Mitsotakis' plan for the sculptures is extremely self-serving and overall sucks for Greece. It effectively legitimizes the possesion of the Parthenon Sculptures by the British Museum, overturning decades of challenging the legality of the acquisition.
The TL;DR of the Museum's claim over the sculptures is that lord Elgin purchased them from the Ottomans, but somehow the purchase and removal permit documents were lost. That is a very shady claim. A modern day parallel would be puchasing Ukrainian heritage artifacts from Russia, and losing the transaction papers.
So, I'd say good for Greece! PM Sunak proved a great friend to the country.
The plan is* to return them for display in the Acropolis museum as a loan from the BM. In exchange, Greece will loan to the BM equally important artifacts (rumors include Agamemnon's death mask) to replace the sculptures. See [1], [2]. This, of course, legitimizes the ownership of the sculptures by the BM, and precludes further restitution claims by Greece.
Mitsotakis administration has already made a similar arrangement for the Stern collection of cycladic artifacts [3]. The archaeologists in Greece are in arms for the case, because the collection includes smuggled artifacts. Displaying it in a public Greek museum effectively legitimizes smuggling of antiquities, as long as you are cozy with the Greek government.
Fun fact: Mitsotakis family used to have a private antiquities collection that turned out to be illegitimate and they were forced to relinquish it [4].
So, Mitsotakis pretending to be the protector of the ancient Greek heritage is nothing less than a bad joke.
*or at least was, in which case Sunak was smart to dodge the meeting.
That plan does sound like the worst of both worlds.
I wouldn't mind seeing the marbles returned, solely from the perspective that I like the Classics and I think it would be cool to have them near the Acropolis.
"Sunak’s spokesman told reporters on Tuesday that the Greek government had “provided reassurances” that they would not use the visit to publicly raise the ownership of the Parthenon Sculptures and that since those assurances were broken, the meeting was canceled."
The Acropolis Museum gets 1.4 million visitors a year and a ticket costs $10 to $20 depending on season. The British Museum is free and gets 4 million visitors per year.
Thus if the aim of any museum is to provide access to the most and widest range of people, rich or poor, the sculptures are seen and appreciated by many many more people and for free if they remain in Britain than if they were taken back to where they were removed.
A counter-contrarian and tech optimist take would be that digital museums technology, high-res photos, VR, video etc would vastly increase the outreach of any object in any museum anywhere in the world. So the actual objects could never see the light of day again, be replaced by high quality reproductions and still more people will see it. One might even say it doesn't matter where they are or if a museum has it, if its properly served by the internet!
Are you from the UK? This “contrarian” opinion sounds very much like the little sign at the British Museum that excuses looting other cultures artifacts and never returning them.
So if I just have more people watching it, e.g. because I have a bigger population, I am morally in the right to steal things? Curious how you'd see this if the Chinese use that one on the US one day.
The British display the antiquities they took from other nations in colonial times and benefit by presenting their own institutions as cultural beacons and tourist destinations - all the while hiding behind the fig leaf about this being the way for more people to see the works.
If this were in a work of fiction, it would be criticized as crass and simplistic.
At least British influence continues to decline apace.
17 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 59.2 ms ] threadThe TL;DR of the Museum's claim over the sculptures is that lord Elgin purchased them from the Ottomans, but somehow the purchase and removal permit documents were lost. That is a very shady claim. A modern day parallel would be puchasing Ukrainian heritage artifacts from Russia, and losing the transaction papers.
So, I'd say good for Greece! PM Sunak proved a great friend to the country.
What is the plan?
Mitsotakis administration has already made a similar arrangement for the Stern collection of cycladic artifacts [3]. The archaeologists in Greece are in arms for the case, because the collection includes smuggled artifacts. Displaying it in a public Greek museum effectively legitimizes smuggling of antiquities, as long as you are cozy with the Greek government.
Fun fact: Mitsotakis family used to have a private antiquities collection that turned out to be illegitimate and they were forced to relinquish it [4].
So, Mitsotakis pretending to be the protector of the ancient Greek heritage is nothing less than a bad joke.
*or at least was, in which case Sunak was smart to dodge the meeting.
[1] https://www.returningheritage.com/returning-the-parthenon-ma...
[2] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/greece-to-offer-artefact-...
[3] https://www.returningheritage.com/an-inventive-collaboration...
[4] https://www.theartnewspaper.com/1994/02/01/former-greek-prem...
I wouldn't mind seeing the marbles returned, solely from the perspective that I like the Classics and I think it would be cool to have them near the Acropolis.
Seems a bit childish.
He's not very good at it.
The Acropolis Museum gets 1.4 million visitors a year and a ticket costs $10 to $20 depending on season. The British Museum is free and gets 4 million visitors per year.
Thus if the aim of any museum is to provide access to the most and widest range of people, rich or poor, the sculptures are seen and appreciated by many many more people and for free if they remain in Britain than if they were taken back to where they were removed.
A counter-contrarian and tech optimist take would be that digital museums technology, high-res photos, VR, video etc would vastly increase the outreach of any object in any museum anywhere in the world. So the actual objects could never see the light of day again, be replaced by high quality reproductions and still more people will see it. One might even say it doesn't matter where they are or if a museum has it, if its properly served by the internet!
If this were in a work of fiction, it would be criticized as crass and simplistic.
At least British influence continues to decline apace.