THE PARTHENON MARBLES CONTROVERSY

Where should the works of art be located, in the place where they were made, or in the museums where they can be admired by the whole world and which offer guarantees of its conservation ? This is a delicate theme that moves many contradictory sentiments and which figures in the agenda of many politicians. The case of the Parthenon marbles, a great part of which are to be found away from their origins since the last two centuries, concretely, in the British Museum in London, is one of the most debated. Now, with Athens preparing for the Olympic Games of the year 2004, the affair has come back in the news with more force than ever. Greece would like to recover what it legitimately considers belonging to it and once again offer to the world the magnificence of its glorious times, represented in its Acropolis, with the Parthenon as the undoubted jewel and symbol.

Of the temple dedicated to the Goddess Atenea during 900 years, the Parthenon has passed to being through history a Catholic Church, a mosque and even a warehouse during the time of the Turks in the XVII century. In spite of going through so much the Parthenon maintained intact all this time, maintaining its metopes, pediment, and frieze till an explosion destroyed a great part of the monument. This was in the year 1687 as a consequence of bombing ordered by the Venetian General Morisini. The next dark stage of the Parthenon was the beginning of the plunder. This took place in the beginning of the XIX century. Greece was under the Turkish domination and in this period began the interest in archaeology and antiques. The then British Ambassador in Constantinople, Thomas Bruce, count of Elgin, got together a group of experts to do illustrations of the sculptures and, later, managed to the get the authorisation (firman) of the Sultan for taking away some sculptures. (During 18 months, Elgin paid the Military Governor of the Acropolis an equivalent sum of 35 times the salary, as gratitude for giving him the firman.

Thus began the plunder, which lasted 20 years, till the Greek War of Independence. This time was more than sufficient for a large part of the treasures, not only from the Acropolis but also from other parts of Greece, to end up in England. Some of them were a result of excavations but other pieces were literally taken out from the monuments. Three ships were needed to take away the pieces, some of them had to be cut to make the transport easier. The first destination of the marbles was the house of Elgin and were placed in a deposit of coal, which led to an important deterioration of the pieces.

Elgin tried to sell the marbles to the English Government but the high price demanded by him prevented an agreement. Finally, in the year 1816 they were bought by the English Government for 35000 pounds and transferred to the British Museum in perpetuity, with the obligation of conserving them and maintaining them together always, and a special Hall was built for the Greek treasures.

At the end of the XIX century some voices inside the British Government claimed these treasures would have to be returned if the Greek Government should ask for them, but these petitions were never taken seriously. In the year 1940 a member of the British Government planted the possibility of returning the marble to Greece to which the Government replied in the negative.

The struggle of Greece to recover the marbles intensified in the year 1983 when Melina Mercouri was the Minister for Culture, who demanded the return of the marbles to the country to unite them with what had still remained there. Later Greek Governments have made the same petition, with more or less force, without obtaining results. Three days after taking power by the current Prime Minister Tony Blair, his Government stated the marbles would not be returned. Within the Greek Government there are divisions of opnion. The current Greek Prime Minister, Costas Simitis, hopes that for the year 2004, with the Athens Olympics being the motive, the marbles would be returned to Greece, as an act of European generosity. Time will tell.

One of the arguments used by the British Government in defence of keeping possession of the Greek marbles is that, if Elgin had not taken them, someone else would have, probably Napoleon, or if they had remained in Greece, they would have deteriorated due to pollution or poor maintenance, as against the good conservation done by the British Museum. But this has not always been true. For example, in the thirties of the last century, cleaning of the marbles was done with a substance to make them look whiter and this deteriorated a good part of them. Greece is nowadays possibly the most advanced country with respect to conservation and restoration of stone. Another is even if the marbles are returned to Greece, they would not go back to the Parthenon, since the pollution there is damaging the sculptures that remain there, and Athens does not possess a space sufficiently big t exhibit the pieces. This last point would be solved with the construction, already begun, of a new museum of Acropolis.

History of the Parthenon

The Parthenon was built between the years 447 and 432 A.C. This construction formed part of the reconstruction of Athens, which had been completely destroyed in the war with the Persians. During the government of Pericles the Parthenon was built and he was responsible for artistic supervision. Since then, this building has passed trough several stages of changes and devastation which, not even today, 2500 years later, have finished.

The Parthenon was adorned with three types of sculptures: the metopes, individual sculptures in relieve, the frieze of 160 m length, which was a lengthened sculpture in low relieve representing the procession to the temple during the festival Panateneo, which was celebrated every four years, and in which the twelve gods and goddesses of Olympus and the statues of the pediment, in self relief, were displayed. In it interior was a statue of the goddess Atenea, of 12 m height, decorated with gold and ivory; this statue could not have been stolen, since there is only a mention of it in the testimonies of the age, since it was destroyed in the second century before Christ in unknown circumstances. As for the rest of the marbles, the situation is as follows: of the 92 original metopes, 39 are found in Athens, 15 in London: of the 115 panels that formed the frieze, 94 remain of which 56 are in the British Museum and one in the Louvre, the remaining in Athens; there are also 17 statues of the pediment in the British Museum, including a cariatide ( columns with feminine form) and a columns of Erecteon.

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Last Updated: July 2008