The Elgin Marbles are controversial items. Review the following arguments for and against returning the Marbles:
Reasons for returning:
Reasons for keeping
Please post by Wednesday, November 7.
Reasons for returning:
- Cultural treasures from ancient civilizations belong in the places they come from.
- Since 1975 Greece has been carefully restoring the Acropolis. Athens now undoubtedly has the facilities to look after the sculptures properly.
- The marbles have suffered considerable damage while in London. Pollution seriously harmed the sculptures and the British Museum’s attempts to clean them, using sandpaper, chisels and acid, also caused irreparable damage.
- It is still doubtful whether Lord Elgin was ever truly granted permission to take the marbles. The existing English translation of the 1801 document supposedly signed by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire has often been denounced as a fake. Furthermore, even if it is genuine, the royal decree gives permission mainly “to examine and view, and also to copy the figures remaining there”.
Reasons for keeping
- If all restoration demands were met, many of the world’s greatest museums would be emptied of their trademark exhibits.
- Even if the treasures were returned to Athens, many more of the original sculptures are lost forever, meaning the set will never be complete.
- The British protected the marbles from being damaged during the Greek war of independence between 1821 and 1833 when the Parthenon was used as an Ottoman munitions store and subsequently attacked
- The British Museum’s legal charter states clearly that the institution cannot legally return items from its collection.
- Before Elgin took the marbles he gained a royal decree from the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire saying that he could do so. While the original document is lost, a version translated into Italian and then into English says: “when they wish to take away any pieces of stone with old inscriptions or figures thereon, that no opposition be made thereto.”
Please post by Wednesday, November 7.