BS: Stolen Greek art

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 09:31 AM

Kids have toys they never play with, but when some other kid picks it up, it then becomes the only toy in town.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: kendall
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 08:46 AM

All those red herrings aside, the sculptures were created in Greece by Greeks, not the Turks or Lord Elgin. If the Greeks wanted to destroy them completely it was their right to do so.
As far as us returning all the land we stole, that is another red herring and it is a damn site more complicated than the Greek art issue! Picture us crating up California and shipping it to Mexico!

Semantics is afoot here; Elgin may have paid for the stuff but the Greeks didn't get the money.

I stick to my belief that the stuff should be returned. The British museum has an exact copy of the Rosetta stone, so, why not copies of all the other stuff that was hauled away?

Believe me, folks, it is not our freedom that makes others hate us, it's our arrogance.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 05:19 AM

Given Greece's current prospects there may be a pragmatic argument for not returning the marbles.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 05:00 AM

Americans are welcome to pontificate on the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece, ...

when they return all the land to the 'native americans'!

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 25 Nov 11 - 12:01 AM

Raed ~ You use the < > brackets, not the [ ] .

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: Raedwulf
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 07:49 PM

Argh. So much for bb code. I thought that worked here?! But you get the idea vis quoting & emphasis! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: Raedwulf
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 07:48 PM

[i]I've always wondered why the British Museum doesn't make castings from them, return the originals and keep the copies.[/i]

I've always wondered why Greece doesn't make castings from them, happy that someone cared enough to rescue the originals from their inevitable fate, happy that they should keep them.

Kendall - there is a massive hole in your argument; the word "stolen". Lord Elgin did [b]not[/b] steal them. He bought them from what was, then, the legitimate government. That, some / many years later, Turkey was no longer the legitimate government does not retrospectively turn Lord Elgin's purchase into theft. You can bitch all you want, but wasn't it Napoleon's artillery who decided to use the Sphinx as target practice? Who are you, who is anyone, to say that the Marbles would have been so well preserved had Lord Elgin kept his money in his pocket?

There may be other arguments for the return of the Marbles. Theft is not a legitimate one.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: fretless
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 02:23 PM

Oh boy. Here we go:

Elgin purchased the Parthenon sculptures from the Ottoman Turks, who at the time of the purchase were the rulers of Greece. At the time, it was a legal sale. You can imagine what subsequent, post-Ottoman Greek governments have to say about the legitimacy of that transaction.

There is no doubt that in the early years of their being in London the British treated the marbles better than they would have been in Greece. (At the time Elgin exported the marbles, other traders had set up lime kilns on the Acropolis to render marble into lime/white wash. The permits for the kilnsmen are documented. Without Elgin, in other words, the Parthenon marbles would almost certainly be dust.)

Among the claims made by Britain to justify the retention of the marbles is the assertion that the sculptures have been in London for so long, they are now to be consider part of the British heritage. As well as Greek heritage, which as a Western democracy, Britain also claims as its heritage.

Greece claims ownership based on initial creation and on the fact that they have the building on which the marbles should historically be hung. However, no one is planning to restore the marbles to their original on site location. So the question becomes whose museum they should occupy. The Greeks counter British arguments about appropriate curation/care by claiming—with full legitimacy—that whatever might have happened in the past, the marbles would be well treated in Greece today. Indeed, the recently opened new Acropolis museum has a top floor gallery specifically designed to hold the sculptures when(ever) they actually find their way "home."

Neither side is willing to budge on the issue at the moment, and currently the Greeks have other things to worry about.

As for the Native American artifacts, repatriation of those to the tribes is usually covered in the U.S. under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, which focuses on ownership based on tribal affiliation and descent. When the Smithsonian gives stuff back to the Indians, there is a recognized lineage claim. In some instances, this claim has been stretched (for example, Kennewick Man).

Claims to ownership of Greek and Roman Mediterranean antiquities are usually today based on alignment with the 1970 UNESCO convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property 1970. If the piece can be documented as being owned before 1970, most scholars and countries will allow the ownership to stand. If there is no documentation of legal export before that date, the ownership is often in dispute and many of the Western scholarly associations (for example, the Archaeological Institute of America) will not allow their conferences or their publications to serve as the initial point of publication/announcement of the item.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: Greg B
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 02:14 PM

Another way of looking at it is that Lord Elgin (no doubt due to having a classical education) held more value for artifacts of the Ancient Greeks than the contemporary Greeks of his time.

That is evidenced by the willingness of those Greeks to sell their cultural heritage to a foreigner.

There's a PBS special on the work being done to restore the Acropolis and the Parthenon. Perhaps when that work is completed, something should be worked out.

On the other hand, this may not be the time for Greece to be burdened with further preservation obligations.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 02:07 PM

Kendall,

Do you think Lord Elgin intentionally stole the sculptures? It sounds from your description that he did everything he could to preserve them.

I think that the fact that the art has been preserved is far more important than what museum it is in.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 01:49 PM

Well Kendall in actuality, they were paid for, so not legally stolen. I mean, I for one would gladly repatriate every tacky Greek souvenir brought back to this country. Because that's sort of the same thing as these here marbles. They were brought back as souvenirs.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: kendall
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 01:35 PM

I see it as pretty cut and dried. The facts are those pieces were taken from Greece, and neither Elgin nor anyone else had a right to take them. The excuse that they were not being cared for is just that, an excuse. The situation in which Elgin found them no longer exists and they should be returned. Stolen property is stolen property. Period.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 01:10 PM

Yay ~~ along with those Buddhas the Taliban destroyed, rot their stinking socks!

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 01:04 PM

I can't help but think of the priceless Babylonian and Assyrian art that was pilfered and destroyed in the fall of Sadam Hussein's Iraq. I certainly wish those pieces had been in the British Museum.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 12:04 PM

"In the US...." Mellon, Getty, Hearst etc.

RtS

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: GUEST,HiLo
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 11:50 AM

So, should all art be returned to its country of origin then ? If so, there would not be much in North American Museums.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 11:49 AM

Bugger - I did a constructive post immediately after Kendall's first and it has gone to the bit bucket in the sky.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 10:39 AM

I know it is not quite the same thing but I feel the same way about the Natural History section in Bristol museum the lives of these animals were stolen just to be an exhibit, back to the Elgin Marbles I believe that they should now be returned to Greece where they originated from.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 10:13 AM

I do wonder about things like this. I know that the Smithsonian Institution returned several artifacts to tribes that claimed them when SI started its National Museum of the American Indian. In some cases, the tribes claimed items, SI recognized those claims, but the tribes decided to leave the items in the care of NMAI. However, there must have been disputes that were not resolved in favor of the tribes, and not all tribes have standing in this process. Some info is on the FAQ page. http://anthropology.si.edu/repatriation/faq/index.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: Bert
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 09:53 AM

I've always wondered why the British Museum doesn't make castings from them, return the originals and keep the copies.

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 09:39 AM

Glasgow Museum returns Native American 'Ghost shirt'

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 08:45 AM

BTW, Kendall ~ I much query your final asseveration. Haven't you ever been to the Smithsonian or the NY Met or the Mellon in LA, and seen what they have got there? Where did it all come from then, eh? Should their curators all be trembling in their boots in anticipation of your sending the cops in to feel their collars?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 08:37 AM

There is a very good and full account of the acquisition, the current state of the arguments on both sides, &c, in Wikipedia under title Elgin Marbles. Well worth a read to anyone interested in this ongoing controversy.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 08:25 AM

This has been a big issue here for a long time, Kendall. On the one hand, they certainly belonged to Greece; but at the time Lord Elgin brought them back, he didn't steal them so much as rescue them ~~ no respect was being paid to the ruins of the Acropolis under Ottoman rule: they were being used simply as a stone quarry for new buildings. If Elgin hadn't seen what was happening, bought the remaining marbles from the Parthenon frieze {not 'stole', bought ~ tho I am not sure who claimed ownership & actually received the money}, and brought them back to the BM who have made them the centrepiece of their classical collection ever since, they would never have survived at all.

Not an easy moral problem, ∴, as to what should become of them now...

~Michael~

Subject: BS: Stolen Greek art
From: kendall
Date: 24 Nov 11 - 08:17 AM

Here's an ethical question for the crew:

Lord Elgin, a Scottish nobleman, was allowed by the Ottoman empire to take many pieces of sculpture from Greece and place them in the British museum. I have seen many of these pieces and they are awe inspiring. However,they were stolen, and in spite of requests by the Greek government to have them returned to Greece, the British government refuses to return them.

Tell me, why shouldn't England be charged with receiving stolen property?

And what about all those mummies that have been dug up and sold around the world? What is the difference between a grave robber and an archeologist?

If either of those acts were committed in the USA, someone would go to jail.
I wonder about such things, do you?