By Edward Bayliss
A few days ago, Sandra Bond gave us the most brilliantly awful poem in her local regional newspaper as she made her frustrations with the Elgin, or Parthenon Marbles public. The first stanza goes:
The Elgin Marbles are causing quite
a fuss
Greece now wants the return of
them by us
The statues have been here for a
really long time
Do they have to be returned
after we have looked after them for
such a long time?
I particularly like the way that Bond rhymes ‘long time’ with…‘long time’ – it really drags out our sense of dread and vexation, both with the author and her subject. The poet, in her inadvertent wisdom and William McGonagallesque doggerel, captures entirely the sense of futility and absurdity in the marbles debate. I feel it is time, thanks to Rishi Sunak’s prompt, to defrost the already 212 year old dispute.
Let’s begin by dispelling some myths peddled by belligerents from both sides:
The argument that Greece is ill-equipped to look after or maintain the statues and friezes is completely untrue. Let’s not kid ourselves, the Parthenon is no longer being used by the Turks as a gunpowder magazine; in 2009 the ‘Acropolis Museum’ opened to the public, ranking 6th in the TripAdvisor’s Traveller’s Choice Awards for best museums in the world. I think they can manage.
The marbles were not ‘stolen’. There was an official edict, or firman, drawn up (which exists in translation) and was ratified by a distrustful House of Commons Select Committee in 1816, part of which states that ‘should they wish to take away any pieces of stone with old inscriptions, and figures, that no opposition be made.’ This firman involved the Sultan, the civil governor of Athens, and the military commander of the Acropolis citadel. The Greek government had no part in this transaction because it didn’t exist – it was the occupying Ottoman Empire that oversaw it. Many take issue with this fact. But, the Ottomans had control of Greece from as early as the 14th C., so it can hardly be compared to Nazi sales of Polish or Soviet works of art.
The ‘slippery slopeists’ are wrong. No, the world will not come rapping its fists on the glass doors of the British museum to reclaim all of their artifacts should we decide to return the marbles. The floodgates will not open. The case of the Elgin Marbles, as the Greek Government itself has gone to great pains to make clear, exists independently. Your Rosetta Stones and your Greek vases are fine.
What is most important is the ethical question of where art belongs. It seems to me that an international conception of culture is the most morally responsible route – one where we aren’t seized by nationalistic urges and feelings of exceptionalism. The marbles aren’t in the British museum for selfish reasons of patriotism and self-aggrandisement. They are there so we can see them alongside other great works – there is beauty and knowledge in cultural and contextual comparison. I, for one, would be proud to see Queen Victoria’s stockings or an 1860 Shropshire postman’s coat in an Eritrean museum.
So, Sandra, worry not. We share in your frustration – let’s stop arguing and start focusing on the art that has been so long forgotten in the fog of political rhetoric.