There are intermittant reports of discussions/negotiations between the UK and Greece over the possible repatriation of the ‘Elgin marbles’ - marble carvings removed from the Parthenon in Athens between 1801-12 - currently at the British Museum, to Greece.
I hope that these discussions lead to the marbles returning to their original home; and that they provoke a re-evaluation of the rightful resting place for other objects in the collection of the British and other European, American and museums of former colonial empires.
Returning the marbles causes some difficulty, particularly on the right of the culture wars. Losing the marbles itches the anxiety about British decline, from once being the focus of power that got the marbles here in the first place; and a decline that means that there is no credible argument now that we can claim to be the place where the objects are most safely stored. [An argument that holds for other objects from states that are still less stable than the UK, but not for Greece]. Returning objects is also anxiety-inducing because it reflects that we recognize that they were not rightfully acquired in the first place; and is symbolic of a re-evaluation of the sins and contributions of empire that the right finds unwelcome or disproportionate and politically motivated. Finally there is a desire, as with statues being torn down, to simply leave things as they are [not a desire that conservatives in this sphere apply so rigorously to the non-solid objects of the UK, our institutions, but never mind about that].
Aside from this arguments are advanced based on property rights. If the objects were legally acquired in the first place, from the rulers of Athens at the time, then there is no further argument. Subsequent disposals of objects being equally legal, there is no obligation on us to return anything. In fact, we have an obligation to uphold the general system of property rights in market economies by *not* returning them.
David Allen Green has a very nice post on the assertion that the marbles were acquired legally and argues convincingly that this is at best not proven. It is false to assert that beyond doubt the objects were acquired legally. A falsehood that DAG hightlights is perpetrated by the British Museum when it writes that ““Lord Elgin’s activities were thoroughly investigated by a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 and found to be entirely legal.” That investigation having used - see DAG’s on US legal scholar Rudenstein’s account - an English translation of an Italian translation of the original Ottoman documents describing the transaction that led to Elgin obtaining the marbles. Clearly there was room for error either accidental or deliberate in the layers of translation and for the truth of the matter to be lost in that process.
However, even leaving aside the dubious legality of the original transaction, what are we to make of it from a today’s perspective?
The argument that there is nothing more to be said once legality established is very weak, on several counts.
First, there is the fact that the Ottoman’s were not invited in by Greeks who had asked them to organize their affairs and dispose of their antiquities. The Ottomans were ruling an empire that they acquired through violence [like ours, later]. The Greeks established their independence from the Ottomans by means of war from about 1821 to 1832, as if to underscore that they did not accept the legitimacy of Ottoman Rule! Presumably amongst the many aspects of that rule they did not accept, we might list how the Ottomans disposed of their antiquities. Indeed, the British helped the Greeks in this war [for sure not for altruistic reasons or principles argued from political economy]. It is rather peverse that institutional descendents of those British authorities, which sought to violently overthrow the Ottoman control over Greece, later refer back to the legality of documents signed with those rulers, that at the time we either decided were illegitimate or, more probably, decided that legitimacy could be set aside for political reasons. We thought it convenient or right to expel the Ottomans from Greece, but we point at a piece of paper signed with them to defend our ownership of the marbles? Really?
Second, there is the issue of principle as to whether property rights over such cultural artefacts, decided by one generation, should forever be treated as sacrosanct by future generations. Aside from the fact that there was hardly an opportunity for Greeks at the time to express their consent for the marbles to be removed; later generations obviously also had no say in the matter. [There is an echo of the argument here about statues. Today’s generation did not express consent at the time for the statues because they were, obviously, unborn]. Although there would have been no practical way to figure out what future generations of Greeks would think about taking the Elgin marbles to London and keeping them there - they were not around to ask - taking them could have been made conditional [and can be made conditional] on those generations later taking their opportunity to express their views. Now we know they want them back, we can and should give them back. We regularly invoke the rights of later generations when we discuss how we treat our natural resources [what will they say about what we did to the climate even as we knew what we were doing to it?]. In the same way, we don’t assess those around 200 years ago to have decided things for all who come later concerning the marbles.
If such a notion seems to break the sacrosanct nature of property rights in market economies, note that property rights are frequently not sacrosanct. We very often take collective decisions to override them. For example, legislating for compulsory purchase of land or buildings to destroy them and make way for new infrastructure. Or introducing conservation and planning regulations to prevent modifications to old buildings; preventing property developers from destroying archeological finds; regulating, restricting, even banning the use of objects like drugs, guns and other weapons. Everywhere property rights are contingent on social, collective choices. My kitchen has knives and forks but I am not allowed to stab anyone with them. If my kitchen had machine guns, they would be taken off me for mine and others’ safety.
Third, and building on this, it seems right to me that property rights over artefacts that acquire cultural significance over time should be contigent. When they were first made, we might guess that the marbles were somewhat disposable. If one of them were damaged for some reason, in transit, or in the process of touching up, or in a riot or fire, the original mason/artist of someone in the same tradition would be comissioned to do another one and little would have been lost. Two thousand years later, the objects are now of huge historical, archeological and cultural significance. They are part of a small set of such objects that made it through to give us scarce and incomplete information about what those times were like. They are clues about the origins of Western civilization and culture, since we trace those origins through ‘Greece’ and beyond. For the Greeks, there is naturally a nationalistic and sentimental pride in being part of those origins. Just because objects were originally disposable and mundane, bought and sold like trousers, does not rule out society later judging them in need of preservation and to be held in custody in a way that allows access. From this perspective, even if the marbles were obtained legally [it seems highly perverse to hold this view as already argued] that is neither here nor there if we recognize that later generations rightly continually reevaluate choices about property rights and are bound to in this case.
You might object: what happens if I buy a painting from an unknown artist in a free and legal contract, and I or my descendants are later expropriated by a state that has deemed the painting of sufficient cultural importance? Well, tough: such purchases should be made acknowledging that those re-evalutions might happen. And we can organize that those owners - who after all played some part in havin the foresight to identify good work and look after it - are compensated. We can also point out that it is pretty unarguable that we can and should legislate to stop you damaging, altering or destroying these works. So it is just a further step to contemplate a compulsory purchase. And there are intermediate measures like preservation orders combined with obligations to surrender the artworks for public exhibitions from time to time.
The marbles are not ours. We obtained them from an empire that had conquered the Greeks. Greeks later had no say in their removal. Even if they had, anyone at that time did not have the right to make choices about artefacts of such significance for all generations to come. We should send them back.
The same arguments could lead to the emptying of many of our museums not just of these marbles but many other objects from other countries. So be it. We may well, in this process, dismantle forever collections of such objects that gain from many things being together and harm the process of our local populations and culture learning about the objects and the societies that made them and later removed them. So be it! We have no rights to enforce on the descendents of those objects creators and early custodians that London is the place where such collections are held. [A place most in the poorer countries that the objects came from will never be able to visit]. Such collections need to be formed on a voluntary basis. An ideal solution to this woud probably be periodically travelling exhibitions of artefacts agreed to buy the rightful national sponsors. Or, if security and cost is prohibitive, or trust not there, collections of hi-tech replicas.
Added later.
Two other points I want to make concern the coercive element in a market price for artefacts between rich and poor countries; and also the argument that we took them for the sake of future Greeks [or whoever].
On the first point. If we were to decribe the flow of artefacts from one country to another it would be from countries that are poor to countries that are rich. Elgin marbles aside, there may be many objects that the British or other Museums acquired by someone in the UK purchasing them from someone in the poorer country. Even if those transactions took place in a superficially voluntary free market, there is an element of coercion in the transaction. In the same way that someone desperate and without good credit might be forced to pawn valuable objects to tide them over a period with no income. We might be or have been complicit in making them poor - and thus more liable to part with the objects - by restricting who they trade with, or interfering in their politics. [Equally we could have helped them, of course].
On the argument about acting in others’ best interests on their behalf. This may have been part of the reason why many objects came to the UK. And it is quite possible that cultural objects survived better through the activity of this market, [or our theft], and custody. Views like this were no doubt partly contaminated by racist views about those from whom we took; but nevertheless may have been right as a forecast about what was best regarding preservation. This argument is unsustainable now in the case of Greece, obviously. And probably for almost all countries from whom we took or bought objects.
Nevertheless in principle we can think that if another country wanted objects returned to destroy them; or if objects in their posession were likely to be destroyed we could justify buying or expropriating them ourselves to preserve them for future generations of those countries. If there had been a way to remove the Buddhas of Bamiyan blown up by the Taleban in 2001 without risking too much life, I would have been for it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t. They were too big and it would have been too risking of life to attempt it and the destruction happened so quickly and without warning that it would not have been possible anyway.
I don’t know what we have in the UK that is of cultural signficance for the history of Afghanistan, but I would be in favour of not returning it if the expectation was that the current regime there would destroy it on the grounds that it conflicted with their desire to eradicate idolatrous cultural artefacts.
Added later, inspired by replies
I am reminded by some of those tweeting this post that the ‘Elgin marbles’ are more properly described as the Parthenon Sculptures - since that name locates their origin and not their theft. However, for this post I will stick to my name, and partly because I have been brainwashed into thinking that Elgin marbles are just that.
One argument for return that I did not mention above is just that they re-unify objects that were once together. The marbles were taken from the Parthenon, so they should return there. This argument prizes the historical integrity of objects. Things that were initiated together, installed together, should stay together.
I feel the same way. But it strikes me that this argument is a bit of a dead end. There is no way of making progress in the face of a counter art-historical movement that is in favour of mixing things up and seeing what that looks like. Indeed, some of the verbage around the value of the British museum, where the Elgin marbles are currently housed, and other similar locations, could be read as though placing weight on the argument that you gain something by mixing things up, through contrast, juxtaposition. This is too subjective. It is also easily abused. We just write a document describing the artistic/cultural value of juxtaposition and tell the Greeks no.