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The Parthenon Marbles: the Case for Reunification

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The Parthenon Marbles: the Case for Reunification The Parthenon Marbles The Parthenon Marbles The Case For Reunification CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS Preface by Nadine Gordimer with essays by Robert Browning and Charalambos Bouras This edition is dedicated to the memory of James Cubitt RIBA (1914-1983), founder of the British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles. First published as The Elgin Marbles by Chatto & Windus Ltd 1987 First Verso edition published 1997 This edition published by Verso 2008 Copyright Christopher Hitchens 1987, 1997, 2008 ‘Preface’ copyright © Nadine Gordimer 2008 ‘The Parthenon in History’ copyright © Robert Browning 1987 ‘The Restitution Works on the Acropolis Monuments’ copyright © Charalambos Bouras 2008 Photographs in Appendix 3 copyright © Nikos Danilidis All rights reserved The moral rights of the authors have been asserted 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Verso UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG USA: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201 www.versobooks.com Verso is the imprint of New Left Books ISBN-13: 978-1-84467-252-3 ISBN-13: 978-1-78663-182-4 (US EBK) ISBN-13: 978-1-78663-181-7 (UK EBK) British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress Contents Preface to the 2008 Edition Nadine Gordimer Introduction to the 2008 Edition Christopher Hitchens Foreword to the 1997 Edition Christopher Hitchens Foreword to the 1987 Edition Christopher Hitchens The Parthenon in History Robert Browning The Elgin Marbles Christopher Hitchens The Restitution Works on the Acropolis Monuments Charalambos Bouras Appendix 1 The Present Location of the Parthenon Marbles Appendix 2 The Commons Debate 1816 Appendix 3 The Parthenon Gallery in the New Acropolis Museum Index Preface to the 2008 Edition Nadine Gordimer How parts of the Parthenon frieze came to be in England in the first place is an example of imperial arrogance manifest in marble. ‘Wider still and wider shall thy bounds be set’ – not content with claiming sovereignty over other peoples’ countries, the British Empire appropriated the art in which the ethos, history, religious mythology, the fundament of the people is imbued. The ethics of a British national museum, in the early nineteenth century, in buying the heritage of another country without concern of how and by whom it came to be on sale, were evidently countenanced, despite some controversy, in the name of this same imperial arrogance. But that is the past. Restitution now, in the twenty-first century, is on wider (appropriately) than legal grounds, grounds of dishonesty in colonialism justified as the acquisition of art. We should start by ceasing to speak of the ‘Elgin Marbles’. They are not and never were Lord Elgin’s marbles; that is not their provenance. As is so exigently researched and set out in this book, they are sections of the Parthenon marbles that Lord Elgin, British Ambassador to Greece during the late Ottoman regime, had hacked out of the antique frieze in the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens. In terms of origin, the claim is absolute: they belong to Greece. But as representative of the culture of ancient Greece, as the genesis of the ideal of humanism and beauty in art, there is also the argument that the Parthenon frieze belongs to world culture, to all of us who even unknowingly derive something of our democratic aesthetic from it. From that argument derives another: where in the world should such art, universally ‘owned’ in the sense of human development, be displayed? Where will the inspirational sight be available to the majority of us? The answer ‘the British Museum in London’ harks back to that relic of Empire, the assumption that Britain is the mecca of the world; that the sections of the Parthenon frieze shown there can be seen by more people, from more parts of the globe, than is possible anywhere else. I do not know the comparable figures for visitors to Athens and London. I do know, as one among millions of others who live neither in England nor in Greece, that neither great city is a venue for a casual Sunday afternoon cultural outing. For the majority of the world population, both cities are equally unlikely destinations. Even for those fortunate enough to have the means to travel, a choice of either destination is decided by an itinerary: both are ‘abroad’, far away. So whether more people see the Parthenon marbles in isolation from their living context in London, than do others who see them in Athens, is a criterion for the privileged of where they should be. They belong: they are the DNA, in art, of the people of Greece. If they also belong, as they do, to all of us who have inherited such evidence of human creativity as development, and there is no site in our world where the direct experience of seeing them is achievable for everyone, where else should they be but where they were created? One of the reasons, other than the specious one of availability, that is presented by those who demand to keep the Parthenon marbles in the British Museum, is that returning them to their country of origin would begin a forced exodus of foreign treasures from all museums where great ones are held. Certainly this would seem to deny the purpose of art museums: to further appreciation of the universality in diversity of art as profound human expression, in different visions, by different peoples occupying varied environments in past and present times. Setting aside this sweeping conclusion of empty museums, one would accept as reasonable that examples of art from other cultures, objects complete in themselves, not plundered from their essential context but legally purchased – objects that exist in many surviving examples in their countries of origin, could be honourably retained by foreign museums. ‘Objects complete in themselves’ – that is unquestionably a decisive criterion in the case of the Parthenon marbles. The ‘Elgin’ marbles are sections, chapters in stone, excised from a marvel, narrative brutally interrupted, some isolated in the British Museum, others, incomplete in their sequence, in their rightful place in Athens. The magnificent coherence of one of the greatest works of art incredibly still in existence is, as art and in its meaning as a unit, denied and destroyed. The frieze that survived invasions, conquests, the desecration by Christian and Muslim religious regimes, 300 years of rule by another empire (the Ottoman) – this has been torn apart. Fortunately the coherence can and must be restored. The return of the marble chapters of the Parthenon frieze narrative from the British Museum to Greece will be fulfilment for Greece and for world heritage. There is an argument for the retention of great irreplaceable works of artistic genius that is as old, if not older, than that put forward in defence of Lord Elgin. And it has some credence. In many eras and countries, exquisite works have been vandalised in conflicts political and religious, while the conditions of neglect in which some are kept now, endangering their survival, seem to be justification for pillaging them for the benefit of foreign museums that can afford to protect and preserve the works in controlled environments. There they are displayed with pride in halls, complete with labels identifying their significance in the beliefs, arts, social and political organisation of their distant place and time. Continuity of that place and time in the living people of the countries of origin, ofcourse, is ofno consideration to the museum’s directors. On any criteria of ability, facility to preserve and display their own heritage of great works of art as their importance decrees, Greece has created a claim incontestably unmatched. The Parthenon Gallery in the New Acropolis Museum provides a sweep of contiguous space for the 106- metre-long Panathenaic Procession as it never could be seen anywhere else, facing the Parthenon itself high on the Sacred Rock. But there are gaps in the magnificent frieze, left blank. They are there to be filled by an honourable return of the missing parts from the British Museum. Reverence – and justice – demand this. Introduction to The Parthenon Marbles (2008) Christopher Hitchens I can remember, many years ago, reading an appreciation of Sir Karl Popper written by Bryan Magee. Here is roughly what Popper postulated about the mode of argument or disagreement when it is properly conducted. Any two people holding directly opposed positions will only very seldom if ever, if they argue according to strict rules of logic and evidence, succeed in convincing or defeating the other. It does very occasionally happen. (Peter de Vries has a brilliantly amusing example in his novel Slouching Towards Kalamazoo, where the village atheist and the village priest have a debate, and each convinces his rival so utterly that neither one can later be induced to change his mind back again.) But let us admit that it is rare. What happens instead, according to Popper, is that at the end of the debate both speakers still hew to their original positions. But they do not hold them in precisely the same way. It will be noticed, by the objective or disinterested observer, that each view has been respectively modified by the other, even if this is not always quite apparent to the participants. It is now twenty years since I was approached by the (then) British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, and asked to compose a piece of advocacy that was based on a simple appeal to natural justice. The sculpture of the Parthenon had been crudely amputated and pillaged at a time when Greece itself was a powerless Ottoman helot: here was a wrong that could be righted as well as an example of wilful damage that could be repaired.
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