THE ACROPOLIS, THE PARTHENON, ELGIN AND THE MARBLES

SEMINAR PAPERS, POWERHOUSE MUSEUM, SYDNEY, 26 AUGUST 2000

P R E S E N T E D I N A S S O C I A T I O N W I T H T H E I N T E R N A T I O N A L
O R G A N I S I N G C O M M I T T E E A U S T R A L I A
F O R T H E RE S T I T U T I O N O F T H E PA R T H E N O N M A R B L E S

2
First published online 2002
Powerhouse Publishing, Sydney, Australia



part of the Museum of Applied Arts and
Sciences
PO Box K346 Haymarket NSW 1238
Australia
The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences
incorporates the Powerhouse Museum and
Sydney Observatory

Editing: Karin Vesk, Powerhouse Museum
Layout: Anne Slam, Powerhouse Museum
Cover design: Rhys Butler
Cover photo: Paul Donnelly, Powerhouse
Museum

The Acropolis, the Parthenon, Elgin and the
marbles: seminar papers, Powerhouse
Museum, Sydney, 26 August 2000.

ISBN 1 86317 091 X

1. Parthenon (Athens, Greece) Congresses.
2. Elgin marbles Congresses. 3. Marble
sculpture, Ancient Greece Athens
Congresses. 4. Acropolis (Athens, Greece)
Congresses. 5. Athens (Greece) Antiquities
Congresses.

722.809385

2002 Copyright in relation to each paper is
vested in the author.

2002 Copyright in the published edition and
in the compilation is owned by the Museum of
Applied Arts and Sciences (Powerhouse
Museum), Sydney.

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The opinions in this publication expressed by
individual authors are their own and are not
to be taken as representing the views of the
Powerhouse Museum.

Published in conjunction with the seminar
The Acropolis, the Parthenon, Elgin and the
Marbles held at the Powerhouse Museum,
26 August 2000. Presented in association
with the International Organising Committee
Australia for the Restitution of the
Parthenon Marbles (now known as
Australians for the Return of the
Parthenon Marbles).

Chairs
Jennifer Bott, General Manager, Australia
Council; honorary member, International
Organising Committee Australia for the
Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles
Dr Vrasidas Karalis, Head, Department of
Modern Greek, University of Sydney
The Honourable Neville Wran, QC, honorary
member, International Organising Committee
Australia for the Restitution of the
Parthenon Marbles
Shane Simpson, Chair, NSW Museums and
Galleries Foundation; Chair, NSW Film and
Television Office

Speakers
The Honourable E G Whitlam, AC, QC,
honorary member, International Organising
Committee Australia for the Restitution
of the Parthenon Marbles
David Hill, Director of International Affairs,
International Organising Committee
Australia for the Restitution of the
Parthenon Marbles
George Vardas, Secretary, International
Organising Committee Australia for the
Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles
Kylie Winkworth, freelance curator; Trustee of
the Powerhouse Museum

Summation
Dr Nicholas Pappas, member, International
Organising Committee Australia for the
Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles;
member, First Greek Australian Museum
Foundation Committee; Trustee of the
Powerhouse Museum


3
Foreword


The Acropolis, the Parthenon, Elgin and the marbles seminar, held at the Powerhouse
Museum on 26 August 2000, marked the first time that the long-disputed issue over the
return of the ancient Parthenon sculptures to Greece had been discussed in a public
forum in Australia.

The seminar coincided with the official opening at the Powerhouse Museum of a
photographic display about the Parthenon marbles that was first launched in London in
1998, by the Greek singer Nana Mouskouri who funded the exhibition. After touring
more than ten venues in the United Kingdom the display came to Australia for the first
time, to raise awareness and encourage Australian support for the return of the marbles.

The public debate could not have been timelier as many Australians were enjoying a
magnificent collection of Greek artefacts in the exhibition 1000 years of the Olympic
Games: treasures of ancient Greece. Developed by the Powerhouse Museum, the
exhibition was organised and lent by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture, as a contribution
to the celebration of the Sydney 2000 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Powerhouse
hopes to return the favour by making this contribution to the case for the restitution of
the Parthenon marbles.

The seminar was organised by the Powerhouse Museum in association with the
International Organising Committee Australia for the Restitution of the Parthenon
Marbles (now known as Australians for the Return of the Parthenon Marbles). Id like to
thank all the contributors and chairpersons who made the day such a success, in
particular Mr David Hill and Mr George Vardas who greatly assisted us in developing
the program.

Dr Kevin Fewster, AM
Director, Powerhouse Museum


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Contents


Foreword 3
Dr Kevin Fewster, AM, Director, Powerhouse Museum

Introduction 5
What are the Parthenon marbles?

Opening speech 6
Pericles, Pheidias and the Parthenon
The Honourable E G Whitlam, AC, QC

The Elgin story and the history of the Parthenon marbles 14
David Hill, Director of International Affairs, International Organising
Committee Australia for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles*

Who owns the past? Legal, ethical and cultural issues relating
to the return of the Parthenon marbles 20
George Vardas, Secretary, International Organising Committee
Australia for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles*

























* Now known as Australians for the Return of the Parthenon Marbles.

5
What are the Parthenon marbles?


When the Parthenon was built, between 447 and 432 BC, three sets of sculptures were
created to adorn it. These consist of individual sculptural reliefs of battles, centaurs and
Olympian gods; a 160 metre frieze of a temple procession; and pediment statues of gods.

Taken from the Acropolis in 1801 by the then British Ambassador to the Ottoman
Empire, Lord Elgin, who intended them as ornaments for his estate garden, the
Parthenon marbles were sold to the British Government in 1816. The sculptures are now
in the British Museum.

In August 2000, the Powerhouse Museum held a seminar The Acropolis, the
Parthenon, Elgin and the marbles on the history of the Parthenon marbles and their
removal to Britain in 1801; and on museums and the repatriation of cultural artefacts.
The following papers are a selection from the seminar.

6
Pericles, Pheidias and the Parthenon
The Honourable E G Whitlam, AC, QC


Under Darius the Great, who ruled from
521 to 486 BC, the Persian Empire
extended from Egypt through Asia Minor
to Macedonia. In 500, some of the Greek
cities on the coast of Asia Minor revolted
and Athens, the most significant
maritime city-state on the Greek
mainland, sent a small fleet to support
them. In 490 a Persian army of 25 000
men landed unopposed on the plain of
Marathon. The Athenians sent 10 000
men against them and, due to the tactics
of their general Miltiades, expelled them.
Pheidippides ran with the news to
Athens.

Ten years later the Persians returned in
vastly greater numbers under Darius
successor, Xerxes I. The Greek army was
commanded by King Leonidas of Sparta,
the only Greek city-state that had kings,
and the Greek navy was commanded by
the Athenian Themistocles. Leonidas and
his finest troops were killed holding the
pass of Thermopylae. The Persians moved
on and burned Athens. The population of
Athens had been evacuated by sea to
Salamis. Their navy severely defeated the
Persian navy, which retreated to Asia.

In 478 BC, under the leadership of
Athens, most of the Aegean islands
agreed to contribute ships or money to a
Delian League against the Persians. In
454 the League transferred its treasury
from Delos to Athens. Within five years
the League had become an Athenian
empire and Athens had a democratic
leader, Pericles, who was in his late 40s.
He used the Delian Leagues reserves to
rebuild the temples destroyed by the
Persians on the Acropolis.

The Parthenon, the temple of Athena the
Virgin (Parthenos), designed by the
architects Ictinus and Callicrates, was
commenced in 447. The temple was
completed and the 12-metre statue of
Athena in gold and ivory by the Athenian
sculptor Pheidias was dedicated in 438.
The temple of Nike (Victory) and the
Propylaea were begun in 437. Pericles
died in 429.

The Parthenon is the paragon of Doric
temples. The first Doric temples were
built in the 6th century BC at Olympia,
Syracuse, Selinus, Paestum, Delphi and
Agrigentum. In the 5th century more
were built in Aegina, Syracuse, Olympia,
Agrigentum, Paestum and Athens itself
(the Theseion). Ictinus commenced the
temple of Apollo Epikourios at Vassai
before, and completed it after, the
Parthenon. (The Menzies governments
National Library has eight columns at
each end but only 16 instead of 17 on each
side.) Pheidias nine-metre bronze statue
of Athena Promachos for the Acropolis
was made about 456. His 13-metre ivory
and gold statue of Zeus at Olympia, one of
the Seven Wonders, was made about 430.
Pheidias and his assistants were also
responsible for the marble sculptures of
the Parthenon.

Athens was occupied by the Spartans in
404, Philip II of Macedon in 338,
Mithridates VI of Pontus in 87 and Sulla
in 86. It was sacked by the Heruli in
267 AD, Alaric in 396 and the Slavs in
582. None of them stripped or damaged
the Parthenon. About 450 the Parthenon
was converted into a Christian church
dedicated to the Holy Wisdom. The statue
of Athena Parthenos was taken to
Constantinople. The church was the seat

7
of a bishop. In the 9th century he was
raised to metropolitan status.

In 1203 the armies of the Fourth Crusade
laid siege to Constantinople. The statue of
Athena was destroyed in a riot in the city.
When the Crusaders took over the city in
1204, they appointed a Duke of Athens.
The Parthenon became the Cathedral of
Notre Dame dAthnes, the Propylaea was
converted into the ducal palace and the
other buildings of the Acropolis were used
as churches. The Florentine Acciaiuoli
dukes re-established the Orthodox
Cathedral of Maria Vergine del Partenone
in 1403. The city fell to the future
Emperor Constantine XI in 1446 and to
the Turks in 1456. The Parthenon was
converted to a mosque.

The Turks twice besieged Vienna, in 1529
and 1683. After the second siege was
raised by King Jan Sobieski of Poland, the
Catholic powers attempted to drive the
Turks out of Europe. The greatest
Venetian general, Francesco Morosini
(161894), overran the Peloponnesos and
besieged the Acropolis of Athens. There
had been a Turkish powder magazine in
the Propylaea before it exploded after
being struck by lightning in 1645. A new
powder magazine was placed in the
Parthenon. On 26 September 1687 the
Parthenon received a direct hit from a
Venetian cannon. I quote William
St Clairs authoritative book, Lord Elgin
and the marbles:

When the garrison surrendered and
Morosini took possession of the
Acropolis he decided to take home to
Venice as a trophy of his conquest
the large group of sculptures from
the west pediment which had
survived the explosion. But when
his engineers were lowering the
massive statues their cables broke
and the whole group was shattered.
A head from one of the pedimental
figures, now in Paris, was taken
back to Venice by Morosinis
secretary. Two heads from a metope,
now in Copenhagen, were taken by
another officer of his army. The
following year Morosini was
compelled to withdraw from Athens,
leaving the Acropolis a heap of
marble rubble. More damage was
done to the Parthenon in one year
than in all its previous history.

The Venetians gave Morosini the title
Peloponnesiaco and elected him doge.

British readers became familiar with the
features and sculptures of the Parthenon
from the descriptions and illustrations in
The antiquities of Athens (1762) by James
Stuart (171388) and Nicholas Revett
(17201804). The first ambassador to seek
sculptures from the Parthenon was a
French nobleman, the Comte de
Choiseul-Gouffier. He had met the French
antiquary Louis-Franois-Sbastien
Fauvel on a tour of Greece in 1780. They
carved their names on the Monument of
Philopappos in Athens. The British
ambassador protested at their activities.
The Turkish authorities refused to let the
French remove any sculpture from the
building itself.

The next British ambassador was a
Scottish nobleman, Thomas Bruce (1766
1841), seventh Earl of Elgin. He
presented his credentials to Sultan
Selim III in November 1799. He engaged
Giovanni Battista Lusieri (Naples 1755
1821 Athens) to work for him in Athens
as Fauvel had worked for
Choiseul-Gouffier. Elgins arrival was
timely. Napoleon Bonapartes Egyptian
Expedition had invaded Turkeys most
precious province in July 1798. Nelson
had destroyed the French fleet during the
Battle of the Nile on the night of 1
2 August. (The boy Casabianca stood on
the burning deck of the flagship Orient

8
before it exploded.) Bonaparte escaped to
France between 22 August and 9 October.
The French capitulated in Egypt in
August 1801. The Turks turned a blind
eye to Elgins manipulation and
corruption of their officials in Athens
since he was the envoy of the British
Empire that had saved the Ottoman
Empire.

Elgin left Constantinople in January
1803. The first part of Elgins collection
arrived in England in January 1804 and
the second part in May 1812. Lord Byron
admired the plunder but abhorred the
thief. He satirised Elgin in Childe
Harolds pilgrimage and in The curse of
Minerva. In November 1815 Antonio
Canova found the marbles in pristine
condition. In 1816 a Select Committee of
the House of Commons judged 35 000 to
be a reasonable and sufficient price for
the Elgin Collection of Sculptured
Marbles. Elgin died in Paris.

The first sculptures removed from a
Greek temple to the British Museum did
not come from the temple of Athena in
Athens but from the temple of Apollo in
Vassai. (The Select Committee called
them the Phygalian Marbles.) In 1811
John Robert Cockerell (17881863), an
architectural student, and Haller von
Hallerstein, an agent of Ludwig, Prince
Royal of Bavaria (Strasbourg 17861868
Nice), paid 40 to the leading men of
Aigina for the marble pedimental
sculptures on the temple of Aphaia. They
then removed the 23 marble slabs of the
cella frieze from the temple of Apollo
Epikourios at Vassai. In 1812 the marbles
from both Aigina and Vassai were
auctioned in Zante, which had been
included in the Illyrian Provinces of the
Napoleonic Empire but had been occupied
in 1809 by the British general Richard
Church (Cork 17841873 Athens). The
Aigina marbles were purchased for Prince
Ludwig for 6 000. He had them
renovated by Thorvaldsen in Rome and
built the Glyptothek to house them in
Munich. The Prince of Wales, newly
installed as Prince Regent, provided
15 000 for the British Museum to
acquire the Vassai marbles.

(The Prince Regent was crowned as
George IV in 1820 and the Prince Royal
as Ludwig I in 1825. In 1827 Sir (1822)
Richard Church was appointed
commander in chief of the Greek forces.
Prince Otto (181567), the second son of
King Ludwig, was elected King Othon of
Greece in 1832. King Ludwig, diminished
by his association with Lola Montez,
abdicated in 1848, the year of revolutions
in Europe. King Othon was deposed in
1862. There is an obelisk to Church in the
Protestant corner of the First Cemetery of
Athens. A window with an inscription by
Gladstone is dedicated to him in St Pauls
Anglican Church designed by Cockerell in
1840. In the wall of the same church there
is a marble monument to Lusieri. The
present members of the Bavarian royal
family are descended from our Stuart
dynasty. Duke Franz of Bavaria has been
the Stuart pretender since July 1996.)

My wife and I have very happy
recollections of our visit to Zakynthos on
Saturday 5 March 1983. The capital had
been beautifully restored after the
earthquake of 1953. There were
fascinating reminders of the romantic
poets Foscolo, Klvos and Soloms, who
were born there in 1778, 1792 and 1798.
That evening we listened to the broadcast
of the Labor Partys return to power
under Bob Hawke. On Monday 7 March I
was received in Athens by the Minister
for Foreign Affairs, on Tuesday by Prime
Minister Andreas Papandreou and on
Wednesday by the Minister of Culture
and Science, Melina Mercouri. She had
been invited to visit Australia by the
Fraser Government. I assured her that
the Hawke Government would be even
more delighted to welcome her.


9
In 1983 the Hawke government appointed
me the Australian Ambassador to Unesco.
In the opening speeches at the General
Conference in October Melina Mercouri
was followed by Senator Susan Ryan, Bob
Hawkes Minister for Education, who
announced that Australia proposed to
become a party to Unescos 1954
Convention for the Protection of Cultural
Property in the Event of Armed Conflict
and 1970 Convention on the Means of
Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit
Import, Export and Transfer of
Ownership of Cultural Property. In
September 1984 Australia acceded to the
1954 Convention, but, due to ministerial
and bureaucratic bungling, not the
companion Protocol. In pursuit of the
1970 Convention I went to Athens in
April 1985, as an observer at the fourth
session of Unescos Intergovernmental
Committee for Promoting the Return of
Cultural Property to its Countries of
Origin or its Restitution in Case of Illicit
Appropriation, chaired by Melina
Mercouri. I observed the United
Kingdoms reluctance to discuss the
return of the Parthenon Marbles pillaged
by Elgin. Australia was elected to the
Committee at the next General
Conference (8 October 9 November
1985).

In the following February Lionel Bowen,
Minister assisting the Prime Minister,
wrote to an important Greek
organization:

Australia has shown sympathy in
United Nations fora for the broad
principle of restitution of cultural
property. When the question was
raised generally at the United
Nations General Assembly in
November 1981, Australia voted in
favour of the resolution, and was
commended for its attitude at the
second and third sessions of the
Unesco Committee for Promoting
Return of Cultural Property in
September 1981 and May 1983
respectively.

The Government recognises that the
return of the Parthenon Marbles is
a matter which the Greek
Government, community and an
increasing number of distinguished
citizens and professional
organisations regard as being of the
utmost importance and has taken a
sympathetic position on the
question whenever the issue has
been raised with the Government
as, for example, in discussions in
1984 between the Minister of Arts,
Heritage and Environment,
Mr Cohen, and the Greek Minister
for Culture, Ms Melina Mercouri.

Legal advice available to the
Government is that the return of the
Marbles is essentially a political
matter to be resolved between the
British and Greek Governments
rather than a legal one and that, so
far as international law is
concerned, the title of the British
Museum could not be successfully
challenged. The Government,
nevertheless, acknowledges the
salience of arguments on aesthetic,
technical and moral grounds.

Australia last year was elected
Observer to the Unesco Committee
for Promoting Return of Cultural
Property and would be prepared to
use its good offices in support of the
return of the Marbles, should the
matter be brought before the
Committee.

As a member of the World Heritage
Committee from 1983 to 1989 I was able
to support the inscription of the first
Greek sites on the World Heritage List,
the Temple of Apollo Epikourios at Vassai
in 1986, Delphi and the Acropolis of
Athens in 1987, Epidavros, Mt Athos,

10
Meteora, the Paleochristian and
Byzantine Monuments of Thessaloniki
and the Medieval City of Rhodes in 1988
and Mystras and Olympia in 1989.
Australia was re-elected to the
Intergovernmental Committee at the
Unesco General Conference (17 October
16 November 1989). The Hawke
government had accepted the 1970
Convention on 30 October 1989. The
Keating and Howard governments did not
seek election to the Committee.

The restitution of the Parthenon marbles
was first raised in the Australian
Parliament by Mark Latham a month
after he was elected to my old seat in
1994. Knowledge of the Balkans is not
among the talents of the most recent
Australian foreign ministers, Gareth
Evans and Alexander Downer. Evans
obsequiously endorsed a superficial and
supercilious reply by his Department:

1. The Australian Government
considers that the question of the
return to Greece of the Elgin
Marbles, removed from the
Parthenon to the British Museum
in the beginning of the
nineteenth century, is a matter
for resolution by the Greek and
British Governments. My
Department has not made
representations to either the
Greek or British Governments,
nor in Commonwealth or UN
forums on this matter.

2. The fact that Australia and the
United Kingdom have the same
Head of State is not relevant to
the resolution of this matter.

The British were still justifying the
retention of the marbles in the British
Museum by asserting that they were
legally acquired and have been properly
safeguarded. Both contentions were
demolished in the preface to the third
edition of St Clairs book in 1998:

My researches have brought to light
the facts of how, in 1937 and 1938,
while in the stewardship of the
British Museum, the Elgin Marbles
were, over a period of at least
eighteen months, and against the
regulations then in force in the
Museum, scraped with metal tools
and smoothed with carborundum in
an effort to make them appear more
white. As a result, the historic
surfaces of most of the sculptures
were severely and irreparably
damaged. With recourse to the
official records to which access was
repeatedly denied to me until 1996,
I am here able to present the full
account of the circumstances in
which the disaster occurred, and of
the extent of the damage, which the
official inquiry of the time, hitherto
suppressed, said "cannot be
exaggerated". I also describe the
measures subsequently taken by the
British Museum authorities to cover
up, quite literally, the effects of the
mistreatment, and then, by
unlawfully denying access to the
relevant public documents, to
prevent the full facts from becoming
known until now.

In 1938, Lord Duveen of Millbank (Hull
18691939 London), the millionaire art
dealer, undertook to pay for the
construction of a new gallery in the
British Museum to accommodate the
marbles and ordered workers to spruce
them up. During World War II they were
stored in a disused underground station
at Aldwych. They were not installed in
the Duveen Gallery until 1962, when at
last the British Museum acquired proper
air filters. Lords Elgin and Duveen were
worse barbarians than Alaric the Goth.


11
Minister Downer has repeatedly stated
that the Howard Governments position
on the return of the Parthenon marbles is
the same as the Keating Governments
position stated by Minister Evans. Evans
may not have read the 1967 and 1983
editions of St Clairs book. Downer and
his Department do not have the third
edition or St Clairs subsequent articles
and speeches. They did not send observers
to four significant conferences arising
from St Clairs revelations:

(a) the 10th session of the
Intergovernmental Committee
in Paris in January 1999, when
a recommendation was adopted
for further initiatives to
promote bilateral negotiations
between the UK and Greece;
(b) the seminar on The Parthenon
sculptures: their history and
destiny in February 1999 in
Washington at the Corcoran
Gallery of Art, where a paper
was delivered by Mr David
Walden, the chairman of the
Intergovernmental Committee;
(c) the two-day conference, On
cleaning the Parthenon
sculptures, organised by the
British Museum in London in
November 1999;
(d) the two-day international
conference on the Parthenon
Marbles organised in Athens by
the Greek Government and the
Greek National Committee for
Unesco in May 2000.

In October 1999 the House of Commons
Culture, Media and Sport Committee
announced its intention to conduct an
inquiry into matters relating to cultural
property, including measures to control
the illicit trade in such property. In
February 2000 Chris Smith, the Secretary
of State for Culture, Media and Sport,
announced that the Blair Government
would not ratify the two major
international conventions operating in
this field, the 1970 Unesco Convention
and the 1995 Unidroit Convention on
Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural
Objects. The Committee held eight oral
evidence sessions between late March and
early June.

Downer and his department did not give
evidence, written or oral, to the House of
Commons Committee. They ignored the
declaration on the Return of the Elgin
Marbles, which received 341 signatures
from the 626 members of the European
Parliament. They ignored the petition
supporting the return by members of the
Australian Parliament led by Greek-
speaking members Petro Georgiou
(Liberal, Kooyong) and Lindsay Tanner
(Labor, Melbourne). Australias two latest
ambassadors to Greece are outstanding
historians and have written many books
and articles on archaeology.

The Australian Committee for the
Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles sent
a memorandum to the House of Commons
Committee. It pointed out that the
Australian Committee is bipartisan and
professional. Former Prime Minister
Fraser, Premier Olsen, former Premier
Kennett and leading monarchist,
Sir James Killen, KCMG, belong to the
Liberal Party and former Prime Minister
Whitlam, Premiers Carr and Bracks and
former Premier Wran belong to the Labor
Party. The Committee includes the
Chairman of the Australian Museum,
Malcolm Long, the Chairman of the
Sydney Opera House, Joe Skrzynski, and
the General Manager of the Australian
Council for the Arts, Jenny Bott.

On 4 July 2000, Dr William St Clair
briefed me in London at his apartment
and then in the Duveen Gallery. On
18 July Dimitrios Pantermalis, the
professor of classical archaeology in the
University of Thessaloniki, briefed me in
Athens. Many of us met him in Melbourne

12
and Sydney last March. The Greek
Government has just appointed him for a
five-year term as president of the
organisation for the construction of the
new Acropolis Museum.

On 4 July, Prime Ministers Howard and
Blair agreed to increase efforts to
repatriate human remains to Australian
indigenous communities. Indigenous
human remains held in collections
overseas are the responsibility of the
Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Affairs, Senator Herron.

On 18 July, the House of Commons
ordered that its Committees report be
printed. The Committee noted that
Australia, Canada and France are State
Parties to the 1970 Unesco Convention
and Sweden and Switzerland have both
announced their intention to accede. It
did not recommend that the UK become a
party to the Convention. It noted that the
1995 Unidroit Convention had 22
signatories and 12 State Parties. Despite
Secretary Smiths announcement, it
recommended that the UK sign the
Convention and that the Government
bring forward legislation to give effect to
its provisions and facilitate early
ratification. (Australia has not yet signed
but France, Portugal, Switzerland,
Netherlands and Russia have. Hungary
and Italy are already State Parties.) The
House of Commons Committee
recommended departmental consultation
on the terms of legislation to permit the
trustees of national museums to remove
human remains from their collections
with a view to early introduction of such
legislation.

All of us realise that the British Museum,
which holds more than half of the
surviving sculptures from the Parthenon,
is not permitted under its current statute
to engage in negotiations to return objects
and that the introduction of any
legislation to return the Parthenon
marbles is the responsibility of the British
Government. The Australian Parliament
is entitled and qualified to press the
British Government to introduce such
legislation. There are more people in
Australia than in Britain who can speak
Greek. There are more people in Australia
than in Britain who know the politics and
cultures of the Balkans Orthodox,
Catholic and Muslim.

It is sad that British governments,
Labour and Conservative, in the second
half of the 20th century have dissipated
the affection and admiration that Britain
enjoyed in Greece in the first half of the
19th century. Australian governments
should earn the respect of the hundreds of
thousands of Greek-speaking people who
have migrated to Australia since World
War II.

Australians, who are an exceptionally
multicultural and multilingual people,
should not be deterred by the floodgates
argument advanced by some of the rogue
elements in the official British campaign.
The Greek Foreign Minister, George
Papandreou, is a more literate, articulate
and erudite person than the British
Secretary of State for Foreign and
Commonwealth Affairs, Robin Cook.
Every year many more people, from home
and abroad, visit the Parthenon than the
Duveen Gallery. The Greeks do not ask
for the Vassai marbles to be returned
from the British Museum or the Aigina
marbles from the Glyptothek.

The Turks do not ask for the return of the
Hellenistic marbles from the British
Museum to Bodrum or from Berlin to
Bergama or from Vienna to Ephesus.
They know that, when the first restitution
of cultural property took place after
Waterloo, the Bronze Horses were not
sent back from the Arc du Carrousel to
Constantinople, whence Doge Enrico
Dandolo had taken them in 1204, but to
the faade of St Marks, since Venice had

13
been reclaimed by the Austrian Empire,
part of the Coalition against Napoleon. If
Napoleon had won at Waterloo, the
Parthenon Marbles would not have gone
back to the Turks in Athens and the
Rosetta Stone would not have gone back
to the Turks in Alexandria; both would
have gone to the Louvre.

The Parthenon Marbles are incomparably
the finest examples of classical sculpture.
The city of Pericles was also the city of
Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.
Athens became the city of Thucydides,
Aristophanes, Socrates, Isocrates, Plato,
Xenophon, Demosthenes and Aristotle.
Athens was the centre of ancient Greek
culture and civilisation. Western
civilisation and democracy were born in
Athens. Since Australians are among the
inheritors of those assets, we should do
what we can to have the most significant
symbols returned to Athens.

14
The Elgin story and the history
of the Parthenon marbles
David Hill, Director of International Affairs, International Organising
Committee Australia for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles


The Acropolis, a limestone mass that rises
from the Attic plain has been at the
centre of Athenian life for more than 5000
years. Its most important buildings date
from the 5th century BC, following the
Persian invasions. They include the
Erechtheum, the Propolyae, the temple of
Athena Nike and, of course, the
Parthenon.

The Parthenon is one of the most
significant buildings of western
civilisation. It has a number of
remarkable architectural and geometric
characteristics in that each of its parts
was individually designed to contribute to
the visual appeal of the overall structure.
Incredibly, no two of its Doric columns are
the same, which gives the building an
incomparable resistance to the various
theoretical attempts to reduce its design
to any standard numerical formula of
proportion. Accordingly it is a great work
of art as well as a great feat of
engineering.

We are fortunate that after 2500 years, so
much of the building survives. We are
also fortunate that a large portion of the
marble sculptures that were part of the
building also survive, though most are
now in the British Museum.

The Parthenon marbles are a magnificent
example of the high period of the Classic
Greek Age and stand at the pinnacle of
human artistic achievement.
Carved from whitish pentelic marble,
these beautiful classic sculptures
represent a dramatic advance over the
style of the earlier archaic period. Moving
away from stiff symmetrical poses, the
works are typically characterised by a
high degree of naturalism and idealised
beauty, grace and movement, with a
contrast between anatomy and attire and
a variety of postures and gestures.

The sculptures should not be regarded as
separate or additional to the Parthenon
itself. They are an integral part of the
building and its purpose. Together they
achieve a unique balance between nature
and pure geometry. They are the finest
ancient artworks known to humanity.

Dedicated to the goddess Athena, the
inside of the Parthenon was adorned with
sacred ornaments and statues, the most
important of which was the giant gold and
ivy statue of the goddess Athena which
stood well over 12 metres tall.

Sadly, nothing of the statue survives. It
was lost some time around the 5th
century, believed to have been taken by
Christians to Constantinople and later
broken up. We know something of the
statue from descriptions of historians,
including Pausanias who visited Athens
in the 2nd century and also from some
smaller and less perfect copies of the
statue made during the Roman period.

The surviving marbles come principally
from three parts of the building: the
statues are from the east and west
pediments; the sculpted metopes or
panels on the architrave are from the
exterior; and the Parthenon frieze is from
the architrave above the internal pillars
of the building.


15
The pediment statues were sculpted on an
inspiring scale with most of the
sculptures more than twice life size. The
east, and most important, end of the
building depicted the birth of Athena,
springing from the head of the god of
gods, Zeus. No trace of the central statues
survives, their having been disposed of to
make way for an apse when the
Parthenon was converted to a church by
early Christians in about the 5th century.
Most of what survives are in the Elgin
collection in the British Museum and
include figures believed to be Kore,
Demeter, possibly Iris, Hestia, Artemis
and Aphrodite.

The west pediment depicts the battle
scene between Athena and Poesidon for
control of the land. Tragically, the
surviving pieces of the two central statues
are divided between Athens and London.
The torso of Poseidon is shared between
the British Museum and the Acropolis
Museum. Similarly, while much of the
torso of Athena is in London, its head,
extremities and other surviving parts are
still in Athens.

Around the architrave on the outside of
the building are 92 panels or metopes,
sculpted in high relief. Such a large
number of carved metopes is without
precedent on a Greek temple and was
clearly designed to enrich the Parthenon
beyond all other buildings. On most
Greek monuments only a few, if any,
metopes or panels were sculpted.

The sculptures on all four walls have a
common theme: conflict between
civilisation and barbarity or between
order and chaos. The metopes on the
south side represent the battle between
the Athenians and the centaurs (two casts
from the south metopes held in the
British Museum hang in the main
quadrangle at the University of Sydney).
On the east is the struggle between the
Olympian gods and the giants, on the
west between the Greeks and the
Amazons and on the north, between the
Greeks and the Trojans.

Unfortunately, many of the sculptures
from the east, west and north walls have
been badly weathered or damaged or were
deliberately defaced when the building
was converted to a Christian church.

Inside the Parthenon, facing out, was the
magnificent Parthenon frieze, running for
almost 160 metres and a little over one-
metre high. Totalling more than 100
marble sections, it depicts a festival and a
celebration, combining the mythological
with the non-mythological and including
hundreds of figures from the human,
heroic and divine worlds. There is no
comparable artwork from the ancient
world that unifies so much on such a
grand scale. Fortunately about 80% of the
frieze survives. (Casts of four sections of
the frieze are also in the main quadrangle
at the University of Sydney.)

The Panathenaic procession begins in the
southwest corner and proceeds in both
directions with horse riders, charioteers,
attendants, marshals and animals for
sacrifice. One of these scenes inspired
Keats, in the final stanza of Ode on a
Grecian urn, to write:

Who are these coming to the
sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious
priest
Leads thou that heifer lowing to the
skies?

One interpretation of the procession is
that it celebrates the heroism of those
who fell at Marathon in 490 BC, there
being 192 horsemen and charioteers
the number who died in the battle.

The procession with all its contest, pomp
and sacrifice, culminates on the eastern
end where sit the gods. Awaiting the

16
arrival of the procession from the
northern side sits Zeus, his consort Hera
and behind them Iris, messenger of the
gods. On the next panel of the frieze sit
other gods including Ares the warrior,
Demeter, Dionysus and Hermes.

Awaiting the arrival of the procession
from the south sits Athena alongside the
lame Hephaestos, god of blacksmiths. The
next panels include Poseidon, Apollo,
Artemis and Aphrodite.

Between the gods is the great puzzle of
the Parthenon frieze. The celebrated
centre panel remains something of a
mystery, and has failed to attract a
common interpretation among scholars
and historians. From the early 18th
century, it has been thought to represent
the ceremonial replacement of the cloak,
or peplos on the statue of Athena. But
there are other interpretations, including
the argument that the scene represents
the sacrifice of the daughters of
Erechtheus. In Greek mythology, the
King of Erechtheus, on consulting the
oracle of Delphi, was told that the
sacrifice of his three daughters would
save Athens from defeat. The daughters
were duly sacrificed and Athens saved. A
difficulty with this theory is the smallest
figure, which many accept is a boy both
for the style of cloak and the bare
buttocks. There is no other section in the
frieze where parts of a womans body are
revealed.

Of the total surviving Parthenon marbles,
more than half over 100 pieces or
fragments are in the British Museum.
About one third are on the Acropolis or in
the Acropolis Museum. One or two pieces
and a number of fragments are held in
the Louvre, the Vatican, and museums in
Copenhagen, Palermo and Vienna

In many respects the survival of so much
of the Parthenon and its sculptures has
been remarkable. It lasted fairly well for
almost 1000 years before being converted
to a Christian church. Then the great
statue of Athena was removed from its
interior, the major statues were torn from
the centre of the east pediment and most
of the metopes on three sides of the
building were defaced.

Over the following 1000 years, Athens
saw a succession of invaders and
conquerors including Franks, Catalans,
Florentines, Venetians and finally the
Ottomans, who in the 15th century
converted the Parthenon to a mosque and
constructed a minaret. Throughout this
long period relatively little new damage
appears to have been inflicted on the
building or on the marble statues.

But in 1687, in a battle between the
occupying Ottoman Turks and the
invading Venetians, the building, which
by then was also used as a gunpowder
arsenal, was blown up. The shell, which
directly hit the Parthenon, blew out the
roof and eight of the 17 pillars on the
north side and five on the south side. The
explosion destroyed or damaged many of
the sculptures and left the building a
ruin. It was never to be fully restored.

Pillage of the building then began in
earnest, starting with the army of the
Venetian Francesco Morosini who
occupied Athens for less than a year. For
the next 150 years, heads and other parts
of the sculptures were removed by
European collectors and souvenir hunters.
Much of the marble was also broken up
and taken for local building material.

Fortunately we have something of a
record of the Parthenon and its sculptures
before the explosion. In 1674, some 17
years before the tragedy, the artist
Jacques Carrey, who was accompanying
the French Ambassador the Marques de
Nointel, painted and drew most of the
Parthenon statues. His work is largely
preserved and is held in the Biblioteque

17
Nationale in Paris. The Carrey drawings
show there was considerable deterioration
in the condition of the sculptures between
the time of his drawing and the end of the
1700s.

By 1800, Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl
of Elgin and the eleventh Earl of
Kinkardine, enters our story. At 34 years
of age the aristocrat Elgin had already
been elected as a Scottish Peer to the
House of Lords, become Lieutenant-
Colonel in the Elgin Highland Fensibles
and successfully petitioned the
Government to become Britains
Ambassador to Constantinople. At the
time of awakening to the splendours of
the classic Greek age in northern Europe,
Elgin wanted to use the position of
ambassador to bring back the excellence
of classic Greek art for the enrichment of
British art and culture.

While the portraits of the time have him
cutting a dashing figure, Elgin contracted
an infection that ate away his entire nose,
leaving him with an ugly, pussy sore. The
affliction was never explained. At one
stage his wife thought it was leprosy but
it was almost certainly syphilis.

What began by Elgin as an exercise in
drawing, painting, measuring and taking
casts of the marbles became a large-scale
program of tearing, sawing off and
collecting more than 100 pieces of statues
for shipment back to the Elgin estates in
Scotland. Elgin only visited Athens twice
before returning to Britain in 1803. The
removal of the marbles, supervised by his
staff, took many years with the last
shipment arriving in London in 1812.

Taking the marbles was controversial
from the outset first in Athens and
then in London. In the first recorded
protest, the master of a Venetian-funded
school in Athens, Ioannes Benezelos,
wrote in 1803 to Elgins secretary, Rev
Philip Hunt, complaining of the last
deplorable stripping of the Temple of
Athena on the Acropolis and other relics
of antiquity The temple is now like a
noble and wealthy lady who was ravaged
Oh, how we Athenians must take this
event to heart.

An English visitor to Athens at the time,
H W Williams, recorded

when Elgins agents removed the
Caryatid from the (nearby temple
of) Erechtheum, Athena wept over
her lost virginity. But there were
louder lamentations from the
remaining Caryatids as they looked
on their ravaged sister. And later,
as Elgins labourers were hauling
the last of the marbles to Piraeus
they had to stop suddenly and drop
them to the ground, nor could they
be prevailed upon to carry them
further, protesting that they could
hear the doleful moans of Athena
deep within each vein of marble.

In London the controversy against Elgin
raged for some years, with the poet Byron
among the most outspoken as he regaled
the plunder in a number of poems,
including Childe Harolds pilgrimage,
which contained the line

The last, the worst, dull spoiler,
who was he?
Blush Caledonia! Such thy son could
be

And, in a rather unkind reference to his
infection, Byron also wrote

Noseless himself, he brings here
noseless blocks
To show what time has done, and
what the pox

Things did not run smoothly for Elgin or
the marbles after leaving Athens.
Adequate shipping for what was a huge
cargo proved hard to secure and took

18
more than ten years to complete. Elgins
own boat, The Mentor, laden with some of
the most valuable sculptures including
the centre panel of the east frieze, sank at
the mouth of the port of the island of
Kithera. Elgin complained that the loss of
the ship and the two-year salvage of its
cargo cost more than 6000.

Nor did the venture end happily for his
staff. Elgin hired the Italian artist
Giovanni Battista Lucieri from the start
of the project to paint and draw the
Parthenon. He stayed on in Athens and
died in 1821, alone. It is said that he died
of a burst blood vessel and when
neighbours forced the door of his house
they found him lying in a pool of blood
with a big black cat sitting on his chest.
Believing it to be the avenging spirit, the
punisher of his crimes, or the form
assumed by his own black soul, the
neighbours immediately killed the cat.

On his way back to Britain, Elgin was
arrested in France and interned by
Napoleon following a renewed outbreak of
war between England and France. Elgin
was to be held for three years but his
wife, on the death of their infant son was
released earlier and struck up a
relationship with Robert Ferguson of
Raith on her return to London.
Eventually released in 1806 Elgin
successfully sought what was to be a
messy, public divorce that saw him lose
not only his wife but also her inheritance.
Already short of funds Elgin no longer
had the money for the expansion of his
estates to house his collection of
Parthenon marbles.

In 1816, Elgin finally successfully
petitioned Parliament to buy the marbles.
Following an inquiry by a House of
Commons Select Committee it was agreed
to buy the collection for the British
Museum at 35 000, well below Elgins
asking price and certainly a lot less than
Elgin would have spent on the venture.
The committee report is significant in a
number of respects. While it found that by
taking the marbles Elgin had provided
them with asylum from further ravages
had they been left on the Acropolis, they
did not find that Elgin had acquired the
marbles properly.

Much has been said about the Italian
version of the Turkish authorisation (or
firman) that Elgins staff later produced
as evidence to support the claim that his
actions were permitted by the authorities
in Athens at the time. However, the
document is ambiguous at best. On any
reasonable reading it was intended to
permit the painting of, measuring and
taking casts of the Parthenon and its
statues and was not intended to authorise
their removal.

The Parliamentary Committee also found
that Elgin had taken the marbles for
himself but used the influence of his
position as British Ambassador to gain
their release. Today, such use of public
office for private profit could lead to
allegations of corruption.

It is to be regretted that there is no
history of the Elgin Collection of the
Parthenon Marbles for the 200 years in
which they have been held in the British
Museum. As we have learned only in the
past couple of years by the revelations of
the eminent English historian William St
Clair, much of the collection was severely
damaged by staff of the British Museums
sponsor Lord Duveen, while cleaning the
sculptures with bleach, wire brushes and
even chisels in 1937 and 1938. We have
also learned that the collection was
subject to major air pollution, largely
from coal burning in London during the
18th and 19th centuries, before the
protection of air conditioning. St Clairs
revelations have certainly damaged the
British Museums claim that the
Parthenon marbles are safer in their care
than they would be in Greece.

19
The calls for the return of the marbles to
Greece have gathered momentum. In the
past few years a number of polls the
Mori Public Opinion Poll, a UK Channel 4
viewers survey and more recently a CNN
international poll have all shown that
more than 80% of respondents support
return.

In March this year, The Economist
magazine poll showed that a staggering
84% of British Labour Government
members would vote for the collection to
be returned if given the chance. It is
puzzling that the Blair Government has
not yet shown any change in the old policy
given that to return the sculptures is
consistent with all the stated philosophies
of New Labour.

The Parthenon and its sculptures are
unique. They are at the heart of the
heritage of western civilisation. From
every conceivable point of view
historically, artistically, culturally, even
spiritually the marbles are an integral
part of a magnificent whole and should be
re-united with the rest of the collection in
Athens where they belong.


20
Who owns the past? Legal, ethical and cultural issues
relating to the return of the Parthenon marbles
George Vardas, Secretary, International Organising Committee Australia
for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles


The question Who owns the past? begs a
number of other questions. What
constitutes the past? Should the past be
separated from the present? Is the past
capable of being owned? Indeed, who, if
anyone, can be said to have the right or
responsibility to preserve the pasts
material remains, or cultural heritage, as a
record of a societys shared experiences,
interactions and relationships and how
they evolved?

Any proper consideration of this issue must
begin with the most celebrated and
infamous case of exiled cultural treasures:
the Elgin marbles. For they symbolise the
entire body of unrepatriated cultural
property in the worlds museums and
private collections; they are an essential
part of our common past.
1


In order to consider the Parthenon
sculptures in their historical and cultural
context, as treasures from the past, it is
necessary to review the actions of Lord
Elgin and his agents at the time of their
removal and the manner in which the
British Museum has mounted its defence of
their retention.

Lord Elgin in Athens

The traditional view of Elgins actions
portrays him as a saviour, whose love of
the arts brought him into contact with the
beauty of classical Greek art through his
rather fortuitous appointment as the
British Ambassador to the Ottoman
Empire at the turn of the 19th century.

In reality, Lord Elgin had rather grandiose
ideas about his place in history when
appointed ambassador to the then
Ottoman Empire. He imagined himself to
be a connoisseur of classical art and
architecture and at once saw the
opportunity to use his position to influence
the Turkish authorities to give him access
to sites of antiquity in Greece.

The Parthenon which sits atop the
Acropolis hill in Athens was the crowning
glory in the administration of Pericles. It
was a temple adorned with a series of
elaborate marble sculptures in the form of
pedimental statues, metopes sculpted in
high relief and the incomparable
Panathenaic frieze.

In 1801 Lord Elgin obtained a purported
authority (called a firman) from the
Turkish authorities to allow his artists and
workmen to examine and take copies of the
works and also to take plaster casts of the
marbles. After further manoeuvring by
Elgins secretary, Rev Hunt, a second
firman was allegedly issued which decreed
that no-one should hinder them from
taking away any pieces of stone with
inscriptions or figures.

Considerable doubt has been cast on the
legitimacy of this firman and the precise
nature of that authorisation.
2
The
authoritative firman for the removal of the
marbles was never found. It was not
presented either to the British Parliament
in 1816, nor found in the archives of the
Turkish government. The original has
never been produced and, even if it was
issued in those terms, it could not have
sanctioned the wholesale removal of more
than 100 sculptural pieces from the
Parthenon. The original intention was only

21
to model and draw the figures on the
building and not to cause any harm to the
monument. It is also clear that at this time
the Turkish authorities were in the habit of
exacting substantial bribes from foreigners.
Elgin was no different, thereby casting
further doubt on the legitimacy of his
purported authority to remove the marbles.

According to Professor David Rudenstine
3
,
the firman was a grand illusion and the
British Parliament did not carry out a full
and proper enquiry into the circumstances
by which Elgin and his men gained such
unrestricted access to the Acropolis.

There is also a body of thought that the
translated document produced by Hunt
was a simple letter, not a firman. There
was no special formulation of words ending
with the word order which deprived it of
legal force under Ottoman law. The
decision simply never existed.
4


The author and historian William St Clair
argues that the firman was simply a letter
addressed to the Governor but there was
no authority to take from the building. By
means of threats and bribes, Elgins men
stretched the limits of the letter. St Clairs
review of Elgins records shows that the
bribes paid to the local officials amounted
to 35 times the annual salary of the local
governor. Elgin had in effect obtained a
dubious commercial concession to dig for
antiquities.
5


In any event, Elgins primary purpose was
to take copies and any sculptures and
inscriptions that would not interfere with
the works or walls of the temple. The
document spoke of taking away any stones
that might appear interesting to them.
The emphasis is on stones, not sculptures.
It was intended to refer to loose stones
after excavation. No destruction was
authorised. One may rhetorically ask: why
model sculptures if the intention was to
remove them?

Lord Elgins motives

Lord Elgins actions in Athens at the turn
of the 19th century have been portrayed as
those of a lover of the arts and that his
original intention was merely to obtain
copies and moulds and drawings of the
sculptures of the Parthenon as well as
other antiquities in order to enhance the
body of knowledge of classical Greek art in
Britain. In his own report to the House of
Commons in 1816 Lord Elgin maintained
that position but a close analysis of his
correspondence at the time reveals a
different motive, one that casts doubt on
the altruism and love of the arts which
Elgin professed to have.

At this time Elgin had employed an Italian
artist, Giovanni Lusieri, to supervise the
works on the Acropolis. In correspondence
at the time between Elgin and Lusieri the
true motives of Elgins actions in Athens
begin to emerge. Lord Elgin had plans to
build a stately manner in Broomhall in
Scotland. In a letter to Lusieri on 10 July
1801, Elgin wrote:

The plans for my house in Scotland
should be known to you. This
building is a subject that occupies me
greatly and offers me the means of
placing, in a useful distinguished and
agreeable way, the various things
that you may perhaps be able to
procure for me. The hall is intended
to be adorned with columns: the
cellars underneath I have altered
expressly for this. Would it then be
better to get some white columns
worked in this country in order to
send them by sea to my house? Or to
look out for some different kinds of
marble that could be collected
together in course of time and
decorate the hall with columns all
different one from another, and all of
fine marble?
6



22
In the same letter, Elgin went on to say:

I should wish to collect as much
marble as possible. I have other
places in my house which need it, and
besides, one could easily multiply
ornaments of beautiful marble
without overdoing it; and nothing,
truly, is so beautiful and also
independent of changes of fashion.
These reflections only apply to
unworked marble. You do not need
any prompting from me to know the
value that is attached to a sculptured
marble, or historic piece.

Therein lies the reason why Elgins men
paid little attention to the careful removal
of the sculptures. Saws were used to hack
off the sculptures in order to reduce their
weight, causing considerable damage not
only to the building but also to the pieces
removed.

On 26 December 1801 Elgin wrote to
Lusieri:

From the Acropolis I want to have
samples of each cornice, each frieze,
each column capital of the roof,
decorations of the groove pillars, of
the various architectural orders of
the metopes and in general of
anything, as much as possible.
7


The marbles in London

Lord Elgins petition was presented to the
House of Commons on 15 June 1815 and
debate took place in February and June
1816.
8


The House of Commons ultimately voted in
favour of the acquisition of the marbles but
not before some members expressed
concern at the manner in which Elgin had
used his office to obtain the sculptures.

Lord Ossulston stated that whilst he did
not object to procuring the advantage of
such an interesting collection to Britain, a
question however did arise as to whether
an Ambassador, residing in the territories
of a foreign power, should have the right of
appropriating to himself, and deriving
benefits from objects belonging to that
power.

Another member, Mr Bankes, noted that
Elgin had availed himself of his character
as an English Ambassador to facilitate the
acquisition.

Yet another member, Mr Preston, opposed
the motion and invited Elgin to make a
donation of the collection. Elgin was not in
a financial position to do so. However, Mr
Preston went on to say that if
ambassadors were encouraged to make
these speculations, many might return
home in the character of merchants.

A more trenchant criticism came from Mr
Babington who thought that the mode of
acquisition partook of the nature of
spoliation.

The Committee found that Lord Elgin had
not been able to gain access to the site for
his artists for less than five guineas a day.
Mr Hammersley felt that Elgin had taken
advantage of (Britains) success over the
French to plunder the city of Athens and
that no private traveller would have been
able to obtain leave to remove the
sculptures. He concluded that bribery had
been employed and that we should restore
what we had taken away. Therefore, the
House ought to recommend that Great
Britain holds these marbles only in trust
till they are demanded by the present or
any future possessors of the city of Athens
and upon such demand, engages, without
question or negotiation, to restore them, as
far as can be affected, to the places from
where they were taken, and that they shall
be in the meantime carefully preserved in
the British Museum.
9



23
The House of Commons eventually
supported the motion 82 for 30 against and
authorised a payment of 35 000. Later
that year the marbles were technically
transferred as property to the Trustees of
the British Museum by a further Act of
Parliament that was passed on 11 July
1816 To Vest the Elgin Collection of
Ancient Marbles and Sculptures to the
Trustees of the British Museum for the Use
of the Public.

The intervening years

During the 1940s, Britain promised to
return the marbles as a goodwill gesture
for the sacrifices made by the Greeks
during the war. Nevertheless, the marbles
were still not returned because the time
was found not to be appropriate for such a
decision. This attitude was exemplified by
Attlee, the Lord Privy Seal, who told the
House of Commons in 1941 that, as
regards the introduction of a piece of
legislation allowing the return of the
marbles to Greece, the moment was
inopportune.

After the restoration of democracy in
Greece, in 1975, the Greek Minister of
Culture set up a committee for the
preservation of the monuments of the
Acropolis. The first official request from the
Greek government was made in 1983
seeking the return of the marbles because:

They are an integral part of a unique
building symbolic to the Greek
cultural heritage it is now
universally accepted that a work of
art belongs to the cultural context in
which (and for which) it was created
and they were removed during a
period of foreign occupation when the
Greek people had no say in the
matter.
10


In 1983 a Bill was introduced to the British
Parliament to amend the British Museum
Act, which would enable the Trustees of
the British Museum to return the marbles.
The Bill was discussed and finally defeated
in the House of Lords on 27 October 1983.
It was claimed that the marbles were well
cared for in the British Museum and that
the return would set a precedent for
denuding the worlds museums.

British parliamentary deliberations

In May 1997, a question was asked in the
House of Lords as to whether the
government would consider the return of
the Parthenon marbles to Greece. Lord
McIntosh of Haringey whilst
acknowledging that there was a strong
emotional case for the return of the
marbles stated that it would not be feasible
to return them because they are the
property of the British Museum and
confiscatory legislation would be required
to remove them.
11


Lord Whyatt of Weeford was inclined to be
more blunt:

It would be dangerous to return the
marbles to Athens because they were
under attack by Turkish and Greek
firing on the Parthenon when they
were rescued and the Greeks might
easily start hurling bombs around
again.

In the House of Commons in June 1998,
the Secretary for Culture, Media and
Sport, Chris Smith, was asked whether the
government had any plans to return the
Parthenon sculptures. Smith replied that
whilst he sympathised with the view
expressed by the questioner, the
government had had time over the
intervening 13 years to reflect on the
matter and it is clear that the Parthenon
sculptures were legally and properly
acquired. They have been kept in very good
condition very great care has been taken
of them ever since and they are seen for
free by six million people a year from all

24
over the world. We believe that the British
Museum is the best place to keep them.
12


The subject was revisited in the House of
Lords in February 1999. Lord McIntosh,
whilst restating the Blair governments
position, went on to say that the Secretary
for Culture, Media and Sport had been in
correspondence with his Greek counterpart
and that, in terms of the recommendation
of the Unesco Committee on cultural
property, the British Government accepts
the Resolution which requires the Director
General of Unesco to undertake further
initiatives to promote bilateral
negotiations. Lord McIntosh concluded:

We have always been willing to take
part in such bilateral negotiations.
13


The British House of Commons Culture,
Media and Sport Committee, chaired by
veteran Labour MP Gerard Kaufman,
conducted an inquiry in early 2000 into the
illicit trade in cultural property, including
the historical removal of cultural treasures.
Despite receiving considerable evidence on
the Parthenon marbles it refrained from
making any specific recommendations
other than encouraging the British and the
Greeks to engage in discussion to try to
resolve the continuing impasse.
14


Reinventing the past

In pursuing the question Who owns the
past? one ought to be mindful of any
attempts to reinvent or rewrite the past.

The British Museum and its supporters
over the years have been active in revising
the past, or, if you like, romancing the
stones. In a publication entitled A short
guide to the sculptures of the Parthenon in
the British Museum, published in 1921 by
the Trustees of the Museum, the assertion
is made that the sculptures of Athens were
rapidly perishing from neglect and
mutilation and that much was lost by the
time Lord Elgin had arrived in Athens.
Significantly, the guide notes that Lord
Elgins political influence at
Constantinople, where Great Britain was
on the side of Turkey against Napoleon,
enabled his agents to rescue a valuable
collection of sculptures.
15


In a later publication entitled An historical
guide to the sculptures of the Parthenon the
museum contends that the remaining
sculptures of the Parthenon after the
Morosini explosion were continually
exposed to the vandalism of stone robbers,
line burners, curio hunters and religious
iconoclasts and that but for Elgins
intervention it is probable that many of the
remaining sculptures would have been
damaged beyond recognition.
16


These guides are conspicuously silent as to
the manner in which Elgin and his men
proceeded to remove the various sculptures
from the structure.

In Haynes, The Parthenon frieze
17
the
author asserts that Lord Elgin in 1799
obtained the Sultans permission to take
away whatever sculpture he wished.

In a subsequent publication by Robertson
and Frantz, The Parthenon frieze
18
the
authors write that both the fabric and
sculpture of the Parthenon had begun to
deteriorate rapidly through the ravages of
nature and man and that this had caused
Lord Elgin, who had come in 1799
intending only to draw and take casts of
the sculpture, to change his plans and he
thereafter contrived to purchase a large
part of the carvings and remove them to
London.

Ian Jenkins, the assistant keeper in the
Department of Greek and Roman
Antiquities in the British Museum, has
also published his edition of The Parthenon
frieze. In dealing with Elgins acquisition of
the sculptures, Jenkins makes the
following comment:


25
Throughout the rest of the 17th and
18th century the remains of the
Parthenon stood open to the sky ...
fallen masonry and sculpture were
quarried to rebuild the damaged
homes and defences of the small
Turkish community who occupied the
citadel of the much diminished city of
Athens. Foreign travellers to the site
broke off pieces of the sculpture to
take away with them as souvenirs.
This was a situation which Elgins
men found on the Acropolis when, at
the beginning of the 19th century,
they set about gathering together the
battered remains of the frieze,
pediment and metope sculptures for
transport to England.
19


In Corbett, The sculpture of the Parthenon
it is boldly asserted that in 1799 Lord Elgin
profited by his appointment as
Ambassador to Turkey to get permission
for a party of artists and moulders in his
suite to draw and take casts from the
architectural and sculptural remains on
the Acropolis. Elgin, on realising the
extent of the damage, extended his plan by
obtaining authorisation to remove carved
or inscribed marble fragments, and in the
event succeeded in rescuing a substantial
quantity of sculpture, much of which had
fallen from the Parthenon.
20


The British Museum

The British Museums defence of the
continued retention of its Parthenon
sculptures collection is founded on a crude
appeal to cultural colonialism and attempts
to perpetuate an egocentric
reinterpretation of classical Greek culture
as the harbinger of modern British cultural
life.
21


Thus, according to the former director of
the British Museum, Sir David Wilson:

To rip the Elgin Marbles from the
walls of the British Museum is a
much greater disaster than the
threat of blowing up the Parthenon
I think this is cultural fascism. Its
nationalism and its cultural danger,
enormous cultural danger. If you
start to destroy great intellectual
institutions, you are culturally
fascist."
22


Sir David has also claimed that the
material now housed in museums all over
the world was acquired legally and with
the full even eager permission of their
owners. This is as true of the Elgin
Marbles as of spears from Fiji.
23


The ultimate defence is that museums are
the last bulwark against cultural
recklessness and that the return of the
sculptures would lead to an increase in
demands and one of the greatest museums
of comparative culture of the world would
be destroyed for narrow nationalistic
purposes.
24


Ian Jenkins has asserted that the
Parthenon marbles are the pictorial
representation of England as a free society
and the liberator of other peoples.
25
This is
simply bizarre.

Jenkins has also produced the following
apologia for the sculptures continued
presence in the British Museum:

[The Parthenon sculptures] have
become this great icon of western art
because they were removed. Theyre
physically transformed, but also
conceptually transformed: they
became what they are through their
repositioning. That transformation is
an irreversible one: once you have
made a museum object by displaying
them at eye level, you cannot then
see them other than as a result of
that process.
26



26
The current director of the British
Museum, Robert Anderson, is no less
jingoistic:

The Marbles are terribly important
to the British Museum because they
are part of the British Museum; they
are part of, if you like, the British
Museum culture which has developed
from the inception of the Museum in
the mid 18th century. They were
acquired in the early 19th century,
they have been here for 200 years
now and they are very influential
indeed in the development of British
culture, indeed European culture.
27


The current spin put out by the British
Museum is that the trustees would regard
it as a betrayal of their trust to establish a
precedent for the piecemeal
dismemberment of the collections which
recognise no arbitrary boundaries of time
or place.
28


Leaving aside the irony of this statement,
for there was nothing arbitrary about
where or when the Parthenon sculptures
were created, defenders of the British
Museum warn that museum collections
around the world will be ransacked, and
collections would fall like cultural
dominoes, if the Elgin collection were
returned to Greece. Even the Kaufman
Committee in its report rejected this
notion.
29


The above arguments are both flawed and
reveal the inherent contradictions in the
retentionists arguments against return of
the Parthenon marbles.

The British Museums right of
stewardship

The repeated refusal of the British
Museum to countenance the return of the
marbles has been justified by references to
their safe stewardship under British hands
and, by implication, the inability of the
Greeks to look after them. An alternative,
less charitable view has the trustees
having come to regard these treasures as
their own and themselves as the true heirs
of the culture that the marbles
represented.
30


In late 1999, a group of Greek
archaeologists, chemical engineers and
conservators inspected the sculptures in
the British Museum and concluded that
irreparable damage had been done to the
priceless collection by the museum back in
the 1930s during misguided attempts to
make the marbles whiter than white.
There had been excessive rubbing and
polishing with scratch marks left by the
unskilled labourers who had used copper
chisels and wire brushes to clean them. As
the author and art historian William St
Clair has also demonstrated, what is even
more disturbing is the way in which the
Trustees of the British Museum went to
extreme lengths to cover up the incident
and to deny that the marbles had suffered
any damage.
31


In 1999, Ian Jenkins claimed to a
journalist that there has never been a
cover-up in response to the allegations
made by St Clair.
32
When presented with
irrefutable evidence at the November
conference, Mr Jenkins finally admitted
that there was illegal scouring of the
marbles in the 1930s and conceded that the
museums attempts to cover this up was a
scandal but proceeded to claim that the
Greeks were guilty of allowing the marbles
on the Parthenon to rot.
33
This is consistent
with St Clairs observations that when
information came out in the 1990s the
British Museum made contingency plans
including diverting attention to what the
Greeks had done in the care of their own
marbles.
34


This episode of torture by cleaning has
effectively undermined the museums
argument that the Parthenon marbles

27
have enjoyed better conservation and care
than would have been possible in Athens.

This kind of cultural imperialism betrays
an incredible insensitivity on the part of
the British Museum and those forces of
conservatism within the British Civil
Service who have advised successive
ministers to resist calls for the return of
the marbles on the grounds that it would
create a precedent for the dispersal of other
collections.

Prime Minister Tony Blair in 1999 stated
his vision for the next 100 years for
Britain: to turn it into a progressive 21st
century nation that will no longer be
shackled by the forces of conservatism. In
the course of his speech at the Labour
Party Conference at Bournemouth, the
British Prime Minister singled out the old
elites, establishments that have run our
professions and our country too long and
urged Britons to be confident and radical
and to step up the pace.
35


One of those great conservative forces, the
British Museum, must now confront the
future without the rhetoric and the
sophistry that has characterised its defence
of the marbles in the past.

Conclusion

The question Who owns the past? in the
context of the Parthenon marbles can be
answered in a number of ways, depending
on ones perspective. On the one hand, it
can be argued that everyone owns the past
because the past is the common heritage of
all and therefore knows no national
borders or constraints. On the other hand,
cultural property defines a nations
creative energy and identity, a kind of
cultural patrimony, so that the country of
origin is said to own its cultural past. A
third view is that no one owns the past
because it is not the kind of thing that is
readily capable of ownership or control.
36


In the case of the Parthenon marbles, the
question of who owns the past transcends
the debate between cultural nationalism
and cultural internationalism or between
parochial nationalistic sentiment and
world cultural hegemony. Who owns the
Parthenon marbles is no longer the real
issue. Rather, it is where they properly
belong for the sake of artistic and aesthetic
completeness, for the sake of the integrity
of the monument.

The Parthenon was created as an
absolutely unique monument and as a
democratic expression of classical Athens.
As a result of Elgins actions in striking
what some would call the greatest of
bargains, the unity and harmony of the
sculptures and the monument have been
compromised.

The Parthenon sculptures are best
understood in context for they were and
remain a site-specific work. The marbles
were not sold or willingly disposed by
Greece. They are of immense symbolic
importance having adorned the Parthenon
for over 2000 years. As one writer has
observed:

For the Parthenon still stands as the
most eloquent statement of that brief
cultural nova (the golden age of
Pericles), a marble beacon from the
past, the monument of all
monuments. The Parthenon, in its
historical context, its mathematical
refinement, its sculptural narrative,
is a celebration of victory, a
celebration of culture, a celebration of
Athens as a cosmopolis; it speaks to
us in intentional, unambiguous terms
of the value of humanity in this
world, of its perceptions, of its infinite
potential. Humanity, safe on a
mountaintop, surveying its past and
future.
37


The past has now caught up. The
Parthenon, which ushered masterpieces

28
that have left the irreplaceable mark of
their grandeur upon this earth, must be
reunited with the sculptures currently
housed in the British Museum for they
bear witness to the greatness of the
human race and to the power of its
intellectual creativity.
38









1. J H Merryman, Thinking about the Elgin
marbles (1985) 83 Michigan Law Review
1881 at 1895.
2. See, for example, the article by Dr Irene
Stamatoudi, The law and ethics deriving
from the Parthenon marbles case [1997]
2 Web Journal of Current Legal Issues.
3. D Rudenstine, Did Elgin cheat at
marbles? The Nation, 29 May 2000.
4. See V Demetriades, Was the removal of
the Parthenon marbles by Elgin legal?, a
paper published in Volume III of the
Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence
before the British House of Commons
Culture, Media and Sport Committee
published 26 July 2000.
5. W St Clair, The Parthenon marbles:
questions of authenticity in R Howland
(ed The destiny of the Parthenon marbles
(2000).
6. Quoted in C Hitchens, The Elgin marbles:
should they be returned to Greece? (Verso,
1997) at page 31ff.
7. C Hitchens, supra.
8. A transcript of the debate is to be found
as an appendix to C Hitchens, The Elgin
marbles: should they be returned to
Greece? at pages 116 to 129.
9. Although these views were in the
minority they serve to indicate the level of
disquiet at Elgins activities.
10. Cited in J Greenfield, The return of
cultural treasures (Cambridge University
Press, 2nd ed 1996) at page 83.
11. Hansard, 19 May 1997.
12. See House of Commons Hansard Debates,
1 June 1998.

13. See House of Lords Hansard Debates, 4
February 1999.
14. The evidence to the committee and its
findings can be accessed at
www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm.
15. Trustees of the British Museum, A short
guide to the sculptures of the Parthenon in
the British Museum (Elgin Collection)
(1921) at page 3.
16. Trustees of the British Museum, An
historical guide to the sculptures of the
Parthenon (1971) at page 8.
17. D Haynes, The Parthenon frieze
(Batchwood Press, 1959) at page 3.
18. M Robertson and A Frantz, The
Parthenon frieze (New York University
Press, 1975) at page 13.
19. I Jenkins, The Parthenon frieze
(University of Texas Press, 1994) at page
6.
20. P Corbett, The sculpture of the Parthenon
(King Penguin Books, 1959) at page 11.
21. According to the current director, Robert
Anderson, in an interview with Mike
Toner in the Atlanta Journal on 7
November 1999: They are our property.
They have been an important part of
British cultural life for two centuries.
This is where they belong.
22. Interview given on the BBC on 15 June
1986.
23. Sir David Wilson. Return and restitution:
a museum perspective in I McBryde (ed)
Who owns the past? Papers from the
Annual Symposium of the Australian
Academy of the Humanities, Melbourne,
(Oxford University Press, 1985).
24. Sir David Wilson, The collections of the
British Museum (Cambridge University
Press 1989) at p11.
25. Daily Telegraph, 29 June 1998.
26. Ian Jenkins in an interview with
Jonathon Jones, The Guardian, 3 August
2000.
27. Broadcast on BBC on 4 June 2000.
28. See British Museum website at
www.british-museum.ac.uk.
29. Cultural property: return and illicit trade,
Seventh Report of the House of Commons
Culture, Media and Sport Committee,
issued 26 July 2000 at para 129:

29

We see few signs that museums are being
engulfed in a tidal wave of claims
designed to empty the galleries and
display cases of British museums.
30. I Hilton, The museum should lose its
marbles The Guardian, 10 November
1999.
31. See generally W St Clair, The Elgin
marbles: questions of stewardship and
accountability, (1999) 8 International
Journal of Cultural Property at pages
391ff.
32. Quoted by H Smith Museum ruined
marbles, The Guardian, 9 May 1999.
33. Extracted from an unpublished paper
What happened to the sculptures of the
Parthenon in the 1930s delivered to the
London Conference by Ian Jenkins in
November 1999. Interestingly, in an
abridged version of the paper published in
the March/April 2000 edition of Minerva:
the International Review of Ancient Art &
Archaeology Jenkins reference to the
marbles rotting on the Acropolis has been
deleted.
34. W St Clair, The Elgin marbles: questions
of stewardship and accountability op cit.
35. Reported in The Daily Telegraph, 29
September 1999.
36. See generally P Messenger (ed), The
ethics of collecting cultural property:
Whose culture? Whose property?
(University of New Mexico Press).
37. R F Rhodes, Architecture and meaning on
the Athenian Acropolis (Cambridge
University Press, 1995) at page 2.
38. Quoted from an address by Frederico
Mayor, the Director-General of Unesco, on
14 March 1989, at the unveiling of a
plaque commemorating the addition of
the Acropolis to the World Heritage List.