Financial Issues of the Elgin Marbles

I decided to continue my discussion around the Elgin marbles for this week’s blog posts because one, I find this situation to be fascinating, and two, because they were discussed in our readings for this week’s class. This post discusses the financial implications that the Elgin marbles have had.

The political struggles did and still do transfer to the financial struggles that have resulted from the removal of the Parthenon marbles. Elgin had funded the project with his own money and thus introduced a personal dimension of finance into the situation. In 1816 Elgin sold his collection of the Parthenon marbles to the British government, which then presented the marbles to the British Museum. Regardless of the reason for the selling of the marbles by Elgin to the British government, it is evident that financial factors were at play in the situation during the nineteenth century.

A difficult financial situation still exists in today’s case of the Parthenon marbles. As of 2010, the financial problems in Greece have escalated due to poor tax-collection and the reluctance of the wealthy to pay taxes. This situation presents Greece as an unstable home for the Parthenon marbles. Furthermore, the New Acropolis Museum opened in 2009 to a very welcoming populace. The construction of this museum purposely places a huge emphasis on the display of archaeological remains, and Athens has spent millions of dollars on the museum which is ready to house the Parthenon marbles.

           
          The return of the marbles would improve Greece’s current financial situation. The financial struggles of Greece are having negative effects on the Parthenon’s modern archaeology and the presentation of it. The Elgin marbles presents us with a situation concerning archaeological ethics and how morality is often highly affected by finances. Even though morals/ethics and finance are supposed to be two very different topics of interest, they often intersect, making it necessary to consider them both at the same time.

Political Issues of the Elgin Marbles

Elgin’s disregard for the historicity of the Parthenon and the images that it preserved caused great upset and turmoil among the Greek population. The removal of the Parthenon marbles created strains between Greece and England which would continue for centuries after.

Complex political relationships resulted from the power of empires in the nineteenth century which affected the political situations between the Ottomans, British, and the Greeks. During the time of Elgin and his project of the Parthenon, Greece was under the power of the Ottoman Empire. In the case of the Parthenon marbles, the Ottomans showed little to no concern for the temples under their control and even desecrated them for their own purposes. This indifference towards the Greek culture by the Ottomans only added to the pre-existing hatred for them by the Greeks. It has been suggested by some scholars that the Ottomans’ decision to allow the British to have control over the Parthenon marbles resulted from the fact that the Ottomans were grateful to Britain, which had blocked the advance of Napoleon in Egypt. The political relationship between the Ottoman Empire and the British Empire ultimately resulted in the destruction of the Greek culture. In 1821 there was a national Greek revolution, during which the Greeks expressed themselves strongly about the removal of the Parthenon marbles. In 1829 the Greeks gained complete independence from Ottoman rule and immediately began to advocate their dismay to the British. This devastation of the Greeks would transfer from the Ottomans to the British in later years.

The Greeks united after being freed from Ottoman rule and began to take steps towards getting the Parthenon marbles back from the British. In 1835 the Greek Archaeological Service came to be formed with the Acropolis under its jurisdiction. The Service then became responsible for all conservation, excavation, and restoration of the Parthenon. The Service paved the way for future efforts of restoring the Parthenon to its original magnitude. The poor political situation between the Greeks and the British still exists today and thus has a negative impact on modern archaeology. Today the Greeks are employing various political devices in order to get the British to return the Parthenon marbles. For example, the British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles has called upon a previous UN resolution, which states that “the return or restitution of cultural property to the countries of origin...[is for the means of] protecting cultural property.”

I believe that Greece has a right to its own heritage and should not have to prove their ability to care for it. Looting, which influenced the desire for the Parthenon marbles, has created a tense political situation between England and Greece which will not be resolved very easily. Modern archaeology has been negatively affected by this political situation because the Greeks feel that they are not able to present the archaeological evidence of their own heritage in a proper manner.

Introducing the Elgin Marbles

Lord Elgin

One of the many removed Parthenon Marbles

 This post is related to this week’s and last week’s discussions of looting and the “ethically correct” owner’s of looted objects. The controversy of the Parthenon Marbles can be used to determine the negative role of looting in history and how it still affects the modern archaeology of Greece today. This post will introduce the controversy of the Elgin or Parthenon Marbles.

In 1799 Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, was appointed as British ambassador to the Ottoman government. In his new position, Bruce began travelling to Athens and it was here that he became intrigued with the Parthenon and, consequently, became involved with what some would call looting. In April of 1801, Elgin’s plan surpassed making copies and representations, he now wished to collect a few scattered pieces of the Parthenon. Elgin devoted himself and all of his efforts towards removing as much of the Parthenon marbles as he possibly could manage and sending them back to England.

In July 1801 Elgin was granted a firman, or ‘official letter’, by the Ottoman Sultan which allowed him to continue his work on the Parthenon without any pressing legal conflict. Translations have revealed that the firman authorized Elgin to ‘remove some stones with inscriptions and figures,’ not to violently remove sculptures from the Parthenon. There still remains a considerable amount of doubt around what the firman actually allowed Elgin to do.

This particular event in history can be related to Julian’s stance as an antiques dealer. Elgin can be considered an antiques dealer of a sort. He was collecting important artifacts from the Parthenon for a British museum collection. Elgin sought the most beautiful and artistic pieces from the Parthenon and sent them back to England to be put on display. Elgin’s actions were essentially those of an antiques dealer, so are his actions justified in that sense?

I personally think that Elgin was justified in his actions as an art collector, but succeeded in destroying a very important part of Greece’s history. His removal of the marbles was not in any way archaeological and he therefore can be considered a looter. There are many questions and problems that surround his actions. Hence, I feel that it is important to analyze this event from more than just an archaeological perspective.

Issue: Relic Hunters in Quantico, Virginia

“Typically relic hunters are only interested in the object. But even those who care about the history of an artifact take it out of context when they collect it, then you don’t know where it came from. Taking an artifact makes it no longer a reliable piece of information.” - John Haynes (Archaeologist at the Marine Corps Base, Quantico, Va.)

                I found this issue to be of interest because it relates particularly to what we were discussing in class this past week. There have been issues at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Virginia regarding the protection of the archaeological Civil War campsites located around the base’s school. The area, even though it is not a historical landmark, is protected under the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979. The Protection Act governs the archaeological sites on federal and Indian lands in the United States, and the removal and disposition of archaeological collections from those sites.

                The main concern at the Marine Corps Base is that some artifacts that are easy to uncover, such as bullets, arrowheads, and buttons, are not protected under the Protection Act of 1979 and are therefore being removed from the site and consequently the archaeological context. John Haynes (see quote above) explains the problems with relic hunters and their carelessness towards the context of an object that they take. Even if the relic hunter is interested in the historical significance of an object, they do not care about the context, which is one of the most important aspects of an archaeological find.

                For instances such as the one in Quantico, surveillance of these protected areas must be enforced and looters and relic hunters should be punished appropriately for removing important pieces of history from their context.

Issue: Preserving Archaeological Heritage in War Stricken Countries

I found this story when I was looking through some news articles related to archaeology. This particular story piqued my interest because it shows how hard it is to always put archaeology, history, and heritage ahead of everything. This case is obviously an extreme of putting other things above the ethic responsibility to preserve culture and heritage, but it does open up one’s eyes to the real issues.

The article to which I am referring is from the BBC New Magazine, titled “Murder, mayhem and museums” by Caroline Wyatt (see link below for full article). In this article, Wyatt addresses the issue of preserving Iraq’s archaeological history in the midst of its war. I would assume that this is a particularly difficult thing to accomplish in a country that has been war stricken for years, and it is remarkable to see that people are still making the effort.

Wyatt also mentions that the British Museum is currently holding and displaying many of Iraq’s ancient treasures since Iraq is not yet prepared for tourists. I thought that this was an excellent example of UNESCO’s and ICOMOS’s guidelines: that, essentially, all people (and thus all countries) have the moral obligation to protect cultural heritage, regardless if it is your own or not.

All countries and cultures have the right to have their heritage protected, and there is no exception for those countries that are war stricken. 

"Murder, mayhem and museums" By Caroline Wyatt