Do you mean the artworks which are a product of a brutal slave owning society where the role of women was to be completely subservient & which were funded by a successful war of aggressive expansion?
Don’t know why anyone would want to display them.
Which society would that be? ‘Cos plenty of other European governments helped themselves to stuff from the colonies they controlled all over the world, Spain and Portugal in particular with what they did in the Americas. And they had God on their side, what with Manifest Destiny ‘n’all, although we used that as an excuse to destroy the lives of countless numbers of indigenous First Nations.
The British Museum are not exactly our finest custodians of historic artefacts. They managed to lose track of hundreds of precious gems which ended up on eBay courtesy of an employee! Even after being alerted to the thefts they refused to believe or investigate them for years.
A good point, but those gems were incredibly easy to sneak out, but the lack of any investigation is inexcusable.
The loss of a Rodin sculpture worth £3 million, a life-sized figure of a Japanese man in national costume that went missing twice, among approximately 4000 items in Scottish museums is possible a bit more difficult to explain.
Returning artifacts to countries of origin is a difficult thing, though, because once you start, most major museums would be empty except for a few items, and most museums worldwide would probably close, because there’d be nothing much left for visitors to see; visitors want to see things from all over the world, no matter where in the world they are. Human remains, however, are a much more contentious subject, because very often those remains are part of a very long history involving large family groups, and it’s not just human remains, artifacts can carry as much weight as the human, as case in point are totem poles from the indigenous peoples of the North West Pacific coast, because each pole is a complete story about the tribe who carved it. One was returned recently, having been literally pulled down and stolen while the people were away from their village.
It can get really stupid, though - the individual who calls himself ‘King Uthur Pendragon’, self-declared reincarnation of King Arthur, has been demanding the human remains in Avebury museum be handed back and re-buried, because having ‘his’ ancestors in a museum is an insult.
I see a problem with that; those Neolithic people have, as far as I’m aware no living relatives, they arrived from the far Mediterranean via the now Basque region, while John Timothy Rothwell is an ex-biker from Wakefield, whose ancestors were likely a mixture of Anglo-Saxon and Viking, so he can take his stupid demands and shove them! Those people who built the Avebury-Stonehenge complexes are, quite frankly, not going to give a shit about their remains being on display, especially when the remains interred in West Kennet Longbarrow were removed for ceremonial purposes many, many times over across several centuries.
Someone on here recently recommended the Stuff the British Stole podcast. It's much more nuanced than it sounds ... but yes, there's an episode all about the marbles.
They’ve seen wars, the bottom of the ocean and even - bizarrely - been part of a boxing match.
The story of how the Parthenon Marbles actually ended up in London’s British Museum is a wild tale featuring bribes, court cases and some extremely dodgy deals.
There’s been a centuries-long campaign to get them back to their homeland. Now, a team of Greek-Australians have decided that the time for diplomacy is over and a new tactic is required.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3FCyz6uluJzmXpPwr2Xoxr
TBH I saw Tutankhamen’s deckchair and flip flops in London when it was on tour, it’s way better to let the marbles go on tour as part of an exhibition than just have them sat on a shelf gathering dust rather than interest.
The only time they usually get any interest is when some one asks for them back and the tabloids can run their Elgin marbles tripe.
I’m not sure they are actually appreciated as an item of art and history as their own real purpose seems to be gammon stirring.
Yeah, just give them back - we’ve had our go with them.
I've had the good fortune to have been to Athens and it's museum, and to have visited the Parthenon.
Subsequently, I've also been to the British Museum and have seen the "Elgin marbles".
The exhibit in the BM is shit. It's just lumps of statues in a bland, dingy room.
The point for me is that the "Elgin marbles" are more than random examples of ancient Greek sculpture; they are jigsaw pieces that clearly belong with the rest of the jigsaw picture. There are probably thousands of orphaned sculptures that the BM could display equally legitimately as examples of the craft without anyone getting upset.
To descend to squables over "ownership" is childish in the extreme and probably a result of rabble rousing (by both parties). We should be mature enough as a country to recognise that what we have is just a small part of a much greater whole and make arrangements with the Greeks for their safe return. The Greeks should be gracious enough to acknowledge that the stones would likely have been used for something else if Elgin hadn't "rescued" them, and to thank the UK for their careful custodianship.
It's not, I think, about repartiating plunder, but about helping to restore a specific artistic work.
But, elections...
The exhibit inthe BM is shit.
I used to walk past it most days as a student and never even thought to go inside. Decided to go a few years back on a whim and found the whole thing quite grotesque. Probably doesn’t help that I did a Historical Geography MA in between.
So, same as Tillydog, I visited the acropolis museum in 2021. The "marbles" that I think are most missed are some of the friezes that originally adorned the Parthenon just below the roofline. These tell stories and history and have been moved into the museum to preserve them, air pollution etc. They are a fantastic huge exhibit in a glass walled hall that looks across to the Parthenon and are mounted on the same scale and order that they would originally have been on the temple.
Problem is that as you walk around marvelling at these huge bits of ancient carving, each one is 1.22m long and a metre high, (its 160m in length in total) you get to bits that are missing, with an explanation saying we nicked it!
I sat in various parts of this hall, sometimes listening to passing tour guides explain the same to their parties. The conversations that followed were cringe inducing, varying from disbelief to some anger.
It really is time these artifacts are returned, they just belong there , I think the jigsaw analogy upthread is sound.
We really are doing ourselves no favours hanging onto them.
Which society would that be?
Pretty good description of Athens at the time of the building of the Parthenon. Where the Delian league was turning into the the Athenian protection racket.
has been demanding the human remains in Avebury museum be handed back and re-buried, because having ‘his’ ancestors in a museum is an insult.
Seahenge being another good example where a bunch of nutters declared it was a sacred site for them and it shouldnt be investigated. Odd no one had seen them worshipping there previously.
No don't sell them, that's just going to make the UK look even worse, you just hand them back - get laser cut copies made and no-one would care.
As far as the argument goes about 'well yeah but that would set a precedent and then the BM would be emptied' well yeah, doing the right thing isn't a finite act
.
Offer to sell them to Greece for the price the British Museum paid - £35,000. Sunak can claim he's a deal maker, the marbles go back to their home and the £35k can be spent across infrastructure projects in the North or potholes or tax cuts or whatever.
Sell stolen property back to original owner? I'd imagine if you'd had your bike nicked you'd probably be reluctant to pay the thief or even the person that had bought the bike.
Just be the statesman and give them back.
FWIW I love the british museum display, I make a wee trip in there most times I'm in London, just feels like a great space and full of beautiful stuff. Being able to view everything from a distance without clutter but also get decently close is lovely, you don't often get that. It's sort of suitably monolothic I think, and the room itself isn't the point- is it "bland" or is it just not distracting from the exhibit? I've not been to the athens museum but the images I've seen don't impress me the same way- though the location is a killer edge of course.
dudeofdoom
Full MemberThe only time they usually get any interest is when some one asks for them back and the tabloids can run their Elgin marbles tripe.
I’m not sure they are actually appreciated as an item of art and history as their own real purpose seems to be gammon stirring.
It's always busy... British Museum gets 6m visitors a year and the marbles are one of the headline attractions. It's easy to get distracted by the politics but just because they're not in the headlines inbetween doesn't mean there's no interest or appreciation.
(similiarly, I want the lewis chessmen back, and I caused a wee diplomatic incident when a guide told us all about how carefully restored they'd be- they're another case of "clean all the colours off and make them lovely and white", the recently-found unrestored example is IIRC now the only surviving red one in original condition and the official explanation of "the red just mysteriously went away, we don't know why" is now obviously horseshit. But if you move them to the national museum of scotland they'll be seen by about a third as many people. Put them in a purpose built museum near where they'll found and they'll get about 40 visitors a year. Exposure/availability does count imo, the parthenon museum has 1/4 the annual visitors)
My memory is shit then, because I thought I saw them in Scotland. I don’t get to London much. Probably not been for 15 years now.
the parthenon museum has 1/4 the annual visitors
Would that change if more of the historic objects where there?
Ahh… 11 on permanent display on Scottish mainland. There were more when we saw them, presumably on loan for a while (as perhaps the Marbles could be).
Love this guy:
We have a copy of him. Tourists… huh?!?
Looks like 6 were on loan in Lewis. Put the majority of them on loan there, for a year or so, and I suspect the draw would be pretty big. If shouted about.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-18429790
Love these guys.
Anyway, a loan of some kind is the way to show the marbles off where they are of most historic interest, without the British Museum giving them up (which I don’t think they should).
This whole saga just highlights the thinking that cultural artifacts are best held in england irregardlesss of their origin and/or status of the country from which they were obtained. Mostly because of some delusion that Britain is morally superior and so on and foriegns don't know what's best for them, and if they were any good they'd have an empire too.
This sort of wetherspoons argument is why everyone thinks we're knobs
similiarly, I want the lewis chessmen back
But if you move them to the national museum of scotland they’ll be seen by about a third as many people.
Back to Scotland? They're from Norway. 🙂
Looks like 6 were on loan in Lewis. Put the majority of them on loan there, for a year or so, and I suspect the draw would be pretty big. If shouted about.
You can't physically get many people on and off the island of Lewis no matter how much you shout about it. The western isles are pretty much at capacity in visitor terms and as a whole can manage about 200,000 visits a year - thats what the British Museum sees in two weeks.
