Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Playing for all Elgin Marbles
Houston Chronicle ^ | August 1, 2004 | SUSAN NAGEL

Posted on 08/01/2004 8:48:19 AM PDT by Dog Gone

Dispute between Greece, England resumes with Olympics Games


With the Olympic Games soon to open in Athens, one of the more bitter rivalries in history is set to resume, and it doesn't involve parallel bars or water polo. The Greek government is spending tens of millions of dollars on a museum atop the Acropolis in hopes that Britain will choose this occasion to return the Elgin Marbles, the elaborate sets of sculptures pried off the Parthenon and shipped to London two centuries ago. The British, unsurprisingly, have not complied.

To understand why the sculptures mean so much to both sides and why the dispute is so difficult to resolve, one must look back over the ages, and consider the woman who started it all.

Appointed Great Britain's ambassador extraordinary to Constantinople in 1799, Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine, asked the British government if it would subsidize a project to draw and make molds of antiquities on the Acropolis to help educate artists and the public in England (Greece was then controlled by the Ottoman Empire). The answer was no. He left for the Orient with his brand new, and very rich, bride, Mary Nisbet, whose own money would support the venture.

Elgin hired the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Lusieri to oversee the project, and in Turkey he obtained a "firman," an official document signed by Sultan Selim III, authorizing the work to begin. Removing the sculptures was not Elgin's original plan. But he was occupied with his duties in Constantinople, and delegated the job at the Acropolis to the Rev. Philip Hunt, his chaplain and on-site archaeologist. Hunt, in his enthusiasm to compete on Elgin's behalf with other Europeans dragging home chunks of ruins as souvenirs, went to Constantinople seeking a more generous firman. He got it and, in July 1801, returned to Athens.

Later that summer, the British Army drove the French from Alexandria, recovering Egyptian territory for the Ottomans. The sultan, grateful to the English and wildly attracted to the glamorous Lady Elgin, honored the couple with extravagant trinkets and a permanent embassy at his own expense. Lady Elgin was even invited to Topkapi Palace to meet the power behind the throne -- the sultan's mother, or Valida Sultana -- becoming the first Westerner invited to witness the opulence and mystery of the fabled harem. The Valida Sultana's personal portfolio included the Acropolis -- which, at that time, the Turks considered a slum.

In the spring of 1802, the Elgins finally got to Athens. Lady Elgin, pregnant with her third child, stayed to supervise her husband's project while he went island-hopping. The first two firmans had already been passed on to local authorities, and Lady Elgin had subsequent firmans that authorized the sculptures' removal.

She wrote to her husband that she "told Lusieri of the firmans, he says nothing can be going on better than everything, so for the present I shall lock them up." She even wrapped some of the marbles for shipping herself, and persuaded two British Navy captains to disobey Lord Nelson's orders and transport the cases to England.

Things went sour pretty quickly. In the winter of 1805-06, the British government began a 10-year wrangle over the marbles. Elgin was then a prisoner of war in France and Mary, in London, received a visit from officials who offered to take the marbles off her hands. She wrote him, "I desire them to make their offer, that it is impossible for me to fix any sum -- I shall see what is said, it is always well to have that in one's power."

Two years later, Lord Elgin divorced his wife in two scandalous trials and an act of Parliament, bringing notoriety to them both. Mary lost custody of her children, and Lord Elgin lost access to his wife's fortune, forcing him to sell the marbles. Appraisals ranged from 25,000 pounds from detractors to estimates as high as 100,000 pounds by the papal envoy, the sculptor Antonio Canova. (The average laborer then earned about 7 pounds a year).

Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria was reported to have given Lord Elgin a blank check. He asserted that gathering and shipping home the collection had cost him (or, more accurately, his wife) nearly 75,000 pounds, or what in today's money would be equal to the purchasing power of about $4 million.

In 1816, the British government offered Elgin, then hugely in debt, 35,000 pounds -- 18,000 pounds of it paid directly from the government to a creditor, and the balance earmarked for other creditors. Had he sold the collection abroad, he could have avoided his creditors, but he was intensely patriotic and refused to instigate a bidding war. He received neither profit nor fair value, yet for 200 years he has been denigrated as a crass commercialist.

Elgin's reputation aside, several contemporary legal scholars make a strong argument for the Greek side in the current debate. David Rudenstine, the dean of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, has forcefully argued that the 1816 parliamentary proceedings that affirmed the government's purchase from Lord Elgin were tainted and incomplete.

According to Rudenstine, the July 1801 firman, which was not even produced at those hearings and has been publicly seen only in an Italian translation without the signature or seal of the sultan, did not give Elgin the authority to remove sculptures from the Parthenon walls, only to excavate.

But by 1816, the sale was a foregone conclusion, and both the government and Elgin may well have been sloppy with evidence that wasn't going to change the outcome.

Until international law or diplomacy changes things, that verdict will stand, and the British Museum will keep the marbles.

As for the former Lady Elgin, she didn't even testify in 1816, and the content of the other firmans was never revealed. She was at her castle in Scotland enjoying the ancient gymnasiarch's chair -- the chair Olympic judges sat on during the competition -- which had been presented to her parents by the Greek Orthodox archbishop in her honor.

Nagel is the author of the forthcoming "Mistress of the Elgin Marbles : A Biography of Mary Nisbet, Countess of Elgin."


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; United Kingdom
KEYWORDS: archaeology; art; athens; christian; christianity; christians; elgin; ggg; godsgravesglyphs; greece; greeks; history; islam; marbles; moslems; olympics; ottoman; parthenon; romans; statue; terrorism; turkey; turkish; turks
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-87 last
To: Cronos
Maybe a recompensation for the years of looking after them?

The Greeks are just demanding them back, sans compensation. How would you feel having paid for something all the time you've paid taxes and your forebears as far back as you know doing so, and then these blighters saying fork it over for free. No bloody way.

Regards, Ivan

81 posted on 08/03/2004 5:33:34 AM PDT by MadIvan (Gothic. Freaky. Conservative. - http://www.rightgoths.com/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 80 | View Replies]

To: propertius
Let me point out how the British Museum was created and is run.

While in London, I had the opportunity to visit the museums. I was most impressed. However, due to the way they are funded, the hours were being shortened. I put money into the contribution collection 'box'.

I like the way we do things here - there are non-profit museums, with a donation 'required' (although I suppose you could get in without paying). There are free days, and many opportunities to have memberships and various sponsor levels. I am not sure if there are any government grants involved.

82 posted on 08/03/2004 5:47:11 AM PDT by technochick99 (Sanctimonious prig, proudly posting and criticizing (except the FRN) since 1999.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 52 | View Replies]

To: MrsEmmaPeel
Is this in addition to the other cuts that the marbles received?

I think this is a reference to cutting the child in half in order to be fair...

83 posted on 08/03/2004 5:49:47 AM PDT by technochick99 (Sanctimonious prig, proudly posting and criticizing (except the FRN) since 1999.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 56 | View Replies]

To: MrsEmmaPeel
From a classics standpoint, its a real tragedy -- the complete temple - the Parthenon -- is incomplete-- in Greece its just a building -- in London -- the friezes are at eye level (not their original placement) and displayed totally out of context.

All hope of the Parthenon surviving "complete" went up with a bang on 26 September 1687 when a Venetian shell landed on the Parthenon which was being used as a gunpowder magazine at the time by the Turks.

Regardless of the original intentions, the fact remains that Elgin's actions preserved the Elgin Marbles in a state of preservation much superior to any that would have resulted if the marbles had stayed in situ.

Today, the Parthenon and the Caryatid Porch display no original marbles. What you see "in the original placement" are merely reproduction as the Greek Government removed the remaining original marbles to the indoor safety of the Akropolis Museum in 1977 in order to arrest their progressive melting in the the polluted Athenian air.

Unfortunately, the damage was already done.

Elgin removed one Caryatid and, today, that particular Caryatid in the British Museum is the best preserved Caryatid in existence with healthy marble and sharp detail.

In contrast, the remaining original Caryatids in the Akropolis Museum have to be encased in booths of inert gas, after having lost most of their facial features, so that their outer layer, now turned from marble to gypsum by the chemical effect of their exposure to Athen's air pollution, will not continue to flake off.

84 posted on 08/03/2004 6:56:59 AM PDT by Polybius
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 60 | View Replies]

To: MadIvan

Ok, but what if they were willing to pay compensation. would you consider returning them?


85 posted on 08/03/2004 8:03:39 AM PDT by Cronos (W2K4!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 81 | View Replies]




86 posted on 04/23/2006 8:33:54 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·

 
Gods
Graves
Glyphs
Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution.

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.
GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
 

·Dogpile · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology · Biblical Archaeology Society ·
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google ·
· The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·


87 posted on 03/01/2009 2:10:15 PM PST by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/____________________ Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 41 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-87 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson