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The Parthenon Sculptures Sarah Pepin

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The Parthenon Sculptures Sarah Pepin BRIEFING PAPER Number 02075, 9 June 2017 By John Woodhouse and Sarah Pepin The Parthenon Sculptures Contents: 1. What are the Parthenon Sculptures? 2. How did the British Museum acquire them? 3. Ongoing controversy 4. Further reading www.parliament.uk/commons-library | intranet.parliament.uk/commons-library | [email protected] | @commonslibrary 2 The Parthenon Sculptures Contents Summary 3 1. What are the Parthenon Sculptures? 5 1.1 Early history 5 2. How did the British Museum acquire them? 6 3. Ongoing controversy 7 3.1 Campaign groups in the UK 9 3.2 UK Government position 10 3.3 British Museum position 11 3.4 Greek Government action 14 3.5 UNESCO mediation 14 3.6 Parliamentary interest 15 4. Further reading 20 Contributing Authors: Diana Perks Attribution: Parthenon Sculptures, British Museum by Carole Radatto. Licenced under CC BY-SA 2.0 / image cropped. 3 Commons Library Briefing, 9 June 2017 Summary This paper gives an outline of the more recent history of the Parthenon sculptures, their acquisition by the British Museum and the long-running debate about suggestions they be removed from the British Museum and returned to Athens. The Parthenon sculptures consist of marble, architecture and architectural sculpture from the Parthenon in Athens, acquired by Lord Elgin between 1799 and 1810. Often referred to as both the Elgin Marbles and the Parthenon marbles, “Parthenon sculptures” is the British Museum’s preferred term.1 Lord Elgin’s authority to obtain the sculptures was the subject of a Select Committee inquiry in 1816. It found they were legitimately acquired, and Parliament then voted the funds needed for the British Museum to acquire them later that year. They are now held under the terms of the British Museum Act 1963. From the time of the Museum’s acquisition, there have been suggestions that the sculptures be returned to Athens. Greek Government position In October 1983, following support at UNESCO the previous year, the Greek Government made a formal request to the UK Government for their return. The request was formally rejected by the UK in April 1984.2 The Greek Government later made a case for a change in location, rather than a change in ownership. It argued for the return of the sculptures in order to reunite the collection, which would be displayed in a new Acropolis Museum. Its case was set out in a memorandum to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in 2000 as part of the latter’s inquiry into cultural property.3 In May 2015, it was reported that the Greek Government had both sought and rejected advice for taking legal action against the UK for the retrieval of the sculptures. The BBC reported that Greece’s culture minister would pursue “a diplomatic and political approach” instead.4 UK Government position The UK Government’s policy continues to be that “Issues relating to the ownership and management of the Parthenon sculptures are matters for the trustees of the British Museum.”5 British Museum position The Museum’s general position is set out in a letter of 26 March 2015 to address the UNESCO mediation proposal (described below): The British Museum […] is not a government body, and the collections do not belong to the British Government. The Trustees of the British Museum hold them not only for the British people, but for the benefit of the world public, present and future. The Trustees have a legal and moral responsibility to preserve and maintain all the 1 British Museum, The Parthenon Sculptures: Facts and figures [last accessed 2 May 2017] 2 Ibid 3 Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Cultural property: return and illicit trade, 5 June 2000, HC 371-II, Q547-93 and Memorandum submitted by Greek government [last accessed 2 May 2017] 4 Elgin Marbles legal action ruled out by Greece, BBC news, 14 May 2015 [last accessed 2 May 2017] 5 PQ 122460, 19 October 2012 4 The Parthenon Sculptures collections in their care, to treat them as inalienable and to make them accessible to world audiences.6 Earlier, its position had been set out in minutes of evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry of 2000.7 Other issues relating to the Museum as owner and custodian, both of which have provoked criticism, are: • The cleaning of the sculptures in 1938. The detailed evidence of this is presented in a British Museum Paper of 2001.8 • The loan of a sculpture to the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg in 2014.9 UNESCO proposal for mediation with Greece In 2013 UNESCO, at the request of the Greek Government, proposed a process of mediation in relation to the Parthenon sculptures. The process would involve the British Museum, the UK Government and the Greek Government, and would be facilitated by UNESCO.10 In 2015 both the UK Government and the British Museum declined the request. The UK Government stated in its response to UNESCO that: We have seen nothing to suggest that Greece’s purpose in seeking mediation on this issue is anything other than to achieve the permanent transfer of the Parthenon sculptures now in the British Museum to Greece and on terms that would deny the British Museum’s right of ownership, either in law or as a practical reality. Given our equally clear position, this leads us to conclude that mediation would not carry this debate substantially forward.11 The British Museum in its own response explained: The Trustees would want to develop existing good relations with colleagues and institutions in Greece, and to explore collaborative ventures, not on a government-to- government basis but directly between institutions. This is why we believe that UNESCO involvement is not the best way forward. Museums holding Greek works, whether in Greece, the UK or elsewhere in the world, are naturally united in a shared endeavour to show the importance of the legacy of ancient Greece. The British Museum is committed to playing its full part in sharing the value of that legacy for all humanity.12 6 Sir Richard Lambert, Response of the Trustees of the British Museum to the request put forward by the Greek Government that they should enter into a process of mediation, facilitated by UNESCO, on the subject of the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum, 26 March 2015 [last accessed 2 May 2017] 7 Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Cultural property: return and illicit trade, 8 June 2000, HC 371-ii, Q549-651 [last accessed 2 May 2017] 8 Ian Jenkins, Cleaning and Controversy: The Parthenon Sculptures 1811-1939, BM Occasional Paper 146, 2001 [last accessed 2 May 2017] 9 Elgin Marbles: British Museum lends statue to Russia, BBC news, 5 December 2014 [last accessed 2 May 2017] 10 British Museum, The Parthenon Sculptures: Facts and figures [last accessed 2 May 2017] 11 Dept for Culture, Media and Sport and Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum: letter to Assistant Director-General for Culture, UNESCO, 26 March 2015 [last accessed 2 May 2017] 12 Sir Richard Lambert, Response of the Trustees of the British Museum to the request put forward by the Greek Government that they should enter into a process of mediation, facilitated by UNESCO, on the subject of the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum, 26 March 2015 [last accessed 2 May 2017] 5 Commons Library Briefing, 9 June 2017 Campaign groups In the UK, the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles13 and Marbles Reunited14 are both campaigning for the return of the Parthenon sculptures. 1. What are the Parthenon Sculptures? The Parthenon sculptures consist of the decorative parts of the temple erected to the Greek goddess Athena in the 5th century BC on the Acropolis in Athens. Three main groups of sculpture have survived: the pediment sculptures, the metopes and the frieze.15 Of the surviving Parthenon sculptures, the British Museum has approximately half.16 The rest are either in Athens or in one of the following institutions: • Musée du Louvre, Paris (one frieze slab, one metope, fragments of the frieze and metopes, a head from the pediments) • Vatican Museums (fragments of metopes, frieze and pediments) • National Museum, Copenhagen (two heads from a metope in the British Museum) • Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (three fragments of frieze) • University Museum, Würzburg, Germany (head from a metope in the British Museum) • Glyptothek, Munich, Germany (fragments of frieze)17 A museum in Palermo, Italy, also has a fragment of frieze which was loaned to Greece in September 2008 and returned to Italy in 2010.18 The sculptures and fragments from the Parthenon which are now exhibited in the British Museum consist largely, but not exclusively, of the collections brought to England by Lord Elgin in the early nineteenth century.19 1.1 Early history The present Parthenon, the temple of Athena, was completed in 432 BC. It was built on the Acropolis in Athens, replacing the previous temple which had been destroyed during the Persian invasion of 480 BC.20 In the 3rd century BC the temple was damaged by fire and restored a little. In the 6th century AD it was converted into a church/cathedral. Later, under Ottoman rule, it was turned into a mosque.21 In 1687, during the Turkish-Venetian War, the Parthenon was being used to store gunpowder for the Turkish garrison when it was hit by a canon ball, igniting the gunpowder and causing an explosion that significantly damaged the building and its 13 British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles [last accessed 2 May 2017] 14 Marbles Reunited [last accessed 2 May 2017] 15 Jessi Stumpfel et al, Digital Reunification of the Parthenon
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