The British Museum in London should return the Elgin Marbles to the Parthenon from which they were taken by a British ambassador 200 years ago, according to Anthony Snodgrass, chairman of the British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles.
In a March Library lecture titled "The Parthenon Divided," Snodgrass presented a strong case in favor of returning the marbles to Greece, where they would be reunited with the remaining marbles of the Parthenon, one of the best-known monuments of the world. The issue is not really so much about restitution but one of reunification, he said.
Great Britain holds 49 percent of the marbles, Greece holds 49 percent and the other two percent are scattered among eight museums in Europe and one in Peru.
Snodgrass said the marbles should be returned for historical, archaeological and architectural reasons, but the British Museum remains resolute in defending ownership and keeping the marbles in London, despite many flexible and creative offers by the Greek government to reunite the marbles in a new museum at the foot of the Acropolis near the Parthenon.
From 1801 to 1804, Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, British ambassador to Constantinople, removed the antiquities from the Parthenon, after receiving permission from Turkish officials in Greece. At the time Greece was part of the Turkish Empire. Elgin shipped the marbles back to England and eventually sold them in 1816 to the British government. Since 1839, after Greece won independence from Turkey, the Greeks have been asking for the return of the marbles, claiming they were wrongfully taken.
The Elgin Marbles include slabs from a horizontal frieze that ran in a band at the top of the outside of the inner building of the Parthenon and several metopes, square panels that ran horizontally at the top of the outer colonnade of the Parthenon. The Elgin collection also includes statues that once stood in pediments near the roof. In addition, there is a caryatid, a column in the form of a statue of a woman from the Erechtheion, a temple on the Acropolis.
Snodgrass described the extensive damage done by Elgin in removing these items. Both the frieze and the metopes were built into the Parthenon in the most literal sense. They were not decorative additions, added at the end; they were sculptured onto blocks that played a role in stabilizing the building. To remove these items, Elgin's workers had to hack, chop and shatter much of the Parthenon.
"I think the architectural destruction by Elgin is the most serious of the charges against him. What he did to its architecture is quite simply indefensible," said Snodgrass, whose lecture at the Library was sponsored by the John W. Kluge Center and the Washington Collegium for the Humanities.
Snodgrass said the marbles could no longer be placed back on the Parthenon structure itself. Nonetheless, for many reasons, they should be returned and properly displayed in the new Acropolis Museum, in full view of the Parthenon.
Snodgrass argued that architectural context is one important reason to return the antiquities. According to Snodgrass, the Elgin Marbles in the Duveen Gallery of the British Museum are displayed in total disregard for their original context. They are displayed as if they are a self-contained whole, which they are not; hence, viewers do not get a sense of the proper procession of the works. Also, the marbles are exhibited facing inward toward spectators. On the ancient building, they faced outward. The new Acropolis Museum in Greece, which will open in late 2006, would be able to display them in the proper context, thereby providing a more comprehensive and authentic educational experience, he said.
The British claim that it is best to see the Elgin Marbles in the London museum in an art historical context of exhibition with art objects from other ancient cultures of Syria, Egypt and Persia. Snodgrass disagrees. He says the reunited marbles would best be appreciated a few hundred yards from the Parthenon. In addition, the new Acropolis Museum would also have as a backdrop exhibits of pre-classical Greek sculpture, providing a full range of ancient Greek sculpture.
Snodgrass said more people would be able to see the marbles if they were displayed in Greece. Although the Duveen Gallery in London receives 1 million visitors each year, the old Acropolis Museum receives 3 million. That figure is expected to increase when the new museum opens.
The marbles at the British Museum were damaged in a cleaning scandal in the 1930s that was covered up for decades until 1999. The stones had been scrubbed at Lord Duveen's insistence with copper chisels, wire brushes and abrasives to look more white, destroying details and the ancient patina. The marbles in Greece, on the other hand, which underwent an 11-year-conservation program ending in 2004, have been carefully preserved and have maintained their integrity. Snodgrass said the British can no longer claim to be the superior caretakers.
The Greek government has shown flexibility in its successive offers to reunite the marbles, while the British Museum trustees remain rigid and uncooperative, according to Snodgrass. The Greeks are willing to drop the issue of ownership and instead offer the British Museum an outpost in the new Acropolis Museum, where they can retain hands-on curatorship as well as possession. In another creative idea, the Greeks would regularly send other antiquities to be displayed as special exhibits in the Duveen Gallery, which would need to be filled with other art if the Elgin Marbles were returned to Greece. This idea would be highly lucrative for the British Museum, because it could then charge visitors an entry fee to the special exhibits, Snodgrass argued.
"The campaign for reuniting the marbles will go on for as long as it takes. It may be well over another century for all I know, although I think it will be much less," said Snodgrass.
