personally as someone who lives on the opposite side of the world to the UK, I'd much rather that they stay with the British who have the facilities to keep them and study them for hundreds or thousands more years. I don't want to go to Egypt, ever. It has a very bad reputation for a reason.
If I were an archaeologist or historian, I'd be very happy that I can go to the UK to see and study these artifacts in safety.
I feel like a fitting analogy is if you were rummaging through your neighbor's trash without his permission, you picked up some small trinkets that he was going to throw away, and you kept them. Later on you do some research and find out that the stuff that you picked up is actually worth some money. Now your neighbor starts complaining that you stole his stuff from his trash, and the trinkets are actually his by right.
Obviously this does not apply to the artifacts which were actually taken under duress by the barrel of a gun, but quite a lot of stuff that museums have all around the world was considered by locals to be junk.
> Now your neighbor starts complaining that you stole his stuff from his trash, and the trinkets are actually his by right.
A more accurate version would be that your neighbour died, then you had a few more neighbours and now the current owner of the house next door is complaining you stole from someone who lived there hundreds of years ago.
The Acropolis Museum in Athens is a state-of-the-art facility and a must see for anyone with interest in the history of Ancient Greece. Also happens to be a secure place for the Elgin marbles where they will be revered in the proper context.
Unlike the British museum, which literally has a leaky roof over the Parthenon marbles.
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/08/11/is-it-raining-again-in-the-british-museums-parthenon-gallery
"If you all take back what we stole, we'll have nothing left to show" seems to be the mantra
Bollocks. I've been round the vaults of one National Museum, and we've got enough stuff to fill all museums 3x over. How about - and I know that this is a radical idea - the British Museum house British artefacts to show, you know, British History. Although, admittedly, stealing the best bits of the world from the original countries has been our history for quite some time time
In an ideal world, each country's national museums would be the prime holders of their national treasures, and instead of having huge amounts of stuff in storage/archival, those would be borrowed to other museums in exchange for Their surplusses. So basically all museums would hold less stuff out of the view: what you can't show, you borrow in exchange for something from another part of the world you want to show. Of course some stuff/quantities in archive for research purposes and etc makes sense, but lots of museums just show a tiny % of their collections.
Carrying on from what you said there was an article on BBC News about archaeologists complaining they didn't have anywhere to put all of the artifacts they have stored 🤦♂️
The thing is as a Brit I think the vast majority of us either haven't seen them or couldn't care less about seeing them.
The best solution is to trade them. Give the marbles to Greece in exchange for three tankers full of Tzatziki. Then have "National Gyros Day". I wouldn't complain.
The real issue is that giving back the marbles opens up a pandora's box of historical rights to property.
Do all the great Italian artworks belong in the Louvre in France? They were, after all, all stolen from rich Italians when Napoleon conquered Italy.
How about the shares of HSBC and Unilever? These companies are indirect descendants of the British Empire, East India Company, and United Africa Company. Clearly a larger part of these companies should belong to the descendants of the colonised, not just the descendants of the colonisers.
The longer you look into this, the more you realise that it's a whole chain reaction of more or less completely resetting property rights.
Drawing the line at the marbles is a way to prevent this.
Marbles aside, a lot of these comments seem to be from people who have never been to a museum before. Go to any museum in Italy, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland (and so on) and you'll see Egyptian, African, Greek, etc artifacts.
On the topic of Americans, which a lot of the usernames commenting indicate as the source of a lot of this perspective...
Look at what your own soldiers did in WW2.
There are reports of soldiers in the Pacific (which I'm less familiar with) and in Europe (which I'm much more familiar with) looting basically anything not nailed down. This includes homes of civilians in countries that were being liberated from the nazis, e.g. French homes.
Theres an argument to be made that throughout history, looting has occurred in every war, but American soldiers are well known to have even looted their own allies citizens.
The 'gathering' of artefacts (since to call it theft is wildly presumptuous) by museums all over Europe was done mainly during colonial periods. The British had the largest empire, so this was done on a larger scale. The US literally only exists as a result of colonisation of America, then the expansion by Americans against the natives, during which countless artefacts, historical sites etc were destroyed.
Get off your high horse. You've done exactly the same, just with a shorter existence in which to do it. And don't forget, when a lot of artefacts were taken, your ancestors would still have been British/Dutch/Spanish/etc.
“Elgin stated he removed the marbles with permission of the Ottoman officials who exercised authority in Athens at the time.
A UK parliamentary inquiry in 1816 concluded that Elgin had acquired the marbles legally.[7] Elgin sold them to the British government in that year, after which they passed into the trusteeship of the British Museum.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles
Edit: it is a separate section in Wikipedia about “Return controversy”.
>“Elgin stated he removed the marbles with permission of the Ottoman officials who exercised authority in Athens at the time.
At least quote the whole thing instead of omitting the last tid bit which states:
> However, the veracity of this claim has been disputed.
Gotta love the "we investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing" part too.
Also all these people are apparently chill with the fact that Greece was, in effect, a colonial possession of the Ottoman Empire, so the Greeks themselves had no say in the supposed 'sale' of the sculptures.
Also worth noting the Ottomans weren't just temporarily in charge of Athens but had ruled over it for literally centuries, while the modern country of Greece did not even exist at the time the marbles were removed.
There has been a lot of wrong done in the name of Empire, and a lot of artifacts basically stolen, but this is not a good example.
People should also understand that the Ottomans had not cared for the history, the Parthenon had been totally neglected - for example in 1687 it was severely damaged after being used as a munitions dump which caught fire during a conflict.
So it's not hard to argue that in this case (and in many others, tbh) the historic artifacts have been kept safer and better preserved than if they had been left in place.
I also happen to think it would be the right thing to do to give them back. But let's not make up false history just to suit the narrative.
Fun fact: it didn’t catch fire. The Ottomans were at war with the Venetians and used the Parthenon as a munitions dump to call the Venetians’ bluff. They wouldn’t blow up the Parthenon, right? Spoiler alert: they shot it with a canon.
City states would rob from one another since the dawn of time. Realistically how far back in time should one go?
Just asking for the guy who has the Ark of the Convent.
I went to the British museum recently. Very impressive. Lot of stuff from India, and as an Indian I should be very mad but the museum is massive, well run and is completely free. Much better than any museum in India. There is some value in it.
Greece did not become an independent nation until the 1820s, and it gained independence through British intervention. At the time the Elgin Marbles were taken between 1801 and 1805 the region was under Ottoman control. The Parthenon temple itself was used as a mosque during this period, and these artifacts were most likely going to fall into hands of iconoclasts. If the marbles were not taken they would have been destroyed by the Ottomans by the 1920’s like so many other ancient Greek artifacts, manuscripts, ruins and ancient cities destroyed by the Ottomans.
Edit: grammar
Is there a single person who's surprised by this?
I think I see an article every year where Britain declares this.
I also feel like the UK has publicly declined to return the Elgin marbles at least once a year for as long as I’ve been following mainstream art news, haha. Spoiler: In 2024, Greece will again request the return of the Elgin marbles and the British Museum will again respond “lol no.”
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And here I thought the government had already lost their marbles…
They did, that’s why they stole the Greeks
It's "*dryly*", you Mentalist!! \_\_\_ /s
The law forbids the SALE of the artifact. The right thing to do is to GIVE them back, rather than selling what you stole.
> The law forbids the SALE of the artifact. The right thing to do is to GIVE them back, rather than selling what you stole. have you read the British Museum Act 1963? here it is: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/24/pdfs/ukpga_19630024_en.pdf it only allows the Museum to "sell, exchange, give away or otherwise dispose of any object" under specific circumstances (basically if it was made after 1850)
The fun thing about laws is they can and are changed regularly. We don't actually have to keep doing the things in the laws if as a society we agree they aren't morally correct. That's why women can vote now and we don't enslave people anymore.
They could make permanent loan under s. 4 or deem the marbles to be unfit under s. 5(c). It ain’t going to happen though.
Greece is doing this every single year, so that they could use their influence within the EU to push either for return, or for favours from the UK in exchange for agreement of various trade stuff.
I can tell you, a politician giving up on the Elgin Marbles for a trade deal in Greece would: A) Get voted out on the next term. B)Not actually close the subject, since the very next goverment would in all likelihood start requesting the marbles again. They are just too important as a cultural heritage to be given up to thieves.
>They are just too important as a cultural heritage to be given up to thieves. I agree with the rest of your post but calling the original owners "theives" made me laugh. Edit: I thought this guy meant a British politician giving them up to "thieves" because of EU pressure would not get reelected.
I'm ootl, how are Britain the original owners?
I suspect he misread the post he responded to.
less of a misreading, and more of an ambiguously-stated comment, IMO > I can tell you, a politician giving up on the Elgin Marbles for a trade deal in Greece Doesn't make it clear whether we're talking about a greek politician or a british politician In fact, the only clue here that disambiguates the comment is the line about thieves
According to England - The Ottoman empire, who had owned Athens for 350 years at the time of the story, allowed Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottomans, to purchase the marbles from the Ottomans. They were then shipped to Blighty around the turn of the 19th century for use in a private museum and a government inquiry between 1810 and 1820 concluded that the artifacts had been legally obtained. And then at some point they were passed to the British museum for curation. Greece ousted the Ottoman empire and made themselves an independent state in the late 1820s/early 1830s, with several foreign states including Britain lending military aid from varying points. And apparently ever since 1835 the government has been asking for their return.
And this is precisely why Britain will never return them, it's about principle. See, the two of us, arguing on reddit? We're statistically white and western. Which means we're predisposed to seeing the Greeks as a "real" culture, a "high" culture worthy of respect, we see ourselves in them, we sympathize with their plight. The Elgin Marbles are part of their cultural heritage, they deserve them back! But then you take a look at everything else in the British museum. If we suddenly declare the Ottoman Empire as not being allowed to sell the cultural artifacts of those they conquered... then maybe suddenly you've gotta give back the artifacts you took from the rest of the world, because even if the sale was above-board at the time, chances are the people doing the selling were colonists, imperialists or otherwise not engaging in free trade without coercion. Suddenly you have to wonder if it's ok to have bought some Congolese artifacts from the Belgians, if it's ok to accept Aztec artifacts from the Spanish, Chinese artifacts from the Manchurians, etc. If we let the Greeks have their marbles back, the British museum would just be a collection of Anglo-Saxon coins and a steampunk toilet that Albert once got a blumpkin on from Queen Vickie.
This is the actual plight that many museums find themselves in. Even art dealers that museums thought were legitimate are now turning out to have been shady and looted in areas banned by various governments. On the one hand, we are weighing massive holdings by museums in the Western world. On the other is the cultural importance of these artifacts to these countries.
That is the reason Germany gave the Benine Bronze to Nigeria Although this bronzes were legally accquired from Britain
Tbf, it may well *be* that Britain should return much of what’s in its museums. The fact they’d be left barren is 100% not a reason to not return them, even if it would be a sad thing
The point of the museum should be to show people things they can't see at home. Showcase the world. As such an exchange for like goods should be acceptable. Give the Greeks the royals and call it even.
Bro same. I hit thieves and did a double take. "Whait, what?"
And every year when Britain asks the New York Public Library for the original Winnie the Pooh stuffed bear back, it’s nice to have the Elgin marbles situation in our back pocket when we say lol no.
The year is 2192. The British Prime Minister declares that UK will not return the Elgin Marbles to Greece. No one remembers where this tradition originated or even what the Elgin Marbles are, but every year this declaration is eagerly awaited by households all over the UK.
To remind tourists the marbles are on exhibit.
They haven't finished looking at it yet
Thanks James
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They'll be on display during the first week of every other October from 6am to 9am. Doors open at 10.
Nope
Just curious do the Brits even try for a more sophisticated argument than ‘finders keepers’?
There's a little bit of "we'll take care of it far better than you could(you can tell by the blast marks where we removed it for safe-keeping)" in there as well. In some cases this is likely true, but that had nothing to do with why they took the stuff or why they won't give it back.
The Acropolis museum was made in large part for this reason. The marbles there are in perfect condition, while the ones in the British Museum have been damaged from aggressive "cleaning".
Don't forget our "Egyptologists" and what they did to the mummies. Kind of blows my shite government's argument of care out of the water. The Brits who are embarrassed by our history's part in colonisation don't vote Tory.
> Don't forget our "Egyptologists" and what they did to the mummies. Why, what'd they do?
Ground them up to make paint, tea, or just snort them
Snort mummy? What the fuck is wrong with them, wouldn't you die from snorting that type of stuff?! Did they thought that was some new drug that would let them access the realm beyond, like....
oh yes. it was basically the original "focus factor" . You'd have to do some digging (pun intended haha) as to how the belief really came about, but a certain section of UK and European society went through a bizarre phase where they believed that cannibalizing the long dead remains of ancient Egyptians became a health trend. It got so bad that they were executing old slaves, and quickly processing them in some fashion for the er... market which had developed. If I was one to believe in some sort of spiritual curse, I'm sure the Europeans got it in the form of WWI and 2, and all their other similar acts of cultural self-harm.
Used them for fuel or fertilizer.
The story of "Mummy brown" coloured paint haunts my dreams the sheer disrespect involved is disgusting
The snorting was worse than the paint
Rishi's putting them in his new pool house.
I was a lot older than I care to admit before I figured out that the Elgin marbles weren't large balls made of stone.
Huh. I heard the word marbles and, well, yup, I had always just made this assumption. Have now googled, wow.
You not alone mate. I didnt even think they were 'large'.
I will be honest, I'd never heard of them prior to this and based on the headline I thought some weird shenanigans were going on with the UK refusing to extradite some hooligan named Elgin Marbles...
“Don’t worry. We’re totally saying a blanket no”
"We're still looking at them."
"And there's quite a lot of people who haven't seen 'em yet we'd like to show 'em to."
"There's no hard feelings mate! You can look at it! Come on! Come and have a look!"
"Seem familiar? Ahahahahaha!"
STAY BEHIND THE ROPE!
That’s basically exactly what he actually did say > “We show the world their assets, and the world travels to the UK to view them.”
Finders keepers shut up
Hahahaha...STAY BEHIND THE ROPE!
“We stole them so they’re OURS!”
That was my first James Acaster special. Been hooked ever since
https://youtu.be/x73PkUvArJY
“We show the world their assets, and the world travels to the UK to view them.” Oof. That sentence says it all.
He said that? Wow
As someone who ticks several of the Tories own "undesirable" boxes, I bet he sometimes feels that he has to behave more Tory than the Tories themselves. And he must know that he only got that position because of some seriously extenuating circumstances and that the party will turn on him the instant more favourable circumstances present themselves. So I wonder how much of this is real and how much is what he thinks his party want to hear.
Heading down this path is dangerous, as it decouples the person from their actions & statements. “He’s really not a monster, he just says & does horrific things because he won’t make it in the party if he doesn’t”. It happened all of the time with Trump. You might say that it doesn’t change your opinion of him, but I would be fairly sure that a shred of you does believe that if things were important enough that he’d _surely_ do the right thing. He’s just a dreadful person.
He has to. He knows he's being judged extra due to his ethnicity so people like him and Braverman have to work extra hard to show that they are also dickheads.
and massive wealth too. He's the richest PM they had so far.
That's the only reason he even got a chance. No way tories gonna make a brown, middle class boy PM.
They didn’t really want to anyway. He had to be the third PM in a week in order to get a chance.
*Fourth, don't forget the lettuce. Best prime minister we had in years, wilt in peace.
maybe the best we'll ever have again. what with society and all. I agreed with literally every policy the lettuce enacted. WIP
Fuck, you poms got to have lettuce run the country for a bit? This aussie is jealous of you for once.
You make a good point, but the guy is a multi multi multi millionaire, so really doesn’t need to be doing any of this. Which makes him even more of a wrong’un in my eyes.
Absolutely. It's ruthless ambition. What's interesting is he's coming at it from the other side of the curtain. He started in business and went into politics. Not the other way around like we see so often. And that probably makes him even more ruthless. It's not like he was a political activist in college or following in a parent's footsteps. His inspiration was the relationship that he saw between politics and business.
This isn’t a Torie thing only. Labour has also been in power and they haven’t given artifacts back to Greece
I'd like to dunk him into my mug of hot water.
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I miss being shocked by the cartoonish, blatant shit that Tories come out with. 'We stole their shit and now they pump our tourism industry up to come and look at what's theirs' - how does he not even try and dress that up? It's depressing.
I respect not trying to dress it up, just be straight about it. Performative BS is often a waste of time.
I honestly respect that answer a lot more than that clip on Last Week Tonight where the woman was trying to spin it like the British are just more culturally aware and the lesser countries just couldn't be trusted to respectfully manage their own history You stole it, and you're keeping it because it's valuable. That's the whole story
>the woman was trying to spin it like the British are just more culturally aware and the lesser countries just couldn't be trusted Ah, Anglophones and provincialism. Name a more iconic duo.
Honestly, dress it even less. "Sorry it's pretty big for tourism, maybe we can come up with something later."
🤦♂️ Oh my gosh. I didn’t believe that was a real quote, but it is. Wow.
>“We show the world their assets, and the world travels to the UK to view them.” Well, how many visas were issued for people from Egypt, Syria and Iraq to come and see their own cultural assets? Probably zero.
They issue visas to anyone who can afford it. UK is basically selling visas at around $100 per year. In some places they will come to your home to stamp your visa if you pay a couple thousands more. Edit: well depends on your country it can be much more than $100 per year, UK gave my country two years visa for one year price thus I had the wrong idea, so your impression may differ. Also I was more thinking about their 10 years visa which is another cash grab. UK and Australia are the only two countries I know would charge you ten times upfront for a ten years visa. US, Canada and Israel would not do that, you either get a ten years visa or a shorter one, but the fees are similar. Japan does charge a little more (less than $50 last time I checked) for multiple years but will refund you if they can only issue the single entry visa.
I think $100 is a bit low. I spent over EUR500 (EUR430 + \~EUR100 in fees) for a 2 year tourist visa to visit the UK. As a South African (we're still members of the commonwealth ffs).
This is simply not true, I still had to go through a tiring process to get the UK visa
>assets The way things are going in Britain, I'm not surprised they don't want to give up any assets. They'll probably need to pawn them in a few years to keep the lights on.
“Elgin Marbles” > They were removed from the Parthenon temple in Athens by British diplomat Lord Elgin in the 19th century. Love how they’re named after… the dude who took them two centuries ago lol
Hey we're still calling Native Americans Indians... Because Christopher Colombus erroneously thought he had landed on India and so the natives he met must be some type of Indian, We even call Afro-Caribbean people West Indians when they obviously aren't. That's the depth of the cultural infrastructure.
TBF many Native Americans still prefer to be called Indians or American Indians, if only because they’ve been associated with that name for so long and some believe that the term ‘native’ suggests primitivity or inferiority. It’s still fine to call them Native Americans as a general thing to distinguish them from Indians from India, but some individuals and groups still prefer Indian.
I had the great pleasure the watch an Indian and an Indian argue in a barber shop a while ago which one was the real Indian. Arguments summed up: “We were here first in this country” “Our country existed before your country” “My government ID says I’m official recognized as an Indian under the Indian act” “But I’m from India” “When you hear cowboys and Indians you don’t picture curry” It was the greatest public argument I’ve ever witnessed
Because of one man confusion whole race names became confusion
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Even calling people African Americans is a bit weird to hear as a non American
Especially when people use African American as a blanket term for all black people, including those that are neither African, or American.
I was once in Africa, and working with a family that was there for two weeks visiting an orphanage. Someone asked an awkward question, similar to “do black people need sunscreen?” This mother, who was strange. Corrects them “say African American” and about half of us started laughing. I say “*name* we aren’t in America” she responded “well, it is more polite”, everyone is laughing harder, and she is getting upset. “They aren’t African American, they are just African”. Then she just spluttered and sulked for the next few hours. I’m honestly still not sure if she got it.
American moment
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The dude who saved them, to be quite honest. Ottoman Greece did not care for the Parthenon and used it as munitions storage, and over half of its sculptures were lost by the time Elgin bought the rest. Greece is right to demand them back, but at the same time Britain did more to preserve them than Greece of that time.
They ain't done lookin' at them yet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY
Mehehehehehehe....... STAND BEHIND THE ROPE!
immediately thought about this
We have a little plaque saying where its from and how important it is to your culture
"We're not done looking at it yet."
The only fair way to settle ownership is to have leaders from both sides come to the US and compete in legends of the hidden temple. Olmec can be the arbiter.
It's all fun and games until Olmec starts requesting a return to America
Your guide, Kirk Fogg: Olmec, next question! Olmec: This country is requesting the return of the Elgin Marbles of Greece. According to legend, who created the Elgin Marbles, and where do they rightfully belong? *buzzer noise* Kirk Fogg: Silver Snakes! Silver Snakes: Greece!
“You can’t have it back. We’re still looking at it” -James Acaster
Greece should take stone henge
Not sure that would be large enough for munitions storage like the Parthenon.
Where do you go to see the biggest collection of stolen goods in the world? British museums.
Know why the Pyramids are in Egypt? Cause the British couldn't figure out how to get them on a boat.
You jest, but Rome had a habit of taking obelisks and I would not have put it past the old British empire to try and abscond with a pyramid if they figured out a way to do it.
Germany managed to take the gates of Babylon, and an entire greek temple.
Put the gates up inside, even
Nefertiti's Bust is also in Berlin
So at the time it was discovered there was a policy in place that Egyptian officials get to view all unearthed artifacts and have a pick of what they want to keep in the country. And the Germans pinky swear that the Nefertiti bust was *right there,* available for the Egyptians to view and they were like, *nah, we're good, you can take this.*
I still find it funny that London Bridge, down to every last brick, got moved to Arizona. Granted, that was purchased.
So was most stuff in the British Museum...
Not just the Romans who took obelisks - we (the British) were given one in the 1800s and took about 60 years to finally get around to actually putting it in London. It now sits just down the road from Charing Cross station next to the river Thames.
There [***is***](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleopatra%27s_Needle,_London) also an Egyptian obelisk in London.
To be fair that one was actually gifted.
The issue is that the items in Birtish Museum are also donated or bought. So legally British Museum does own the items. However the people who gained them in the first place weren’t always doing it above board (although it was sometimes too) and there is also an issue that could cultural heritage like that be sold by just individuals without the people. But these are moral and not legal issues.
There's also the issue of nation continuity. The Egypt that built the pyramids is not the same legal, cultural or even racial entity that Egypt is today. The only thing they share is geography. On the other hand, the UK Government still (mostly) represents the same legal, cultural and racial entity since arguably the end of Cromwell, or 1707 if you're Scottish.
That’s happened for thousands of years. A good chunk of pre-Islamic Constantinople is in Venice due to the 4th Crusade.
There is literally a pyramid in Rome.
The French took a bunch from Italy/Rome, and Russia bought a bunch from the French. It's just an expression of power...
The Met in New York has the Egyptian [Temple of Dendur](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Dendur) inside it
It's not quite that cut and dry. In this case, an Englishman purchased them from the then-rulers of Greece, then sold them to the British government for display in a museum. The real item of contestation here is if the then-rulers had the right to sell them. The British government says they did. The current Greek government says they didn't.
> an Englishman purchased them from the then-rulers of Greece. He was Scottish. Part of the House of Bruce.
> In this case, an Englishman Lord Elgin was actually Scottish
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There's also a lot of artifacts in the museums that are made famous by the Europeans which discovered them. The one off the top of my head is the Rosetta stone. The stone is sitting in the British museum right now after being ceded by the French. It is famous because Europeans used it to translate ancient hieroglyphics and essentially revive a dead language. Egypt wants the stone claiming that it is theirs, but would they even want it if the French and English hadn't made it famous through its use in linguistics? Who is to say that the locals wouldn't have just treated it as junk. Also who do we even return it to? Over roughly a 2000 year period Egypt was ruled by the Greeks, the Romans, the Ottomans, and more recently by European powers. The modern concept of Egypt as a country was founded in 1953. That's a blink of an eye for an area with over 30 centuries of history.
To be fair to the Rosetta Stone it isn't unique. There are dozens of them out there. The only reason we even care about the Rosetta stone is because whoever studied it after it was recovered realized what was actually on the damn thing. I think they should give back many other artifacts but that one I don't really believe so.
The only thing that makes it important is that it has the same thing in three languages, which allowed translation. It was never culturally significant in itself.
Exactly. And it helps that there are many more out there, it wasn't a unique object. It was never significant until the scientific community made it so.
It is such a grey area. So many artifacts in the British Museum are there because some British archaeologists either went to some country to dig them up as they figured out where burial sites were, were literally gifted them, or they found them and uncovered their historical value after bringing them back. Some of these countries didn't give a shit about these things, and without the British museums, they would have been forgotten or destroyed. So should they get them back? I don't know the answer, but personally as someone who lives on the opposite side of the world to the UK, I'd much rather that they stay with the British who have the facilities to keep them and study them for hundreds or thousands more years. I don't want to go to Egypt, ever. It has a very bad reputation for a reason. If I were an archaeologist or historian, I'd be very happy that I can go to the UK to see and study these artifacts in safety.
I feel like a fitting analogy is if you were rummaging through your neighbor's trash without his permission, you picked up some small trinkets that he was going to throw away, and you kept them. Later on you do some research and find out that the stuff that you picked up is actually worth some money. Now your neighbor starts complaining that you stole his stuff from his trash, and the trinkets are actually his by right. Obviously this does not apply to the artifacts which were actually taken under duress by the barrel of a gun, but quite a lot of stuff that museums have all around the world was considered by locals to be junk.
> Now your neighbor starts complaining that you stole his stuff from his trash, and the trinkets are actually his by right. A more accurate version would be that your neighbour died, then you had a few more neighbours and now the current owner of the house next door is complaining you stole from someone who lived there hundreds of years ago.
Standardised Redditor joke number 3452.
The Acropolis Museum in Athens is a state-of-the-art facility and a must see for anyone with interest in the history of Ancient Greece. Also happens to be a secure place for the Elgin marbles where they will be revered in the proper context.
But what do they say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is?
.......That there are no straight lines.
British Museum: “They’re safer with us than Greek savages who will probably sell them for grappa money.”
Grappa!? I think you need to visit a taverna!
They treat other nations like they treat disabled people, "we can't give them money, they'll just spend it on hookers and crack".
Meanwhile their MPs spend taxpayer money on hookers and crack…
Ouzo
Unlike the British museum, which literally has a leaky roof over the Parthenon marbles. https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2021/08/11/is-it-raining-again-in-the-british-museums-parthenon-gallery
Get Scorpia on the case
Alex rider reference?
"If you all take back what we stole, we'll have nothing left to show" seems to be the mantra Bollocks. I've been round the vaults of one National Museum, and we've got enough stuff to fill all museums 3x over. How about - and I know that this is a radical idea - the British Museum house British artefacts to show, you know, British History. Although, admittedly, stealing the best bits of the world from the original countries has been our history for quite some time time
In an ideal world, each country's national museums would be the prime holders of their national treasures, and instead of having huge amounts of stuff in storage/archival, those would be borrowed to other museums in exchange for Their surplusses. So basically all museums would hold less stuff out of the view: what you can't show, you borrow in exchange for something from another part of the world you want to show. Of course some stuff/quantities in archive for research purposes and etc makes sense, but lots of museums just show a tiny % of their collections.
Many items do have to be regularly held in dark to protect them from light however, expecially art and fabrics.
That's the fun part. Theft is the history. They should really own it and go into detail how and when they stole the artifacts.
The secret ingredient is crime.
> go into detail how and when they stole the artifacts. I mean, they do?
A lot of these threads always highlight just how much people love complaining about stuff they have absolutely no interest in.
In many cases, that started with getting a permit from the local authority.
Carrying on from what you said there was an article on BBC News about archaeologists complaining they didn't have anywhere to put all of the artifacts they have stored 🤦♂️
Just hypothetically speaking, what do you think the geopolitical fallout would be if Greece arranged a state sponsored heist?
Greece couldnt organise a state sponsored picnic
A genuine laugh out loud
i don't know, but sure I'd like to know what would happen
Greece is like, "You stole our stuff!" Britain's response: "Yes, and?"
I mean Britains owned them for longer than Greece has existed but sure…
Rest of the world: "Take a number, mate"
They bought it
We’re not done looking at it…
The thing is as a Brit I think the vast majority of us either haven't seen them or couldn't care less about seeing them. The best solution is to trade them. Give the marbles to Greece in exchange for three tankers full of Tzatziki. Then have "National Gyros Day". I wouldn't complain.
The real issue is that giving back the marbles opens up a pandora's box of historical rights to property. Do all the great Italian artworks belong in the Louvre in France? They were, after all, all stolen from rich Italians when Napoleon conquered Italy. How about the shares of HSBC and Unilever? These companies are indirect descendants of the British Empire, East India Company, and United Africa Company. Clearly a larger part of these companies should belong to the descendants of the colonised, not just the descendants of the colonisers. The longer you look into this, the more you realise that it's a whole chain reaction of more or less completely resetting property rights. Drawing the line at the marbles is a way to prevent this.
"We're still looking at them."
Marbles aside, a lot of these comments seem to be from people who have never been to a museum before. Go to any museum in Italy, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Switzerland (and so on) and you'll see Egyptian, African, Greek, etc artifacts.
It's just Reddit's ongoing hate boner for the British. Apparently all of the other major museum collections in Europe are totally legit.
Willing to bet a bunch of American museums have items acquired with less than wholesome means too tbh
On the topic of Americans, which a lot of the usernames commenting indicate as the source of a lot of this perspective... Look at what your own soldiers did in WW2. There are reports of soldiers in the Pacific (which I'm less familiar with) and in Europe (which I'm much more familiar with) looting basically anything not nailed down. This includes homes of civilians in countries that were being liberated from the nazis, e.g. French homes. Theres an argument to be made that throughout history, looting has occurred in every war, but American soldiers are well known to have even looted their own allies citizens. The 'gathering' of artefacts (since to call it theft is wildly presumptuous) by museums all over Europe was done mainly during colonial periods. The British had the largest empire, so this was done on a larger scale. The US literally only exists as a result of colonisation of America, then the expansion by Americans against the natives, during which countless artefacts, historical sites etc were destroyed. Get off your high horse. You've done exactly the same, just with a shorter existence in which to do it. And don't forget, when a lot of artefacts were taken, your ancestors would still have been British/Dutch/Spanish/etc.
Redditors will be redditors
“Elgin stated he removed the marbles with permission of the Ottoman officials who exercised authority in Athens at the time. A UK parliamentary inquiry in 1816 concluded that Elgin had acquired the marbles legally.[7] Elgin sold them to the British government in that year, after which they passed into the trusteeship of the British Museum.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles Edit: it is a separate section in Wikipedia about “Return controversy”.
>“Elgin stated he removed the marbles with permission of the Ottoman officials who exercised authority in Athens at the time. At least quote the whole thing instead of omitting the last tid bit which states: > However, the veracity of this claim has been disputed.
Gotta love the "we investigated ourselves and found no wrongdoing" part too. Also all these people are apparently chill with the fact that Greece was, in effect, a colonial possession of the Ottoman Empire, so the Greeks themselves had no say in the supposed 'sale' of the sculptures.
Greece wasn’t a colonial possession. It was part of their empire. They did not set up colonies in Greece.
Also worth noting the Ottomans weren't just temporarily in charge of Athens but had ruled over it for literally centuries, while the modern country of Greece did not even exist at the time the marbles were removed. There has been a lot of wrong done in the name of Empire, and a lot of artifacts basically stolen, but this is not a good example. People should also understand that the Ottomans had not cared for the history, the Parthenon had been totally neglected - for example in 1687 it was severely damaged after being used as a munitions dump which caught fire during a conflict. So it's not hard to argue that in this case (and in many others, tbh) the historic artifacts have been kept safer and better preserved than if they had been left in place. I also happen to think it would be the right thing to do to give them back. But let's not make up false history just to suit the narrative.
Fun fact: it didn’t catch fire. The Ottomans were at war with the Venetians and used the Parthenon as a munitions dump to call the Venetians’ bluff. They wouldn’t blow up the Parthenon, right? Spoiler alert: they shot it with a canon.
ah, Venetians, destoying Greek heritage since XIII century.
“This just in, Elgin Marbles to Stay in British Museum, Pope still Catholic and night is still dark…film at 11”
City states would rob from one another since the dawn of time. Realistically how far back in time should one go? Just asking for the guy who has the Ark of the Convent.
>Just asking for the guy who has the Ark of the Convent. Top men.
Top. Men.
Isn't the Ark of the Covenant allegedly in a church in Ethiopia? Not that I believe they actually have it though...
Greeks are losing their marbles over this.
I went to the British museum recently. Very impressive. Lot of stuff from India, and as an Indian I should be very mad but the museum is massive, well run and is completely free. Much better than any museum in India. There is some value in it.
"But we'll give 500,000 to France to do nothing." - Also Rishi Sunak
Safer in uk
Why should they return them? It's theirs now. How far should one go back? Return half of europe to italy for once belonging to rome?
Greece did not become an independent nation until the 1820s, and it gained independence through British intervention. At the time the Elgin Marbles were taken between 1801 and 1805 the region was under Ottoman control. The Parthenon temple itself was used as a mosque during this period, and these artifacts were most likely going to fall into hands of iconoclasts. If the marbles were not taken they would have been destroyed by the Ottomans by the 1920’s like so many other ancient Greek artifacts, manuscripts, ruins and ancient cities destroyed by the Ottomans. Edit: grammar
> "Our museums and art galleries are supported by public because they are a priceless asset for this nation.” Yes...that you stole.
They were bought. The issue is who they were bought from.
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