Acropolis Museum

After the Walk­through and still in admi­ra­tion of the achieve­ments of the ancient Greeks you auto­mat­i­cally won­der about the empty spaces and copies exposed on the third floor where the Parthenon Mar­bles are exposed.

When in the 19th cen­tury the British Colo­nial power con­trolled Athens, many crimes were com­mit­ted against what today is con­sid­ered as a cul­tural her­itage of human­ity. Not only did they knock off all the sexes of male sculp­tures ( won­der what the colo­nials had to fear when hav­ing to stand com­par­i­son …  :-)), but the famous Thomas Bruce Elgin decided to grab some of the most beau­ti­ful mar­bles from the Parthenon (main tem­ple) and other mon­u­ments of the Acrop­o­lis and to ship them back to Eng­land. ( A whole shipload sank on the way and has never been recovered.)

Acrop­o­lis Parthenon Mar­bles at the British Museum

“Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, the British ambas­sador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799–1803, had obtained a con­tro­ver­sial per­mis­sion from the Ottoman author­i­ties to remove pieces from the Acrop­o­lis. From 1801 to 1812 Elgin’s agents removed about half of the sur­viv­ing sculp­tures of the Parthenon, as well as archi­tec­tural mem­bers and sculp­ture from the Propy­laea and Erechtheum.

The Mar­bles were trans­ported by sea to Britain. In Britain, Elgin was crit­i­cised for his actions, labeled by some as van­dal­ism, and some con­tem­po­raries described him as a looter. How­ever, fol­low­ing a pub­lic debate in Par­lia­ment and sub­se­quent exon­er­a­tion of Elgin’s actions, the mar­bles were pur­chased by the British Gov­ern­ment in 1816 and placed on dis­play in the British Museum, where they stand now on view in the purpose-built Duveen Gallery.

The legal­ity of the removal has been ques­tioned and the debate con­tin­ues as to whether the Mar­bles should remain in the British Museum or be returned to Athens.” (Wikipedia)

In short: The Turks who at that time still occu­pied Greece autho­rized the Eng­lish to loot Greek cul­tural her­itage; no won­der the Turk­ish Prime Min­is­ter Erdo­gan found a last minute excuse for not attend­ing the open­ing cer­e­mony of the Acrop­o­lis Museum yesterday.

To the Turks’ defense let’s note that dur­ing their 400 years of occu­py­ing Greece, they did not harm the cul­tural her­itage from the 5th cen­tury BC until the van­dals from Britain showed up.

No won­der either that no British gov­ern­ment mem­ber showed up either amongst the over 400 guests from all over the world; the Brits sent down Bon­nie Greer deputy chair of the British Museum’s board of trustees. The poor lady seems to be one of the last defend­ers of British colo­nial loot­ing and bar­barism, but then she has not much of a choice: if the Brits had to return all objects of theft to for­mer colonies and war oppo­nents they accu­mu­late in their British Museum, the remains would most likely not jus­tify her job.

Crim­i­nals usu­ally like to return to the scene of crime but not for the recon­sti­tu­tion of the same.

The absence of the Turks and the Brits has been noticed even if Greek Prime Min­is­ter Kara­man­lis, diplo­mat­i­cally, didn’t express clearly what 10 mil­lion Greeks felt.

The Mar­bles exposed at the British Museum are the live tes­ti­mo­nial of colo­nial rob­bery. The ques­tion is: why did colo­nial pow­ers grab, steal and export artifacts?

It seems, that the colo­nials were aware of the power of art and cul­ture the more that the Brits had never cre­ated any­thing com­pa­ra­ble worth while envy­ing them fore. Who had ever the idea to go and grab a few rocks from Stonehenge?

Greek Cul­ture has spread all around the Mediter­ranean basin, through­out Europe and deep into Asia. Brits, Span­ish, Por­tuguese and French brought it to the Americas.

What did we get back in exchange? Rock ‘n’ Roll and Ham­burg­ers; not sure the Rock-Burger-Culture will last for 2500 years.

Dur­ing 2000 years of occu­pancy by Romans, Turks, Vene­tians and many oth­ers, Greece and Greek cul­ture has sur­vived due to the strong roots, the cul­tural her­itage and the Greek Ortho­dox Church.

Nev­er­the­less, theft of art and arti­facts has a long tra­di­tion. In recent years we have seen other acts of cul­tural bar­barism in Afghanistan for exam­ple, where the Tal­iban destroyed sys­tem­at­i­cally cul­tural heritage.

Sec­ond World War was another period where cul­tural goods were stolen (many have been handed back since). First the Ger­mans looted Muse­ums in con­quered lands, then the occu­pants stole Ger­man Her­itage as well as what the Ger­mans had stolen first. Ask the Amer­i­cans, Rus­sians and French.

Fur­ther Back, Napoleon was another ace as well as his suc­ces­sors: the Lou­vre in Paris is a beau­ti­ful exam­ple of colo­nial loot­ing. One day may be excuses will not be enough and objects will be returned to where they had been taken away from.

The Acrop­o­lis Museum is a show­case of ancient Greek Art and Cul­ture. It’s pur­pose is, amongst oth­ers, to col­lect and pre­serve tes­ti­mo­ni­als of a cul­tural past, of the roots of THE Cul­ture which is at the base of West­ern, Jew­ish and Chris­t­ian evolution.

The British Museum, as well as the Lou­vre are places where Gov­ern­ments have cre­ated show­cases of polit­i­cal, colo­nial and strate­gic achieve­ment. A show­case of con­quest. A demon­stra­tion of power and sub­mis­sion of other people.

Muse­ums of colo­nial pow­ers have a sim­i­lar role as the Roman tra­di­tion to bring back home riches, mate­r­ial signs of con­quest … and slaves.

“Evo­lu­tion” is when a woman of African ori­gin becomes a Trustee of a col­lec­tion rep­re­sent­ing British Colo­nial Power, Bar­barism and Loot­ing and claims that the Greek Mar­bles should remain in London.

• elgin mar­bles colo­nial powers
• bon­nie greer acrop­o­lis Museum
• French and Eng­lish muse­ums steal­ing greek artifacts
• stolen sta­tus fro akropolis
• what did the british museum steal from the greeks
• when did the acrop­o­lis museum open

Related posts:

1. Acrop­o­lis Museum
2. Greek Easter 2009

Tags: Acropolis Museum, British Museum, Elgin Marbles, Greece, Greek Culture, Louvre

This entry was posted on June 22, 2009 at 3:19 am and is filed under Acropolis Museum, Yorgo Nestoridis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.