Personally I think it’s a good thing that the Brits grabbed or paid for as much as they could when they had the sway, money and power to do so. It’s ours now and we should keep it no matter what.
Was it "grabbed" though Shoots?
I would assume it is quite heavy stuff and took at least 5 or 6 hefty geezers to lift it and place it all on a staw ladden ox-cart. The whole process would of been painfully slow. Even more reason for us nasty Brits to cough up, and more so, because of all the stress and anguish caused to the locals by such a excrutiatingly laborious process. With the benefit of modern transport techniques, the process of getting them back to Greece should be a whole lot easier. For fucks sake do not use DHL or Yodel, kicking that package up the Panthoen driveway could result in a foot injury or worse, we do not want Britain's reputation sullied further!
Hermes will leave them in North Macedonia...
Hermes is so last year. It’s Evri now @Algarveaddick Keep up
Hermes would make sense though, he knows the area. Anyone got a direct number for Mount Olympus?
The marbles were bought and paid for and the workers would have been paid . We should keep them. Tge Ottomab turks had ruled Athens for 300 years by then and were the recognised legitimate government of the day so had the wright to sell them. The Greeks were not that interested in them.
If we look at St Marks basillica in Venice, there are 4 magnificent horses made in around 4AD stolen from I think Constantinople in the 13th century. In the 1980s they were removed from the front and replaced with replicas but the originals were simply kept on display inside the building to prevent polution damage. A lot of artifacts in Venice were 'stolen'.
Maybe if these horses were not stolen, they would no longer be here and melted down. What would have happened to the Elgin Marbles if they were not taken to this country? These are valid questions. Personally I wouldn't mind the marbles being sent back to Greece as a gesture of friendship but I have never seen them, nor have any desire to do so. And I think if we kept a bit and made copies of the rest it would have the same effect.
Open a British Museum Annex in Athens and put the marbles back in country of origin but we keep legal title to them
Not sure that that is a runner...
Anyway, the Greeks have a purpose built museum in Athens intended for the Parthenon Marbles on their return.
Not quite. They have a new purpose built museum, but it wasn't purpose built for the marbles - it was built to replace the previous on-site museum, with or without the marbles...
Returning stolen property is a no brainer Can't see what all the fuss is about anyway, seen them at the museum and most of them are chipped, cracked or battered to varying degrees, talk about a let down. If Athens wants some busted carvings back, let em send a courier. Slightly less frivously: a lot of statuary and structural exhibits in museums are in fact plaster casts of the originals cos those originals are too big, heavy, fragile, valuable to have out on show. If the beards at BM are really so emotionally dependent on seeing these busted rocks on their shelves can't they plaster cast all of them, give the original (did I mention broken) relics back to whom they belong and they've still got the visual reminders to drool over, saving gazillions on the insurance policy too. From a yard or so away nobody can tell the difference anyway.
Open a British Museum Annex in Athens and put the marbles back in country of origin but we keep legal title to them
Not sure that that is a runner...
Anyway, the Greeks have a purpose built museum in Athens intended for the Parthenon Marbles on their return.
Not quite. They have a new purpose built museum, but it wasn't purpose built for the marbles - it was built to replace the previous on-site museum, with or without the marbles...
I'm not sure that Greeks would agree with that interpretation.
My memory of when the museum was being built is that it was designed with a dedicated space for the Marbles and the blurb about the museum when it opened was that it was designed specifically with their return in mind (the new museum undermined arguments that there was no suitable location to preserve them safely).
Comments
We should keep them.
Tge Ottomab turks had ruled Athens for 300 years by then and were the recognised legitimate government of the day so had the wright to sell them. The Greeks were not that interested in them.
Maybe if these horses were not stolen, they would no longer be here and melted down. What would have happened to the Elgin Marbles if they were not taken to this country? These are valid questions. Personally I wouldn't mind the marbles being sent back to Greece as a gesture of friendship but I have never seen them, nor have any desire to do so. And I think if we kept a bit and made copies of the rest it would have the same effect.
Anyway, the Greeks have a purpose built museum in Athens intended for the Parthenon Marbles on their return.
Not quite. They have a new purpose built museum, but it wasn't purpose built for the marbles - it was built to replace the previous on-site museum, with or without the marbles...
Can't see what all the fuss is about anyway, seen them at the museum and most of them are chipped, cracked or battered to varying degrees, talk about a let down.
If Athens wants some busted carvings back, let em send a courier.
Slightly less frivously: a lot of statuary and structural exhibits in museums are in fact plaster casts of the originals cos those originals are too big, heavy, fragile, valuable to have out on show.
If the beards at BM are really so emotionally dependent on seeing these busted rocks on their shelves can't they plaster cast all of them, give the original (did I mention broken) relics back to whom they belong and they've still got the visual reminders to drool over, saving gazillions on the insurance policy too. From a yard or so away nobody can tell the difference anyway.
Give them thr marbles.
They give us Corfu.
Greeks get their marbles back.
We get cheap holidays.
It's a win win situation.
Close thread
My memory of when the museum was being built is that it was designed with a dedicated space for the Marbles and the blurb about the museum when it opened was that it was designed specifically with their return in mind (the new museum undermined arguments that there was no suitable location to preserve them safely).
This article, from NPR, is interesting about the intent behind the museum: https://www.npr.org/2009/10/19/113889188/greece-unveils-museum-meant-for-stolen-sculptures.