The most complete information guide about Athens, Greece
The
Elgin Marbles
A
sad story
about beauty and theft
When the Parthenon was built between 447 BC and 432 BC, three
sets of sculptures, the metopes, the frieze and the pediments,
were created to adorn it. Of these, the metopes and the frieze
were part of the structure of the Parthenon itself. They were
not carved first and then put in place, high up on the Parthenon,
but were carved on the sides of the Parthenon itself after it
had been constructed.
The
metopes were individual sculptures in high relief. There
were 92 metopes, 32 on each side and 14 at each end and
each metoop was separated from its neighbors by a simple
architectural decoration called a triglyph, The metopes
were placed around the building, above the outside row of
columns and showed various mythical battles. The north side
showed scenes from the Trojan war; the south side showed
a battle between the Greeks and the Centaurs -- part man,
part horse; the east side showed the Olympian gods fighting
giants and the west side showed a battle between Greeks
and Amazons.
The
frieze, 160 meters (525ft) long, was placed above the inner
row of columns, so it was not so prominently displayed. It is
one long, continuous sculpture in low relief, showing the procession
to the temple at the Panathenaic festival.
At
either end of the temple, in the large triangular space, the
pediment statues in the round were placed. These were designed
to fill the space so that those at the highest point of the
triangle are enormous. The pediment sculptures have been so
badly damaged that we only know what they represent because
of the writings of the Greek writer and traveler Pausanias,
who was active around 150 AD. According to him, the sculptures
in the east pediment represent the birth of Athena from the
head of Zeus and the sculptures in the west pediment represent
the struggle between Athena and Poseidon for the land of Attica.
Lord Elgin
Thomas
Bruce became the seventh Earl of Elgin in 1771 at the age of
five. Lord Elgin married in 1795 and promised his wealthy young
bride a fabulous new mansion as a wedding gift. At that time,
"all Greek things" had become the rage in Great Britain.
Elgin's appreciation of Greek art and architecture, combined
with his desire to be the envy of British nobility, prompted
him to employ Thomas Harrison, an architect who had studied
Greek and Roman styles, to design his new home, Broom Hall,
in the classical style of Greece. Elgin's goal was further empowered
in 1799 when he was appointed British ambassador to the Ottoman
Empire and assigned to the capital in Constantinople, Turkey.
The Turks had previously conquered Greece and occupied and controlled
the country, including, of course, Athens.
Although
removal of sculptures from the Parthenon was not Elgin's original
intent, his position as British ambassador practically invited
him to request permission of the Turks to take away works of
Greek antiquity to adorn his planned Broom Hall. As the Turks
had little regard for Greek art, which they certainly possessed
as conquerors of Greece, they fairly readily granted the request.
The favor of the powerful ambassador was of far greater value
to the Turks than were the ancient Greek statues in Athens!
The
firman (or authority) the Turks gave Elgin in 1801 included
the word "qualche," which could be translated either
"some" or "any." While the original intent
of the Turks' meaning will never be known for certain, Elgin's
agents in Athens interpreted "qualche" as "any".
The looting of the Parthenon
Lord
Elgin put together a team of painters, architects and molders.
The following year, the local Turkish commandant allowed the
artists to make drawings but refused to allow them to take casts
or build scaffolding for a closer look at the sculptures.
In
1801 Elgin obtained a firman, or authority, from the Sultan
which gave him permission to take away any sculptures or inscriptions
which did not interfere with the works or walls of the citadel.
The
looting of the Parthenon began immediately. The sculptures were
lowered from the temple and transported by British sailors on
a gun carriage. On 26 December 1801, fearing the French might
try to obstruct his work, Elgin ordered the immediate shipment
of the sculptures on the ship "Mentor" which he had
brought for this purpose.
During
1806, one of the Caryatids was removed, as well as a corner
column of the Erechtheion, part of the pediments and the friezes
of the Parthenon, many inscriptions and hundreds of vases.
Others
joined in the looting and this incredible activity, which was
not confined to the Acropolis but was carried out throughout
Athens and large parts of Greece, continued for many years.
In 1810 Elgin loaded the last of his booty on the warship "Hydra".
In
1817 two more warships, the "Tagus" and the "Satellite",
were loaded with gravestones, copperware and hundreds of vases.
Four years later, the Greek War of Independence finally brought
Elgin's looting to an end.
It
was January 1804 when the first 65 cases arrived in London,
where they remained for two years because Elgin had been imprisoned
in France.
The
maltreatment which the Marbles suffered was unavoidable. They
were placed in the dirty and damp shed at grounds of Elgin's
Park Lane house and remained there for years, decaying in London's
damp climate, while he tried to find a buyer.
Elgin
made attempts to sell the Marbles to the British government
but the price he asked was so high that they refused to buy
them. As the years passed, so the Marbles influenced the lives
of people in Britain. Churches, buildings and houses were built
in Greek classical style.
In
a letter written by Elgin in 1815, he admitted that the Marbles
were still in the coal shed at Burlington House, decaying from
the destructive dampness.
Finally,
in 1816, the Marbles were sold to the British government and
were at once transferred from Burlington House to the British
Museum, where a special gallery was eventually built for them
by Sir Joseph Duveen at his own expense. Note: recently it has
become clear that there are still a lot of Greek works
of art at Burlington House to this day.
In
December 1940 a Labor MP, Mrs Keir, asked the Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill whether the Marbles would be returned to Greece
in partial recognition of that country's valiant resistance
to the Germans and the sacrifices of its people. The answer
was negative. At the time that Mrs Keir tabled her question,
there was a large number of letters published in the Times favoring
the return of the Marbles to Greece.
In
1941 the head of the Labor Party, Clement Attlee, who was a
member of the wartime coalition government, replied to Mrs Keir's
question, saying that there was no intention to take any legal
steps for the return of the Marbles.
Cleaning scandal
Cleaning
of the Parthenon marbles was undertaken over a period of fifteen
months from 1938 to 1939, when museum workers without official
authorization used copper tools to remove what they believed
was dirt but was in reality the honey-colored patina of the
historical surface. An official statement released at the time
and published in The Times, stated that the commissioning of
Lord Duveen's new gallery to house the sculptures presented
a good opportunity to clean the sculptures and improve the surface
appearance by removing spots of discoloration.
The
British Museum Standing Committee found that "through unauthorized
and improper efforts to improve the color of the Parthenon sculpture
for Lord Duveen's new gallery, some important pieces had been
greatly damaged" . This resulted in disciplinary action
being taken against two officials.
There
was further controversy over the cleaning of the marbles in
1983, when the British Museum was accused of speeding up the
process of decay by coating the caryatid with a supposedly protective
plastic film.
Return to the Parthenon?
For
many years, the Elgin Marbles have inspired a controversy about
which few informed individuals of any nationality can remain
indifferent. Lord Elgin, a British diplomat from Scotland, has
been oft maligned by those who fervently believe he all but
stole ancient marble sculptures of inestimable value from the
Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Others believe
just as strongly that removing the works from Athens and shipping
them to London (they are displayed in the famed British Museum)
saved them from almost certain destruction. Both camps have
valid points.
For
centuries, the British have had high values and morals.
These are shown not only in the present Great Britain but
also are proven by its own great history and its valuable
traditions.
However,
there is a stain on the Union Jack.
Without
wanting to go into controversy, the so-called Elgin marbles,
actually the Parthenon marbles, have to be returned to Athens.
They are a part of the Parthenon and they belong together. On
top, they are part of the rich history of Greece that belongs
to the Greeks, not the British. What would the position of the
British government be if half of the crown jewels, kept in the
Tower of London, would be taken by Greece and put on display
in a museum in Athens and the Greek government would refuse
to give them back?
After
almost 180 years, it is time to do the right thing. It is time
to give the Greeks what is rightfully and historically theirs.
It is time to return the Parthenon marbles to Athens.
With
every day that passes, the stain on the Union Jack is getting
bigger as is world support for the return of the Parthenon marbles.
There
is no honor, nor respect, to be gained in being stubborn
for the wrong reasons.
Parthenon
fragment returned to Greece
A
palm-sized marble fragment detached from the Parthenon was handed
over to Greece on 4 September 2006 by the Heidelberg University's
Museum of Antiquities. The small piece, measuring 8 by 12 centimeters,
is the first section from the 2.500-year-old monument to return
to its place of origin after an absence of almost 150 years.
The highly symbolic gesture has raised the Greek government's
hopes over the long - and for decades fruitless - campaign for
the repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles displayed at the British
Museum in London.
Though
the best known example of a foreign institution holding on to
Parthenon antiquities is that of the British Museum. The so-called
Elgin Marbles were removed by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century.
Fragments from the 5th century BC temple, dedicated to goddess
of wisdom Athena and regarded as
the peak of ancient Greek architecture, are kept in the Louvre,
the Vatican as well as smaller museums in Palermo, Vienna, Copenhagen,
Munich and Wurzburg.
The
Heidelberg fragment belongs to block VIII in the lower right
corner of the Parthenon frieze's north section. It depicts
the foot of a chiton-clad leaf-bearer (thalloforos) in relief,
who along with two guitar-playing figures in long robes
and sandals, joins the religious Panathenaic procession
that is represented on the 160-metre strip of marble slabs.
Most likely, the sculpture ended up in Heidelberg's collection
through a traveller who took the fragment back to Germany
around 1871 as a souvenir. In 1948 it was identified as
part of the Parthenon by archaeologist Herman Hafner.