Elgin Marbles

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Monday 2nd March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to debate a subject that has long been of historical interest but has taken on new significance in the current political climate.

The Elgin, or Parthenon, marbles are one of the British Museum’s most notorious artefacts. In the early 1800s, Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, gained access to the temple of the Parthenon and other buildings that comprise the Acropolis in Athens. With a team of assistants, Thomas Bruce removed many items of significant cultural interest, including 57 slabs from the frieze of the Parthenon. The excavation was completed in 1812, and the marbles were eventually sold to the British Government in 1816 and placed in the British Museum.

The legality of the excavations that Elgin performed remains fraught with controversy to this day. At the time of the excavations, Greece was ruled by the Ottoman empire, and the Parthenon itself was used as a military fort by the Ottomans. The vulnerable position that that imperial occupation placed on Greece, coupled with Elgin’s privileged position, made it easier for him take the action that he took in removing the figures, metopes and frieze panels from the Parthenon. Elgin claim to have obtained a firman, or written permit, from the sultan to access the Acropolis in carrying out the removal of sections of the Parthenon frieze, as well as other parts of the Acropolis. Some allege that Elgin bribed the Turkish authorities to obtain permission to enter the Acropolis, while others suggest that the exchange of gifts between Elgin and the sultan was customary at the time, given Elgin’s position as British ambassador to Constantinople.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way; I asked before the debate for her permission to intervene. Does she not agree that the significance of having the Elgin marbles in situ in the British Museum is that that gives a taste of, and indeed encourages people to make the journey to, historically and culturally rich Greece, particularly Athens, to see more, and that this must be part of any discussions regarding any return of the Elgin marbles to the people there?

[Margaret Ferrier]

I agree that many visitors will have enjoyed a visit to the British Museum and marvelled at these fantastic sculptures, but the hon. Gentleman will not be surprised to discover that I believe they should actually be repatriated to Athens where they could be appreciated in full in their original context. However, I thank him for his intervention.

The only record of the firman that we have is an Italian translation of the document, and the veracity of the document remains heavily disputed. Although a Select Committee of the House of Commons eventually voted to purchase the marbles from Elgin in 1816, the stand-out feature of the Committee’s questioning of Elgin was the vagueness of his responses regarding the permission given to take the Parthenon sculptures. According to Geoffrey Robertson QC’s excellent book, “Who Owns History?”, Elgin was unable to produce the firman during the Committee’s consideration of the purchase of the marbles and, astonishingly, told the Committee that he never kept his own personal copy of the permissions he was given.

Those admissions by Elgin himself led many people to denounce his actions in taking the marbles, even among those who supported their purchase by the British Government. Lord Byron was one of the most vociferous critics of Elgin, denouncing his actions in the strongest terms:

“Dull is the eye that will not weep to see

Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed

By British hands, which it had best behoved

To guard those relics ne’er to be restored”.

Elgin’s actions were not the only source of controversy at the time of the sale of the marbles to the British Government. The public’s reaction to Elgin receiving £35,000 from the Government—around £3.5 million in today’s money—was understandably angry. In the same year that the British Government purchased the marbles, a cartoon by George Cruikshank depicted a satirical figure of John Bull purchasing the marbles while his children cried out for bread. That is not the first time that the House of Commons has made decisions that benefit the privileged few at the expense of the many.

Whether or not the firman is authentic and the means used to obtain it were dubious or illegal, the legal position on the marbles has, to date, favoured their retention in the UK. The British Museum Act 1963 is the primary piece of legislation here, and it makes it clear that the objects and collections of the British Museum are held by its trustees. Disposal or selling of objects in the British Museum collection is forbidden except in limited circumstances, which include printed materials where duplicates exist or objects that were illegally looted by the Nazis.

The general principle of that legislation and subsequent amendments to it is designed to protect cultural assets and provide the proper independence between Government and museum trustees. Because the legislation is drawn up in that manner, the Greek Government have been disinclined to put the legal position to the test in international courts. However, there is scope for the British Museum Act to be amended to cover the specific circumstances of the repatriation of the Parthenon marbles. I believe that potential amendments to legislation should form part of a process of mediation and dialogue between the Greek Government and the UK Government regarding the future of the Parthenon sculptures.

I turn to some of the other arguments that are often used to justify the Elgin marbles staying in Britain. Those who argue for retention of the marbles use cultural preservation as a key support. Their argument, encapsulated in the universal museum declaration, effectively places immediate cultural preservation above considerations of the circumstances in which treasures and other artefacts of major cultural significance were acquired. Some go as far as to suggest that Elgin’s actions were heroic and that the marbles would have been destroyed had he not acted in the way that he did by bringing them to Britain.

I have some sympathy with the idea that, had they not been acquired by museums outwith their countries of origin, many of the world’s cultural treasures would have been lost. Sadly, we have seen some despicable acts of cultural vandalism in recent years. In Syria, we have seen Daesh’s wanton destruction of parts of Palmyra, the great mosque of Aleppo and the old city of Damascus, which are just a few of the culturally significant sites that have suffered in that brutal conflict. But to compare what has happened in Syria with the proposed repatriation of the Elgin marbles would be to compare apples and oranges. The parts of the Parthenon frieze that have been retained in Greece have survived two world wars, a civil war, a military dictatorship and bankruptcy of the Greek state.

Regardless of views on whether the marbles should be returned to Greece or remain in Britain, it is reasonable to suggest that they would be preserved and secured for many years to come. Both Greece and the UK can offer outstanding museum facilities to showcase the marbles, and the new Acropolis Museum has already demonstrated how that would work in practice. The argument on cultural preservation comes down to one question: artistically, does it make sense for the Parthenon marbles to be reunited, placing them in one location where they could be appreciated and admired the world over? That is not only the right thing to do; it would enable the marbles to be appreciated in the original context in which they were sculpted.