The Elgin Marbles aka Parthenon sculptures were a marble frieze Doric temple on the Acropolis Greece, built in c440 BC and dedicated to Goddess Athena. The temple was the centrepiece of an ambitious building programme in Athens. But in 1687 the temple, after c2,000 years, was damaged in the Venice-Ottoman Empire War.
Acropolis of Athens,
world's most striking extant ancient Greek monumental complex
Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin (1766-1841)
Fragments of the Parthenon frieze remain, in other European museums. Recently Palermo reported that a Goddess Artemis fragment belonging to the Parthenon’s eastern frieze on loan from Sicily’s Archaeological Museum will remain in Athens. And the Vatican will return Marble fragments from the Vatican Museums, "donations from the Pope".
Acropolis of Athens,
world's most striking extant ancient Greek monumental complex
The Marbles were stripped from the Acropolis and shipped to UK by Scottish nobleman 7th Earl Lord Elgin Thomas Bruce, who served as British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire (1799-1803). Elgin’s letter granted him permission to take the art objects as a personal gesture, after encouraging the British forces into Ottoman Egypt.
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The collection holds half of the surviving Parthenon: 247’ of the original 524’ frieze; 15 of 92 metopes; 17 figures from the pediments, and objects from other Acropolis temples. At first the art was publicly exhibited in Elgin’s Park Lane mansion, attracting interest from potential buyers. Then, invited by British Museum trustees, Elgin chose to sell to the British government, to pay his debts.
Elgin Marbles on display at the British Museum, 1961.
History Today
History Today
In June 1816 a Commons’ Select Committee found the Marbles had been honourably acquired and would greatly increase Britain’s artistic wealth. The Committee set the price at £35,000, not the £74,000 that Elgin requested. The House won the vote for the purchase and a subsequent Act of Parliament gave the collection in perpetuity to British Museum trustees.
marble slabs were part of the frieze that ran around the ParthenonThe Chronicle
Britain never seriously considered returning the Elgin Marbles sculptures to Athens. Since c1890 successive governments have argued that:
1.they are more accessible in the British Museum;
2.their return will be a precedent that's regretted later;
3.Athens offered less security than London.
Architect Robert Smirke built the Elgin Room, finally completed in 1832 and later extended into adjacent galleries. Because the marble slabs were actually part of the frieze that ran around the Parthenon inside the peristyle, they should have been called the Parthenon Frieze.
Domestic consensus about keeping the Marbles broke down when Parliament debated their purchase. MP Hugh Hammersley urged the Commons for an amendment, saying Britain holds these marbles only in trust till they are demanded by the present, or future owners of Athens City. This was before the Greeks revolted against the Ottomans and, with British assistance, set up their own state in southern Balkan Peninsula. In 1834 the Bavarian regency, assisting Greece’s first king Otto, chose Athens as the kingdom’s new capital, inspired by old western civilisation!
Elgin’s marbles were acquired in 1801-5, but it was Greece’s entry into WW2 that reheated the issue. When Mussolini’s army invaded Greece from Italian-held Albania in Oct 1940, Britain and its Empire stood virtually alone in the war. The Greeks soon pushed the invaders back into Albania. Still reeling from defeat in France and from the Blitz, the British public could finally be optimistic about this Axis reversal.
Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas feared precipitating a German attack, yet keeping Greece in the war was a major British policy. Winston Churchill wanted the war in Albania to become a major diversion against both Italy and Germany. For months British support for the Greek war effort was limited to scarce supplies, and the idea of British concessions to Greece couldn’t be negotiated until after Germany invaded Greece in Ap 1941. Greek nationalists also laid claim Britain’s Cyprus, with its majority Greek population.
The Marbles were discussed in The Times by writer H.B Fyfe in Dec 1940 when the British Museum’s objects were hidden in the old Aldwych Tube Station. Fyfe wanted a prime ministerial pledge to return the Marbles post-war, tangible proof of British gratitude to their Greek ally. By Jan 1941, 9 more Times articles appeared, for or agin Fyfe’s proposal.
Conservative MP Thelma Cazalet-Keir raised the issue in the Commons in late 1940, asking the prime minister for legislation to return the Marbles post-war. Being the intermediary between the British Museum and Parliament, Treasury undertook to prepare the government’s reply. In Jan 1941, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden’s view was that the discussion required a neutral reply. But in its recommendation to the Treasury, the Foreign Office remained open to sympathetic consideration of the issue. Yet Lord Privy Seal Clement Attlee brought no legislation.
Melina Mercouri, Greek minister for Culture campaigned for the Marbles’ return until 1994. Later the rebuilt Acropolis Museum in Athens tried to offset counter-arguments i.e 1] safe-keeping and 2] accessibility. The rectangular cement core of its Parthenon Gallery was designed for the missing parts of the frieze!
1.they are more accessible in the British Museum;
2.their return will be a precedent that's regretted later;
3.Athens offered less security than London.
Architect Robert Smirke built the Elgin Room, finally completed in 1832 and later extended into adjacent galleries. Because the marble slabs were actually part of the frieze that ran around the Parthenon inside the peristyle, they should have been called the Parthenon Frieze.
Domestic consensus about keeping the Marbles broke down when Parliament debated their purchase. MP Hugh Hammersley urged the Commons for an amendment, saying Britain holds these marbles only in trust till they are demanded by the present, or future owners of Athens City. This was before the Greeks revolted against the Ottomans and, with British assistance, set up their own state in southern Balkan Peninsula. In 1834 the Bavarian regency, assisting Greece’s first king Otto, chose Athens as the kingdom’s new capital, inspired by old western civilisation!
Elgin’s marbles were acquired in 1801-5, but it was Greece’s entry into WW2 that reheated the issue. When Mussolini’s army invaded Greece from Italian-held Albania in Oct 1940, Britain and its Empire stood virtually alone in the war. The Greeks soon pushed the invaders back into Albania. Still reeling from defeat in France and from the Blitz, the British public could finally be optimistic about this Axis reversal.
Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas feared precipitating a German attack, yet keeping Greece in the war was a major British policy. Winston Churchill wanted the war in Albania to become a major diversion against both Italy and Germany. For months British support for the Greek war effort was limited to scarce supplies, and the idea of British concessions to Greece couldn’t be negotiated until after Germany invaded Greece in Ap 1941. Greek nationalists also laid claim Britain’s Cyprus, with its majority Greek population.
The Marbles were discussed in The Times by writer H.B Fyfe in Dec 1940 when the British Museum’s objects were hidden in the old Aldwych Tube Station. Fyfe wanted a prime ministerial pledge to return the Marbles post-war, tangible proof of British gratitude to their Greek ally. By Jan 1941, 9 more Times articles appeared, for or agin Fyfe’s proposal.
Conservative MP Thelma Cazalet-Keir raised the issue in the Commons in late 1940, asking the prime minister for legislation to return the Marbles post-war. Being the intermediary between the British Museum and Parliament, Treasury undertook to prepare the government’s reply. In Jan 1941, Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden’s view was that the discussion required a neutral reply. But in its recommendation to the Treasury, the Foreign Office remained open to sympathetic consideration of the issue. Yet Lord Privy Seal Clement Attlee brought no legislation.
Melina Mercouri, Greek minister for Culture campaigned for the Marbles’ return until 1994. Later the rebuilt Acropolis Museum in Athens tried to offset counter-arguments i.e 1] safe-keeping and 2] accessibility. The rectangular cement core of its Parthenon Gallery was designed for the missing parts of the frieze!
We cannot judge Lord Elgin by today’s standards. While taking artworks would trigger disgrace now, during Elgin's era it was common for wealthy tourists to collect ancient treasures, including the Parthenon. As a genuine art lover, Elgin received authority to take what he wished.
In Aug 2013, UNESCO’s Director General for Culture wrote a letter to the Director of the British Museum and British Minister for Culture, proposing a mediation process. But the UK Government and the British Museum Trustees each declined in 2015; so Athens returned to reclaiming the artefacts via diplomatic-political means. Greece noted that its national goal, returning the Parthenon Sculptures to Athens, was agreed by UNESCO’s decision in Sept 2021.
In Aug 2013, UNESCO’s Director General for Culture wrote a letter to the Director of the British Museum and British Minister for Culture, proposing a mediation process. But the UK Government and the British Museum Trustees each declined in 2015; so Athens returned to reclaiming the artefacts via diplomatic-political means. Greece noted that its national goal, returning the Parthenon Sculptures to Athens, was agreed by UNESCO’s decision in Sept 2021.
Fragments of the Parthenon frieze remain, in other European museums. Recently Palermo reported that a Goddess Artemis fragment belonging to the Parthenon’s eastern frieze on loan from Sicily’s Archaeological Museum will remain in Athens. And the Vatican will return Marble fragments from the Vatican Museums, "donations from the Pope".