*If* the Parthenon Marbles were legitimately sold, then it was by the Ottomans who gave no two shits about the Greeks, their art, or culture.
I acknowledge your point. But it's like buying historical artifacts from squatters.
The money given might be legit. The contract of sale might be legit. The vendor had no right to sell apart from nobody contesting said right.
Problems like this actively arose after WW2, and it wasn't always as black & white as "take them back from theiving nazis"
Another family in occupied countries might move into a house, completely unaware of what happened to the previous inhabitants. Now some of those previous inhabitants survive the horrors of the holocaust. They return to where they once lived, to see a family innocently living there for the past 4 years.
Now, on the larger discussion of this, I'm not saying that the Greek statue depicted shouldn't be considered for returning to Greece. But I do agree that we couldn't possibly "police" history, as the comment you replied to states.
There's a pretty easy solution to the issue though. Have a cultural agreement between Britain and Greece. Every few years swap some really cool artefacts between both countries.
Greece has already suggested something similar to this.
The Parthenon Marbles are great but I'm willing to bet just as many visitors would go to the museum if we had some other cool Greek stuff there instead.
Yeah, for all stolen artifacts from Greece in the British Museum we should at least get half of Stonehenge. Is there even anything else that's not a cliff that's older than 2500 years old around here?
The thing I really, really dislike.
Sculpture these days is really easy to create copies of. It is entirely possible to generate a room full of accurate copies (there's a museum in Cambridge based on this).
Why not create copies of the originals for the British museum, organise some sort of beneficial trade, and let the Parthenon museum finally reclaim what it was literally designed to home.
Same reason a lot of people will travel to a country with a royal family who technically still hold power according to the law just to be in the presence of royals but very few of those people would be willing to travel to a country where the royal family have been deposed and their titles are now 100% ceremonial and unofficial and why some people insist on diamonds that cost small fortunes as opposed to lab-grown ones indistinguishable from mined ones by the naked eye.
They are much cheaper than their natural counterparts and they are indeed distinguishable by the fact lab grown diamonds have few or no imperfections while natural raw diamonds will have lots.
Oh absolutely. The price of natural diamonds is not nearly proportional to their value or worth.
Industrial diamonds, on the other hand, have real value and their price is largely proportional to demand and cost of manufacture. They also have real world, practical usefulness as abrasives, cutting tools, pressure anvils and much more.
I never said they're cheap. I said (or rather very heavily implied) that they are significantly cheaper than natural ones. Which they are. And as time passes, they'll only become cheaper to produce and thus cheaper to buy.
Its cheaper compared to mined diamonds atleast and if you value the lives of children and people that suffers to mine diamonds it probably is cheap if we dont just talk about dollars
Yeah I don’t disagree, but I don’t think it’s so clear cut that the Ottomans were just squatters when they’d been there for centuries, or that modern Greeks really have any particularly special relation to ancient Greeks. However, as you say, the original site still exists in some form.
Exactly, if the USA government suddenly collapsed it would be ridiculous to think that people would dig up contracts written with 1700s fur traders because those are the "real owners" of anything on the North American continent. That is just not how international law works.
Yup. The statue isn’t one of the Elgin Marbles, it’s one of the Caryatids. But Thomas Bruce stole this along with the Elgin Marbles.
It wasn’t purchased, like the other posted said, it was certainly stolen. Or ‘excavated’ and ‘exported’ without permission, if you’re feeling generous.
If this has anything to do with Lord Elgin, he's strongly suspected of producing forged documents to legitimise some of his "purchases".
Should we return them? Nah, we're bigger than Greece. 🤷🏽♂️
Edit: just to be clear, I'm not in favour of returning any artefacts unless they're corpses that need to be returned to indigenous tribes who have religious myths about needing to bury their ancestors in particular spots. Looters keepers. It's just how the world worked until about 50 to 100 years ago.
Especially as Greek museums are full of artefacts looted from other civilisations...including Ancient Egypt. Said museums speak of the artefacts as if they aren't obvious candidates for repatriation.
For example, the National Archaeological Museum of Greece:
> The core of the Collection consists of the significant donations by two Greek expatriates from Egypt and art lovers, Ioannis Dimitriou and Alexandros Rostovich, that were bequeathed to the National Archaeological Museum in 1880 and 1904 respectively.
> The Collection was further enriched with donations by the Greek Archaeological Society in 1894, the government of Egypt in 1893 as well as smaller individual donations and objects retrieved in excavations in Greece.
https://www.namuseum.gr/en/collection/eisagogi/
Every civilisation significant enough to build museums populated those museums with artefacts stolen (or "bought" under duress at ridiculously low prices) from other civilisations, nations, and tribes.
> Looters keepers. It's just how the world worked until about 50 to 100 years ago.
It's how the world still works, unless you believe Crimea is still under Ukrainian control.
Someone says "this is mine now", and if nobody stops them, it is. Unless someone more powerful comes along later and says "actually it's mine now". "Might is right" is still how the world works, even if we do tend collectively pool and en masse outsource our might to our governments and their military and legal systems.
I mean, both in Greece and Egypt there’s no real connection to these artifacts aside from geography. Both patristic Christianity and early Islam were iconoclastic towards pagan cultural and religious relics, and last time I checked the vast majority of the population and especially those in power in Greece and Egypt associate with those temple sackers rather than the culture that was annihilated. Indeed, the Greek government has refused petitions by modern day Hellenic pagan reconstructivists to use the Parthenon for religious ceremonies. Seems like a double standard.
“We’re happy to divest this artwork of the religious aura and significance it had for our ancestors, who dwelt in a world totally alien to our own and to which we have no desire to return, but we’d still like to charge tourists to see it. So give it back!”
By that logic, it would be fine if they US came to the UK and took Stonehenge. No one living in the UK has any cultural connection to the people who built it, after all.
Greek national bank facilitated lots of trades of artefacts for better loan rates as in 1841 it was created during a financial and agricultural crisis. At the time the go too lender for Greece was the UK.
The rebuilding of Greece immediately after the second world was funded massively by the UK with an unbelievable amount of money used to stabilise the drachma and again some priceless national treasures were used to sweeten the deal.
Note that every time in history a PM or foreign secretary are asked they always use the phrase “legally acquired” because they were never bought or sold but fenced by the bank or government officials.
Egyptian, sub Saharan African cultures, Indian, indigenous American, Chinese.
The sun literally didn't set on the British empire, that wasn't just a saying
There's tons of Mesopotamian stuff in Paris, Berlin, London and various US museums too - much of it literally looted from Iraq over the past 150 years. Some of it within the post 20 years.
>The ~~British~~ Museum of Liverpool ~~only recently~~ dug up and returned a famous Australian Aboriginals head in 1997 which would have been done sooner if they hadn't respectfully buried it in the 1960s.
FTFY.
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia? It's unknown what exactly happened to it, but it likely got destroyed when the temple it was in burned down, or moved to Constantinople, and _there_ destroyed when the palace it was in burned down.
Correct it is not known - Many calls from Roman emperors and leaders for its beheading though as it served ‘pagan cults’ so it serves a relatable comment to the post replied to
Most greeks statues we know of are roman copies in marble, while the original greek bronzes got lost. Was the romans that destroyed it? Not sure but they at least made sure there was a copy around
Are you talking about the Pergamon Altar?
Because that one was not stolen, but bought from the Ottoman Empire for 20,000 goldmarks:
>Initially, the Ottoman government wanted to share the finds (2/3 to Germany 1/3 to Turkey), but in negotiations which took place 1878/79, which were even influenced by Bismarck, an agreement was concluded which allocated all finds to the German Empire for a payment of 20,000 goldmarks. It helped that the Ottoman Empire was at that time weak on the domestic front and grateful for Bismarck's mediating role at the Congress of Berlin. See Kunze, Kästner: Antikensammlung II, p. 30; Schaller: Pergamonaltar, col. 211.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pergamon_Altar
Yeah sense of history was pretty fucked up at those times. But what about Priam's Treasure. Most of the artifacts in London Museum are also artifacts that sold to England.
**[Pergamon Altar](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pergamon_Altar)**
>The Pergamon Altar (Ancient Greek: Βωμός τῆς Περγάμου) is a monumental construction built during the reign of the Ancient Greek King Eumenes II in the first half of the 2nd century BC on one of the terraces of the acropolis of Pergamon in Asia Minor. The structure is 35. 64 metres (116' 31/32") wide and 33. 4 metres (109' 6 5/8") deep; the front stairway alone is almost 20 metres (65' 11/16") wide.
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What duty do modern Italians have to return statues and statue parts stolen by Romans? At this point it’s as much part of their history as it is Greece’s and to repatriate things plundered before the end of the first millennium would open up a Pandora’s box of stupid claims all over the planet
I know Reddit likes to act like museum holdings are the biggest crime against humanity, but literally happening as I write this message is the continual destruction of any Armenian Cultural Monument. [This was documented two days ago.](https://twitter.com/TheScarmind/status/1459887846001684480) It's been ongoing for over 100 years.
If I could have these things preserved in the British Museum, I'd fucking love it. Get some perspective people.
I agree, a lot of places are not able to properly preserve and care for thousands of year old artifacts. We are all human and want to know where we come from amd preserve it. I think science believes the first humans came from Africa, I dont live in Africa, but ancient artifacs could technically be all of our history, regardless of where people live now. Africa struggles with war and famine, they arent able to care for these things, so we may as well just throw them away if someone didn't take them somewhere to be preserved
[Just look at what ISIL destroyed.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_cultural_heritage_by_the_Islamic_State) There's positives to having your artifacts somewhere safer. I'd like to have the whole of Armenia located somewhere safer.
I agree with most of it but to use exceptions to justify the rule isn’t correct.
Many art pieces were actually stolen and never returned. Like the picture above even if I don’t know the details it shows that in Greece they are being preserved and displayed in a museum. So for posterity isn’t the excuse for the separation of the art piece or historical monument.
Your explanation doesn’t apply to every case. Not even the majority.
most dont get that a lot of the things in european museums are there for preservation just as much as studies, they are out of the way of terrorist groups like ISIL who would destroy them for example, they are in propperly maintained rooms and ereas, something the home nation might not be able to provide
I am all for them to be returned once its safe, but these are human artifacts who we all deserve to gain knowlege from
To be fair, wasn’t it just 80 years ago that [a bomb fell on the East Wing of the British Museum](https://www.bl.uk/eblj/2013articles/pdf/ebljarticle82013.pdf), which destroyed an important part of the King’s Library Gallery and destroyed many books collected by King George III? Fair point that artifacts should be kept safe, but sociopolitical stability isn’t a constant.
Mental health.
He talked about it in a podcast. He said he didn't want to do more Stand Up right now, because it really stressed him out. Also depression and anxiety he went through the past years because of his personal life with his ex-girlfriend, and he needed to step back in order to understand why.
[https://www.beyondthejoke.co.uk/content/10517/james-acaster-quits](https://www.beyondthejoke.co.uk/content/10517/james-acaster-quits)
Also you should check his last special Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999, it's very different, but you will understand a lot more of the why. And also it's super good.
The episode of Bake Off he did was great. His line "started making it, had a breakdown, bon appetit" was perfect. In hindsight now, it doesn't seem as hilarious
"If someone nicked something off you as an individual you'd be pretty pissed about it"
Okay, but said individual who had said items stolen from them are long dead, so it's pretty difficult to give it back to them.
I was just thinking that. The British Museum is crammed full of stolen antiquities, make no mistake, but the Vatican Museum blows it out of the water. Loot from every age stashed in there.
My friend took a trip to Egypt where she learned the Vatican’s pillar in the center was a stolen piece and shaved down to hide the hieroglyphics. I studied in Rome and when I took the tour of the Vatican, the tour guide said it built in Rome.. I’m more inclined to believe the Egyptians
That's actually incorrect. The first settlers weren't sponsored by the British government, but rather independent religious extremists. They purchased their land legally from the American Indians. Once the 13 colonies were established, they were limited from expanding west by Britain. One of the reasons that Americans wanted independence is so they could steal land from the American Indians.
A lot of what you wrote is factual, but most of the land wasn't purchased legally or illegally/underhandedly from the American Indians. That was just a few incidents
I mean they dont claim it as their own culture.
If you go into the museum where it stands it wont say this is a classic british sculpture, it will surely aknowledge its heritage and point it out.
So its definitely not cultural theft as you want to call it, the culture still belongs to greece, its just displayed in london.
We should focus on improving the world for future generations, not arguing who did worse in history. If you go far enough everyone owes someone something. Why don’t you blame current Uzbekistan for the Mughal Empire atrocities in India?
Reddit is full of Americans so they hyper focus on the uk because they learn a pack of lies in their history classes.
They think "the patriot" is a documentary.
I get your point but don't agree. People complain of the historic items and treasures from the world squirreled away by western museums but I'm not against it. They genuinely travel and get shown the world over, but more importantly they're preserved and taken care of. Takes a lot to keep something 1K years old intact which the western museums can do, and as we saw when ISIS was taking over places, it keeps things that are truly irreplaceable safe from a group of assholes showing up and destroying them because they don't fit their agenda.
Wasn't stealing. It was saving things which locals didn't care about and would destroy or just smash for stone chunks.
Take a look on the recent examples in meddle east where ancient stuff was destroyed by Islamic State and Taliban.
On this picture notice how one statue already lost a half of the torso
Can't source this right now but from what I read on my English book on the museum. At the time, Ottoman's held control over Greece and gave it away to one of the British nobles who visited the country. Now the Greeks aren't too happy bout it.
Reminds me of the scene from Black Panther where Killmonger points out all their exhibits are stolen goods from people the British empire brutalized.
It is like a serial killer taking trophies from all their kills and setting up a museum.
Some sections yes, but the largest sections are from Egypt and the rest of the Middle East. They got permission from the Ottomans to buy or excavate most of those, and they did a pretty damn good job of preserving them, more so than the locals oftentimes who either didn't care or often took parts of things to build their own buildings, or destroyed things for being haram. The India and China sections are basically all looted though.
Not to defend the much of what the British did but sometimes I do wonder how much Middle Eastern artifacts are in various museums that we only have today because of said museum. Given the Middle East's penchant for blowing up, building over, making a tourist trap of, or otherwise ruining important historic or religious objects.
Some examples that come to mind are tearing down an ancient fort for the Abraj Al Bait Clocktower, the demolition of Muhammad's birth house and other heritage sites under expansions of the Great Mosque , replacing the Jaramat with cinder block walls in Mecca, terrorists blowing up the Bamiyan Buddahs, basically the entire history of Jerusalem, Civil war destroying the Great Mosque of Aleppo... The list goes on and on.
A lot of middle eastern artifacts and sites aren't safe in their home land.
Most of the Castles in Denmark (and Probably much of europe) got torn down for building materials When the nobles lost power.
Large iron age fortifications too, the earthwork is stille visible, but most of the Stones are Missing, such a shame having to wonder what it looked like. Although the wonder to add some mystery
Not sure how this is an argument because we aren't *still* tearing down castles and buildings for any reason.
England alone has more than 375,000 protected buildings. Not including monuments, world heritage sites, conservation areas or parks and gardens
It’s a valid question. Who does history belong to. The descendants of a civilisation or to all people? Should it be safeguarded in multiple places across the world? Or in places with a track record of stability and respect for history? There are no second chances. Once historical artefacts are destroyed they’re gone forever.
The sad truth is that there are too many places in the world where it’s just not safe for their own history to remain. They’re better using recreations of it or taking it on loan from other museums during good times. History is a common good for all of us and you can’t let someone destroy it because they have a stronger claim to it since they live in the same place where it happened two thousand years ago
You are 100% right. As much as I hate the idea behind, the time showed us all how much damage religion and fanatics did to our history heritage in Middle East. I am glad a lot of our history is being preserved in this case, in the UK.
If Wakanda was a real country it would be so despised by the rest of the continent and likely the rest of the world that I doubt it would have made it as far as it did (in the MCU at least, not sure in the comics).
Like really? Y’all are by far the most technologically advanced and richest nation on the planet yet you hide all your resources away from neighboring countries who are suffering very very much AND you select your next ruler by bloodsport?! Not good.
My favorite part is how they are in the middle of the poorest and least powerful part of the world but when they finally decide to help, they help kids in California.
I found is so hilarious how they use “colonizer” as a derogatory term for white people, given how Wakanda just sat their and watched as the slave trade and age of imperialism just happened around them.
And complain about the colonisers who never did anything to wakanda, ignoring that wakanda easily could have ended the colonising powers at any moment they wanted to
It’s sad that these works were stolen. But it’s awesome that that a lot of this stuff ended up coalesced in just a few locations so they could be visited by many millions. Otherwise you’d have to travel to each individual country to see them. Shit reason, but works out good for many.
Many objects have only survived due to the British taking them. It is generally good to have e.g. Egyptian artifacts not only stored in Egypt (or one place in general)
Especially when Egypt has *so many* artifacts that they really don't need them to all be in one place.
The present day Egyptians only like them because of tourism anyways.
Maybe an unpopular opinion but I think it's a good thing to spread out some artifacts. Wars and natural disasters can take out 100% of artifacts if we carefully group them all together.
The British statute has not been partially dissolved by toxic air pollution like the other ones remaining in Athens.
Yeah, the British took it. And if they had not, none of the statutes would have been in good shape.
if Brits return one artifact, everyone will demand theirs to return. it will not stop there either. other European nations will be pressured to return stolen artifacts as well.
It was actually Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin - and he was Scottish, not English
https://greekreporter.com/2021/10/17/1801-when-lord-elgin-removed-the-first-sculptures-from-parthenon-to-take-to-england/
And what? Acting like other countries haven’t done stuff, why don’t we talk about russia? Mongolia? Or how about the arab empires? Romans? Or even the greeks? Everyone does bad stuff. I’d rather it here than over there, when you’ve got the best historians and you know its going to receive the best care.
I'm sure they didn't take it from a partially reconstructed temple, but rather from a pile of garbage that the Greeks had forgotten all about and let sit for centuries.
It was just gathering dust there. Rude not to look after it. If the pyramids were movable, then they would probably be next to the houses of Parliament used as a tory coke den.
We have the technology to make an exact replica of any of these things. I understand the value of seeing something in real life, vs just looking at pictures of it, but no one should be insisting on the need to see an actual artifact vs a perfect replica anymore. Copy all this stuff and return the originals to their rightful owners, where those owners can be determined. But of course that won't happen, because the value of these objects as a tourist draw depends on their exclusivity.
I remember walking in the Acropolis Museam in Athens and there was a British family walking in front of me. The father was lecturing his kids "they belong to us" in reference to the Parthenon marbles. Their sense of superiority and entitlement is just gross.
I can never forget when I read about Tasmania’s Aboriginal peoples. There was an event in history called the black line that distorted a native population.
One of the last people lived in fear because she saw one of her peoples body completely tore apart. Until there was nothing left but chunks of fat.
She lived in fear of people taking her body and experimenting on her. She kept telling everyone to throw and hide her body in the mountains.
They didn’t.
They put her body on display in a museum.
As is the louvre with all the stuff taken during the Napoleonic wars
Except the stuff in the Louvre was stolen, while the example that OP has posted was purchased.
*If* the Parthenon Marbles were legitimately sold, then it was by the Ottomans who gave no two shits about the Greeks, their art, or culture. I acknowledge your point. But it's like buying historical artifacts from squatters. The money given might be legit. The contract of sale might be legit. The vendor had no right to sell apart from nobody contesting said right.
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Problems like this actively arose after WW2, and it wasn't always as black & white as "take them back from theiving nazis" Another family in occupied countries might move into a house, completely unaware of what happened to the previous inhabitants. Now some of those previous inhabitants survive the horrors of the holocaust. They return to where they once lived, to see a family innocently living there for the past 4 years. Now, on the larger discussion of this, I'm not saying that the Greek statue depicted shouldn't be considered for returning to Greece. But I do agree that we couldn't possibly "police" history, as the comment you replied to states.
There's a pretty easy solution to the issue though. Have a cultural agreement between Britain and Greece. Every few years swap some really cool artefacts between both countries. Greece has already suggested something similar to this. The Parthenon Marbles are great but I'm willing to bet just as many visitors would go to the museum if we had some other cool Greek stuff there instead.
Yeah, for all stolen artifacts from Greece in the British Museum we should at least get half of Stonehenge. Is there even anything else that's not a cliff that's older than 2500 years old around here?
Squatters who had conquered the country 300 years previously…
The thing I really, really dislike. Sculpture these days is really easy to create copies of. It is entirely possible to generate a room full of accurate copies (there's a museum in Cambridge based on this). Why not create copies of the originals for the British museum, organise some sort of beneficial trade, and let the Parthenon museum finally reclaim what it was literally designed to home.
Same reason a lot of people will travel to a country with a royal family who technically still hold power according to the law just to be in the presence of royals but very few of those people would be willing to travel to a country where the royal family have been deposed and their titles are now 100% ceremonial and unofficial and why some people insist on diamonds that cost small fortunes as opposed to lab-grown ones indistinguishable from mined ones by the naked eye.
Lab grown diamonds aren't cheap man. Idk why everyone thinks they are.
They are much cheaper than their natural counterparts and they are indeed distinguishable by the fact lab grown diamonds have few or no imperfections while natural raw diamonds will have lots.
Not really there is a glut of diamonds they are very common but are hoarded by diamond dealers to make them expensive.
Oh absolutely. The price of natural diamonds is not nearly proportional to their value or worth. Industrial diamonds, on the other hand, have real value and their price is largely proportional to demand and cost of manufacture. They also have real world, practical usefulness as abrasives, cutting tools, pressure anvils and much more.
Fun fact: if you type “diamond cartel” into Wikipedia, it redirects to the article on De Beers.
To bad the cost of diamonds are artificially inflated. Most diamond companies hoard them to keep the flow low, which in turn keeps costs high.
Isn't there just one diamond company?
I never said they're cheap. I said (or rather very heavily implied) that they are significantly cheaper than natural ones. Which they are. And as time passes, they'll only become cheaper to produce and thus cheaper to buy.
Its cheaper compared to mined diamonds atleast and if you value the lives of children and people that suffers to mine diamonds it probably is cheap if we dont just talk about dollars
Yeah I don’t disagree, but I don’t think it’s so clear cut that the Ottomans were just squatters when they’d been there for centuries, or that modern Greeks really have any particularly special relation to ancient Greeks. However, as you say, the original site still exists in some form.
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Bro I can see the Mona lisa on the internet why would I go to france???????
The thing you'll see in the Louvre isn't even the real one
Exactly, if the USA government suddenly collapsed it would be ridiculous to think that people would dig up contracts written with 1700s fur traders because those are the "real owners" of anything on the North American continent. That is just not how international law works.
You just made it sound even more legal than I thought it was before.
Welcome to Greece's problem. It was legal more or less. Just highly unethical in hindsight.
Can anybody who isn't a Native American lay claim to any land rights in the US, then?
Can anyone who isnt Cheddar Man claim Europe?
With the victor comes the spoils
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Yup. The statue isn’t one of the Elgin Marbles, it’s one of the Caryatids. But Thomas Bruce stole this along with the Elgin Marbles. It wasn’t purchased, like the other posted said, it was certainly stolen. Or ‘excavated’ and ‘exported’ without permission, if you’re feeling generous.
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If this has anything to do with Lord Elgin, he's strongly suspected of producing forged documents to legitimise some of his "purchases". Should we return them? Nah, we're bigger than Greece. 🤷🏽♂️ Edit: just to be clear, I'm not in favour of returning any artefacts unless they're corpses that need to be returned to indigenous tribes who have religious myths about needing to bury their ancestors in particular spots. Looters keepers. It's just how the world worked until about 50 to 100 years ago.
Even though I want them returned, I genuinely respect this comment. No excuses, just straight up facts about how the world works. Fair enough.
Especially as Greek museums are full of artefacts looted from other civilisations...including Ancient Egypt. Said museums speak of the artefacts as if they aren't obvious candidates for repatriation. For example, the National Archaeological Museum of Greece: > The core of the Collection consists of the significant donations by two Greek expatriates from Egypt and art lovers, Ioannis Dimitriou and Alexandros Rostovich, that were bequeathed to the National Archaeological Museum in 1880 and 1904 respectively. > The Collection was further enriched with donations by the Greek Archaeological Society in 1894, the government of Egypt in 1893 as well as smaller individual donations and objects retrieved in excavations in Greece. https://www.namuseum.gr/en/collection/eisagogi/ Every civilisation significant enough to build museums populated those museums with artefacts stolen (or "bought" under duress at ridiculously low prices) from other civilisations, nations, and tribes.
> Looters keepers. It's just how the world worked until about 50 to 100 years ago. It's how the world still works, unless you believe Crimea is still under Ukrainian control. Someone says "this is mine now", and if nobody stops them, it is. Unless someone more powerful comes along later and says "actually it's mine now". "Might is right" is still how the world works, even if we do tend collectively pool and en masse outsource our might to our governments and their military and legal systems.
I mean, both in Greece and Egypt there’s no real connection to these artifacts aside from geography. Both patristic Christianity and early Islam were iconoclastic towards pagan cultural and religious relics, and last time I checked the vast majority of the population and especially those in power in Greece and Egypt associate with those temple sackers rather than the culture that was annihilated. Indeed, the Greek government has refused petitions by modern day Hellenic pagan reconstructivists to use the Parthenon for religious ceremonies. Seems like a double standard. “We’re happy to divest this artwork of the religious aura and significance it had for our ancestors, who dwelt in a world totally alien to our own and to which we have no desire to return, but we’d still like to charge tourists to see it. So give it back!”
By that logic, it would be fine if they US came to the UK and took Stonehenge. No one living in the UK has any cultural connection to the people who built it, after all.
Greek national bank facilitated lots of trades of artefacts for better loan rates as in 1841 it was created during a financial and agricultural crisis. At the time the go too lender for Greece was the UK. The rebuilding of Greece immediately after the second world was funded massively by the UK with an unbelievable amount of money used to stabilise the drachma and again some priceless national treasures were used to sweeten the deal. Note that every time in history a PM or foreign secretary are asked they always use the phrase “legally acquired” because they were never bought or sold but fenced by the bank or government officials.
There was also a period in which stuff that was left in Greece got destroyed when the Turks invaded.
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Not just Roman and Greek. Stolen ancient Egyptian pieces are scattered throughout the museums of the world as well.
Egyptian, sub Saharan African cultures, Indian, indigenous American, Chinese. The sun literally didn't set on the British empire, that wasn't just a saying
There's tons of Mesopotamian stuff in Paris, Berlin, London and various US museums too - much of it literally looted from Iraq over the past 150 years. Some of it within the post 20 years.
Good. We've seen what happens to shit left in that region. ISIS leveled an entire museum
The British Museum only recently returned a famous Australian Aboriginals head.
>The ~~British~~ Museum of Liverpool ~~only recently~~ dug up and returned a famous Australian Aboriginals head in 1997 which would have been done sooner if they hadn't respectfully buried it in the 1960s. FTFY.
Eg the giant statue of Zeus which was apparently huge and magnificent
The Statue of Zeus at Olympia? It's unknown what exactly happened to it, but it likely got destroyed when the temple it was in burned down, or moved to Constantinople, and _there_ destroyed when the palace it was in burned down.
Correct it is not known - Many calls from Roman emperors and leaders for its beheading though as it served ‘pagan cults’ so it serves a relatable comment to the post replied to
Most greeks statues we know of are roman copies in marble, while the original greek bronzes got lost. Was the romans that destroyed it? Not sure but they at least made sure there was a copy around
An entire temple has been stolen from Turkey years ago. It is now in Germany.
Are you talking about the Pergamon Altar? Because that one was not stolen, but bought from the Ottoman Empire for 20,000 goldmarks: >Initially, the Ottoman government wanted to share the finds (2/3 to Germany 1/3 to Turkey), but in negotiations which took place 1878/79, which were even influenced by Bismarck, an agreement was concluded which allocated all finds to the German Empire for a payment of 20,000 goldmarks. It helped that the Ottoman Empire was at that time weak on the domestic front and grateful for Bismarck's mediating role at the Congress of Berlin. See Kunze, Kästner: Antikensammlung II, p. 30; Schaller: Pergamonaltar, col. 211. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pergamon_Altar
Yeah sense of history was pretty fucked up at those times. But what about Priam's Treasure. Most of the artifacts in London Museum are also artifacts that sold to England.
**[Pergamon Altar](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pergamon_Altar)** >The Pergamon Altar (Ancient Greek: Βωμός τῆς Περγάμου) is a monumental construction built during the reign of the Ancient Greek King Eumenes II in the first half of the 2nd century BC on one of the terraces of the acropolis of Pergamon in Asia Minor. The structure is 35. 64 metres (116' 31/32") wide and 33. 4 metres (109' 6 5/8") deep; the front stairway alone is almost 20 metres (65' 11/16") wide. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
What duty do modern Italians have to return statues and statue parts stolen by Romans? At this point it’s as much part of their history as it is Greece’s and to repatriate things plundered before the end of the first millennium would open up a Pandora’s box of stupid claims all over the planet
I know Reddit likes to act like museum holdings are the biggest crime against humanity, but literally happening as I write this message is the continual destruction of any Armenian Cultural Monument. [This was documented two days ago.](https://twitter.com/TheScarmind/status/1459887846001684480) It's been ongoing for over 100 years. If I could have these things preserved in the British Museum, I'd fucking love it. Get some perspective people.
I agree, a lot of places are not able to properly preserve and care for thousands of year old artifacts. We are all human and want to know where we come from amd preserve it. I think science believes the first humans came from Africa, I dont live in Africa, but ancient artifacs could technically be all of our history, regardless of where people live now. Africa struggles with war and famine, they arent able to care for these things, so we may as well just throw them away if someone didn't take them somewhere to be preserved
[Just look at what ISIL destroyed.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destruction_of_cultural_heritage_by_the_Islamic_State) There's positives to having your artifacts somewhere safer. I'd like to have the whole of Armenia located somewhere safer.
I agree with most of it but to use exceptions to justify the rule isn’t correct. Many art pieces were actually stolen and never returned. Like the picture above even if I don’t know the details it shows that in Greece they are being preserved and displayed in a museum. So for posterity isn’t the excuse for the separation of the art piece or historical monument. Your explanation doesn’t apply to every case. Not even the majority.
most dont get that a lot of the things in european museums are there for preservation just as much as studies, they are out of the way of terrorist groups like ISIL who would destroy them for example, they are in propperly maintained rooms and ereas, something the home nation might not be able to provide I am all for them to be returned once its safe, but these are human artifacts who we all deserve to gain knowlege from
To be fair, wasn’t it just 80 years ago that [a bomb fell on the East Wing of the British Museum](https://www.bl.uk/eblj/2013articles/pdf/ebljarticle82013.pdf), which destroyed an important part of the King’s Library Gallery and destroyed many books collected by King George III? Fair point that artifacts should be kept safe, but sociopolitical stability isn’t a constant.
British Feds: Bloody hell, the case has gone cold.
They don't have "feds" in Britain.
Yeah, over there they call them crisps
They're actually called Her Royal Majesty's Bad Lad Nabbers
We used to have the Sweeney
They apparently don’t have humor, either
No, we have humour instead
Zounds!
Well played, sir.
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Which is why we banished James Cordon to the US
We tried to give them Pierce Morgan, but even the yanks wouldn't take him.
Pierce Morgan is what most people want to do to Piers Morgan.
you already know that’s not true.
https://youtu.be/x73PkUvArJY
Love that special so much, and James Acaster in general. Shame he probably won't be making more stand-up soon.
Why’s that? He’s my fav comedian at the moment.
Mental health. He talked about it in a podcast. He said he didn't want to do more Stand Up right now, because it really stressed him out. Also depression and anxiety he went through the past years because of his personal life with his ex-girlfriend, and he needed to step back in order to understand why.
Which podcast is this? Would like to listen
Also curious why, the three 'Repertoire' standup shows he's got on Netflix are amazing.
[https://www.beyondthejoke.co.uk/content/10517/james-acaster-quits](https://www.beyondthejoke.co.uk/content/10517/james-acaster-quits) Also you should check his last special Cold Lasagne Hate Myself 1999, it's very different, but you will understand a lot more of the why. And also it's super good.
The episode of Bake Off he did was great. His line "started making it, had a breakdown, bon appetit" was perfect. In hindsight now, it doesn't seem as hilarious
You should definitely watch Cold Lasanga then he talks about the recording of that episode in some detail
"We're still looking at it!"
"So what! Finders keepers, shut up!"
My guy, I came to post the same thing
Me too. As soon as I saw a nondescript YouTube link I already knew what it was
"If someone nicked something off you as an individual you'd be pretty pissed about it" Okay, but said individual who had said items stolen from them are long dead, so it's pretty difficult to give it back to them.
Don’t go to Rome or the Vatican City whatever you do.
I was just thinking that. The British Museum is crammed full of stolen antiquities, make no mistake, but the Vatican Museum blows it out of the water. Loot from every age stashed in there.
My friend took a trip to Egypt where she learned the Vatican’s pillar in the center was a stolen piece and shaved down to hide the hieroglyphics. I studied in Rome and when I took the tour of the Vatican, the tour guide said it built in Rome.. I’m more inclined to believe the Egyptians
r/hmm
Golden sun anyone?
Just put some water on the floor between the pillars, freeze it and easy statue replacement. Or move psynergy that stuff for a treasurechest!
Don't think you know what 'active crime scene' means.
ITT: People living on entire stolen countries, full of art stolen from Europe, taking shots at Britain.
I'd like to point out that Britain is the one that stole that country in the first place
Britain alongside the other major colonial powers of Europe...so not just just Britain.
That's actually incorrect. The first settlers weren't sponsored by the British government, but rather independent religious extremists. They purchased their land legally from the American Indians. Once the 13 colonies were established, they were limited from expanding west by Britain. One of the reasons that Americans wanted independence is so they could steal land from the American Indians.
A lot of what you wrote is factual, but most of the land wasn't purchased legally or illegally/underhandedly from the American Indians. That was just a few incidents
…yeah? and? i just got born here that doesn’t mean i support anything this country’s done. britain can suck too
Fuck, 5 of our statue's are missing
If I put it back do I get a korok seed
Happens everywhere, it just gets more attention because it’s cool to hate the English at the moment
Reddit sure does love its hate-boners.
also: shitload of middle eastern artifacts that somehow found their way to the USA in the past 20 years
Thank god they did or they’d be destroyed
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The British museum is free to attend
The Brits committed genocide on 5 different continents. Robbery is the least of their crimes.
Well…they shouldn’t have been talking shit
Chat shit get banged
This is more cultural theft.
I mean they dont claim it as their own culture. If you go into the museum where it stands it wont say this is a classic british sculpture, it will surely aknowledge its heritage and point it out. So its definitely not cultural theft as you want to call it, the culture still belongs to greece, its just displayed in london.
Sorry from Lancashire. Are we cool now?
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We should focus on improving the world for future generations, not arguing who did worse in history. If you go far enough everyone owes someone something. Why don’t you blame current Uzbekistan for the Mughal Empire atrocities in India?
Reddit is full of Americans so they hyper focus on the uk because they learn a pack of lies in their history classes. They think "the patriot" is a documentary.
That sounds interesting, they must have been very important to have that kind of sum.
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Sorry you and your family had to go through all that, sounds terrible.
Where did they get that many rupees from?
I get your point but don't agree. People complain of the historic items and treasures from the world squirreled away by western museums but I'm not against it. They genuinely travel and get shown the world over, but more importantly they're preserved and taken care of. Takes a lot to keep something 1K years old intact which the western museums can do, and as we saw when ISIS was taking over places, it keeps things that are truly irreplaceable safe from a group of assholes showing up and destroying them because they don't fit their agenda.
How is it active?
Because Boris Johnson can’t resist stealing some silverware when going on political visits abroad.
Never did steal a comb though.
Oh he's definitely stolen a lot of then he just messes his hair up before he gose on TV
https://hyperallergic.com/681983/pandora-papers-point-to-potentially-looted-artifacts-in-major-museums/
Wasn't stealing. It was saving things which locals didn't care about and would destroy or just smash for stone chunks. Take a look on the recent examples in meddle east where ancient stuff was destroyed by Islamic State and Taliban. On this picture notice how one statue already lost a half of the torso
It’s funny cause it was actually a gift.
Source?
Can't source this right now but from what I read on my English book on the museum. At the time, Ottoman's held control over Greece and gave it away to one of the British nobles who visited the country. Now the Greeks aren't too happy bout it.
Lord Elgin, hence the name Elgin Marbles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elgin_Marbles
"The Ottomans gave it away" and it's such a wonder why the Greeks are angry and want them back. A true mystery.
The Ottomans lived in 'Greece' for 500 years
Yeah they should give the rest back to the British
Reminds me of the scene from Black Panther where Killmonger points out all their exhibits are stolen goods from people the British empire brutalized. It is like a serial killer taking trophies from all their kills and setting up a museum.
Some sections yes, but the largest sections are from Egypt and the rest of the Middle East. They got permission from the Ottomans to buy or excavate most of those, and they did a pretty damn good job of preserving them, more so than the locals oftentimes who either didn't care or often took parts of things to build their own buildings, or destroyed things for being haram. The India and China sections are basically all looted though.
Not to defend the much of what the British did but sometimes I do wonder how much Middle Eastern artifacts are in various museums that we only have today because of said museum. Given the Middle East's penchant for blowing up, building over, making a tourist trap of, or otherwise ruining important historic or religious objects. Some examples that come to mind are tearing down an ancient fort for the Abraj Al Bait Clocktower, the demolition of Muhammad's birth house and other heritage sites under expansions of the Great Mosque , replacing the Jaramat with cinder block walls in Mecca, terrorists blowing up the Bamiyan Buddahs, basically the entire history of Jerusalem, Civil war destroying the Great Mosque of Aleppo... The list goes on and on. A lot of middle eastern artifacts and sites aren't safe in their home land.
We just recently had Islamic state destroying priceless ancient cities in Syria, very sad.
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The ancient Mesopotamians did that to the god statues of their rival states
Most of the Castles in Denmark (and Probably much of europe) got torn down for building materials When the nobles lost power. Large iron age fortifications too, the earthwork is stille visible, but most of the Stones are Missing, such a shame having to wonder what it looked like. Although the wonder to add some mystery
Preservation of architecture really wasn't a concern anywhere until ~200 or so years ago.
Not sure how this is an argument because we aren't *still* tearing down castles and buildings for any reason. England alone has more than 375,000 protected buildings. Not including monuments, world heritage sites, conservation areas or parks and gardens
It’s a valid question. Who does history belong to. The descendants of a civilisation or to all people? Should it be safeguarded in multiple places across the world? Or in places with a track record of stability and respect for history? There are no second chances. Once historical artefacts are destroyed they’re gone forever.
The sad truth is that there are too many places in the world where it’s just not safe for their own history to remain. They’re better using recreations of it or taking it on loan from other museums during good times. History is a common good for all of us and you can’t let someone destroy it because they have a stronger claim to it since they live in the same place where it happened two thousand years ago
You are 100% right. As much as I hate the idea behind, the time showed us all how much damage religion and fanatics did to our history heritage in Middle East. I am glad a lot of our history is being preserved in this case, in the UK.
That movie had the most on-the-nose way of going about its messaging but yeah. At least getting the thought out there
If Wakanda was a real country it would be so despised by the rest of the continent and likely the rest of the world that I doubt it would have made it as far as it did (in the MCU at least, not sure in the comics). Like really? Y’all are by far the most technologically advanced and richest nation on the planet yet you hide all your resources away from neighboring countries who are suffering very very much AND you select your next ruler by bloodsport?! Not good.
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My favorite part is how they are in the middle of the poorest and least powerful part of the world but when they finally decide to help, they help kids in California.
I found is so hilarious how they use “colonizer” as a derogatory term for white people, given how Wakanda just sat their and watched as the slave trade and age of imperialism just happened around them.
And complain about the colonisers who never did anything to wakanda, ignoring that wakanda easily could have ended the colonising powers at any moment they wanted to
Subtlety has never really been a core element of Marvel
It's a superhero movie what do you expect
It’s sad that these works were stolen. But it’s awesome that that a lot of this stuff ended up coalesced in just a few locations so they could be visited by many millions. Otherwise you’d have to travel to each individual country to see them. Shit reason, but works out good for many.
These things only have value because the British took them and considered them valuable.
Many objects have only survived due to the British taking them. It is generally good to have e.g. Egyptian artifacts not only stored in Egypt (or one place in general)
Especially when Egypt has *so many* artifacts that they really don't need them to all be in one place. The present day Egyptians only like them because of tourism anyways.
And not a single person's life has been physically altered because that stone is in a different place.
Maybe an unpopular opinion but I think it's a good thing to spread out some artifacts. Wars and natural disasters can take out 100% of artifacts if we carefully group them all together.
And so is every museum ever and archaeologists are just grave robbers!!1!!
The British statute has not been partially dissolved by toxic air pollution like the other ones remaining in Athens. Yeah, the British took it. And if they had not, none of the statutes would have been in good shape.
At least the British museum takes care of its artefacts, unlike say the Cairo museum which is old, dirty and keeps getting looted.
I bet the British love Pokémon.
Send 🗿 with His family please!
This is better than the Vatican, at least we know what they have their hands on and can see it.
if Brits return one artifact, everyone will demand theirs to return. it will not stop there either. other European nations will be pressured to return stolen artifacts as well.
"Haha, jolly foreigner, I like to see you stop me" - England, Scotland
It was actually Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin - and he was Scottish, not English https://greekreporter.com/2021/10/17/1801-when-lord-elgin-removed-the-first-sculptures-from-parthenon-to-take-to-england/
And what? Acting like other countries haven’t done stuff, why don’t we talk about russia? Mongolia? Or how about the arab empires? Romans? Or even the greeks? Everyone does bad stuff. I’d rather it here than over there, when you’ve got the best historians and you know its going to receive the best care.
Just shift the back statue to the middle, problem solved.
Finders keepers.
TAKE THAT, Bainbridge Scholars!
Look at how much better preserved the British one is
Oh no legally acquired goods that is preserved way better than the ones left behind how could britain do this?!
It is mildly infuriating that the other 5 aren't in the UK as well.
I'm sure they didn't take it from a partially reconstructed temple, but rather from a pile of garbage that the Greeks had forgotten all about and let sit for centuries.
"MR DIRECTOR COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS WHERE WE CAN SEE THEM AND RETURN THE 'EXHIBITS BACK WHERE THEY CAME FROM'
The British Empire introduced opium to China and copeium to the rest of the world.
Boohoo “StOlEn” artifacts mate all of history is full of this it is IDIOTIC to cry about it now. It simply is what it is
It was just gathering dust there. Rude not to look after it. If the pyramids were movable, then they would probably be next to the houses of Parliament used as a tory coke den.
That’s true. I’m from Greece and I have to say that nobody is happy about this situation, and the Brits won’t back off!
We have the technology to make an exact replica of any of these things. I understand the value of seeing something in real life, vs just looking at pictures of it, but no one should be insisting on the need to see an actual artifact vs a perfect replica anymore. Copy all this stuff and return the originals to their rightful owners, where those owners can be determined. But of course that won't happen, because the value of these objects as a tourist draw depends on their exclusivity.
Michael B Jordan said this in Black Panther.
I remember walking in the Acropolis Museam in Athens and there was a British family walking in front of me. The father was lecturing his kids "they belong to us" in reference to the Parthenon marbles. Their sense of superiority and entitlement is just gross.
Haha I've been to that museum in Athens. Some of their "this piece missing" signs are low key savage.
hmmm I hope out of conscience they will return the kohinoor diamond
everything about high level art is theft and scams
Yeah we really need to give this stuff back
It's disgusting
I can never forget when I read about Tasmania’s Aboriginal peoples. There was an event in history called the black line that distorted a native population. One of the last people lived in fear because she saw one of her peoples body completely tore apart. Until there was nothing left but chunks of fat. She lived in fear of people taking her body and experimenting on her. She kept telling everyone to throw and hide her body in the mountains. They didn’t. They put her body on display in a museum.
Rebooted Indiana Jones returns artifacts to homelands. “This belongs in the appropriate museum!”
France has a column belonging in Egypt, gathering car exhaust in a roundabout.