A tale of ambition, adultery, shipwreck, war and corruption: If you thought the history of the ‘Elgin marbles’ was just about a load of dusty old stones, think again. This film by CGTN Europe’s award-winning documentary unit unearths the fascinating and colourful story behind one of the world’s longest running cultural property disputes, a bitter argument which has bedevilled relations between Britain and Greece for more than two centuries and remains unresolved to this day.
#AGreatBritishTheft #ParthenonMarbles #Parthenon #WorldHeritageDay
#AGreatBritishTheft #ParthenonMarbles #Parthenon #WorldHeritageDay
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00:16The Parthenon Temple in Athens is one of the greatest monuments of European history.
00:25Built two and a half thousand years ago, it sits on top of the Acropolis, the sacred hill that still
00:32dominates the Greek capital.
00:37It was dedicated to the goddess Athena, and one of its great glories was the marble sculptures of gods and
00:48men that adorned its outside.
00:55But two centuries ago, this ambitious British aristocrat and diplomat, Lord Elgin, hired workmen to remove half the surviving marbles.
01:05And the Greeks still want them back.
01:11It is the body of the Parthenon that needs the pieces back. If I cut your hands and your legs,
01:20wouldn't you like them back?
01:23Money troubles forced Lord Elgin to sell the marbles, and for more than 200 years they've been held here in
01:31the British Museum in London, which calls itself a Universal Museum.
01:37Was it a great British theft?
01:42Lord Elgin plundered, stole the marbles from the Parthenon, so what he transported up the Thames to London was in
01:52fact stolen goods, and they are still stolen goods in the possession of the British Museum.
02:01Where is the proof of this theft? There is not one single source on the Greek side that says, oh
02:07no, it was a theft, and I have the proof here about the theft.
02:11Should the Parthenon and its sculptures be reunited in Athens?
02:18How on earth can you argue that you serve better humanity by having it broken instead of having it unified?
02:49This is a dispute that's been inherited across generations.
02:54To understand it, and why it means so much to today's Greeks, you have to go back to Europe's classical
03:01past.
03:05Starting with this ancient quarry on the edge of Athens.
03:12It may not look much, but for centuries pure white marble was dug out of here.
03:18You can still see the marks left by the workman's gouges.
03:24Two and a half thousand years ago, that prized marble was used to create the buildings on the Acropolis.
03:33This is the old road that was used to transport the pentelic marble, named after the mountain, down to Athens.
03:43Just a few kilometers away, on the same mountain, the same marble is still being quarried.
04:03The ancient Greeks worked by hand, using wedges and chisels.
04:08Today, a diamond wire cuts the marble out of the mountain.
04:13It still takes many hours, and there's huge pride in the continuing tradition.
04:22So many pieces of marble coming out of the quarry won't be this big.
04:26They'll be smaller pieces.
04:29Yes, normally our marble blocks are up to 3-3.5 meters long.
04:35But in cases that we have so big blocks like this one, we keep them aside in order to use
04:41them for the restoration of Parthenon.
04:44There must be an extraordinary feeling that you're rebuilding the Parthenon.
04:48Yes, yes. We feel like ancient Greeks, just for a little.
04:53You're a young Greek, not an ancient Greek.
04:55Yes.
05:01Two and a half thousand years ago, the heavy rock was lowered by hand and loaded on carts for the
05:0815-kilometer journey to Athens,
05:11where it was taken back up the sacred hill, the Acropolis, to be turned into architectural and artistic masterpieces that
05:19still inspire awe today.
05:23The first of those great works you meet is the Propylaia, the gateway to the Acropolis.
05:35And its crowning achievement, the Parthenon.
05:40It was designed to be seen from this angle by the ancient Athenians as they arrived on their annual religious
05:47recession.
05:49The original marble has weathered to the color of honey.
05:55The new, shaped by laser to fit, still brilliant white.
06:02But what inspired the ancient Greeks to build it in the first place?
06:07The answer is a mix of religion and geopolitics.
06:1725 centuries ago, the powerful Persian Empire twice attacked Greece, in the process destroying the existing buildings on the Athenian
06:27Acropolis.
06:30Athens turned its leading role in fighting off the Persians into an empire of its own.
06:38Athens.
06:39That gave it the wealth to build a new temple complex on the Acropolis.
06:43With the Parthenon dedicated to the city's patron goddess, Athena, as its centerpiece.
06:53So the Parthenon was a statement of Athenian cultural pride.
07:00Today, it generates millions in revenue from the tens of thousands who visit every day.
07:08But one of Greece's top archaeologists is intensely conscious of its original purpose and cultural value.
07:16She gave us rare access inside the temple.
07:23For someone who's never been here before, this is just extraordinary to walk in here.
07:30I mean, wow.
07:32Do you still feel like that after all of these years?
07:35Because you've been coming here since you were a little girl, I'm guessing.
07:38Do you still feel...
07:39The same.
07:39Do you?
07:40I mean, it's just...
07:42It is.
07:43Just absolutely magnificent.
07:46It's always the same, the same feeling for me too.
07:52It's still regarded as a supreme architectural and artistic achievement.
07:58One of the crowning glories of European and global heritage.
08:11Inside it housed a huge gold and ivory statue of Athena.
08:16That disappeared many centuries ago.
08:22Outside, huge sculptures of the gods sat in the gables or pediments.
08:31They show scenes of Athena, her father Zeus, and her rival Poseidon, with whom she battles for possession of Athens.
08:45Along the sides, Metops, scenes from Greek myth, of young men fighting centaurs, half horse, half men in a drunken
08:55wedding brawl.
08:56And battling Amazons, female warriors.
09:08Inside the covered colonnade, a hundred and sixty-meter-long frieze, showing the people of Athens themselves, taking part in
09:16their great four-yearly festival,
09:19recessing towards the Acropolis, bringing sacrificial gifts for the goddess.
09:28It was the first time ordinary human rather than divine figures had been portrayed this way.
09:35But the relationship between the building and its sculptures is at the heart of the ongoing dispute.
09:45All the sculptures were originally brightly painted.
09:53Were the sculptures part of the structure, or were they an add-on?
09:59They form part of the structure.
10:01They are an integral part of the structure.
10:05This is how it is, and how we consider them, not as isolated pieces, but as part of the monument.
10:21The Parthenon was later turned into a Christian church, and later again into a mosque and ammunition store by the
10:29conquering Ottoman Turks in the 15th century.
10:33In the late 17th century, an army from Venice, besieging the Acropolis, fired a mortar shot from this hill.
10:41It hit the ammunition dump, blowing out much of the south side and the roof.
10:48After two millennia, the Parthenon had gone from dilapidation to ruin.
10:55The Ottomans rebuilt the mosque using the rubble, and they still controlled Greece when Lord Elgin's workmen arrived just over
11:04a hundred years later, at the beginning of the 19th century.
11:09How many did Elgin take away?
11:13He took 75 metres of the original 160 metres long frieze.
11:21He took 15 of the original 92 metops.
11:26And he took 19 of the figures from the east and west pediments.
11:38Lord Elgin was a British aristocrat from Scotland, with an ancient family history and a grand family home, Broomhall House,
11:48near the Scottish capital, Edinburgh.
11:50He had ambitions to redevelop it in the classical Greek style, which was fashionable at the time, an expensive project
11:58which he couldn't afford.
12:04It was only the immense wealth of his wife, Mary, that made it possible.
12:12A pivotal fact in this story.
12:18This American author has studied the letters they wrote to each other.
12:23They were neighbours, and I think it began as a love story.
12:28When you read the letters of both of them, it does confirm that they were quite crazy about each other
12:35in the beginning.
12:36But it was also the typical marriage of nobility with title meets great fortune.
12:44So Elgin's family, they could trace their heritage back to William the Conqueror.
12:53I mean, they were a family of great lineage, but they had no money.
12:58And so, by the time Elgin was a grown-up, there was absolutely no money whatsoever.
13:07Mary's family was, of course, very ambitious for her, and marrying into a titled family was very prestigious.
13:15So, in addition to the fact that they seemed to really like each other, it was that perfect marriage of
13:23money and title.
13:25But she was the money.
13:27Oh, she was the money. She was all the money.
13:30By the time she met our Elgin, he was already greatly in debt.
13:38In 1799, international politics presented Lord Elgin with a huge opportunity to get access to the finest classical Greek art
13:48and to advance his career.
13:51He was appointed British ambassador to the Turkish Ottoman Empire in Constantinople, present-day Istanbul.
14:00The French under Napoleon Bonaparte had invaded Egypt, which was then part of the Ottoman Empire.
14:07But the British Navy defeated a French fleet off the Egyptian coast, ultimately forcing Napoleon to abandon Egypt, and the
14:15Ottomans were very grateful.
14:21Professor Adam Eldon is an expert in Ottoman history.
14:27Professor Adam Eldon is an expert in Ottoman history.
14:39Professor Adam Eldon and Napoleon, at the time Bonaparte, were the British.
14:45So, Elgin came to Istanbul in the midst of this very powerful and very necessary alliance between what was called
14:54the Sublime Port, the Ottoman government,
14:56and Britain, in defence of the interests of a kind of terrified Ottoman Empire, not knowing what they were going
15:06to do against this sudden aggression in Egypt.
15:11So, with grateful Ottoman hosts, who controlled access to the Acropolis, and with the help of Mary's fortune, Elgin hired
15:20artists to make paintings, drawings, and plaster models of the sculptures on the Parthenon.
15:27But they didn't just copy and paint, they went much further.
15:32Well, they used scaffolding, they used pulleys, they used robes, they sewed off the parts of the sculptures, and then
15:45they created them and they shipped them to Great Britain.
15:54The Irish artist Edward Dodwell was on hand to witness and record as some of Elgin's men went from making
16:01copies to taking the original sculptures,
16:05and not just from the surrounding rubble, but prizing them off the walls of the Parthenon itself, actions which still
16:12drive Greek anger today.
16:15They only authorised his team to make castes and take any stones that were fallen on the ground.
16:23If he was allowed to take the originals, why would he ask for authorisation to make castes in the first
16:29place?
16:33Today, Athens' port of Piraeus is one of Europe's busiest.
16:40For Lord Elgin's men, it was conveniently close, just a few kilometres from the Acropolis.
16:49After the sculptures were removed from Athens, they were brought here to the port.
16:55And so began the long journey from Greece, ultimately back to England.
17:01It was also the start of the gathering storm about their removal from Athens, and the voyage wasn't without incident
17:10either.
17:13The Greek coast can be hazardous today, even with modern ships and navigation equipment.
17:23Elgin discovered its dangers when he used a ship he'd bought, the Mentor, to transport one of the multiple consignments
17:31of marbles.
17:32The drama unfolded, barely a day's sailing south of Athens.
17:40Local boat owner Vangelis is taking us to the spot where it happened, on a stormy night in 1802.
17:54Not long after leaving harbour, the vessel was hit by a storm, and took shelter from the strong southerly winds,
18:04not far from the island of Kithara.
18:07But it was shipwrecked, and the 17 crates of artefacts were lost here, in 23 metres of water.
18:20Elgin hired specialist sponge divers from neighbouring islands to recover the marbles.
18:27Without the help of modern equipment, it took them two years to bring up the heavy objects.
18:34Greek archaeologists are still working on the wreck.
18:42The sculptures Elgin's divers recovered were kept safe at a nearby small fort.
18:49Before being shipped to the island of Malta, and stored for several more years until the risk of the French
18:56seizing them had gone.
19:03Instead, it was Lord Elgin himself who was captured.
19:07During a brief outbreak of peace, he and Lady Elgin headed home through France.
19:12But war broke out again, and French ruler Napoleon took him prisoner,
19:17with huge consequences for his marriage, his finances, and the fate of the marbles.
19:24Elgin was imprisoned in France.
19:28He was imprisoned at this horrible fortress at Lourdes.
19:33And it was dank and damp and just awful.
19:38So, meanwhile, Mary was running around Paris, trying to make influential French connections to get him released.
19:46And at the time, of course, women did not run around by themselves at night.
19:54It just wasn't done.
19:55So, in order to meet with Frenchmen, and we're talking about Napoleon Talleyrand,
20:01but she was escorted by Elgin's friend, Robert Ferguson.
20:05And eventually, like most men, Ferguson fell in love with Mary.
20:11And he wrote a letter declaring his love, which somehow got into the hands of Lord Elgin.
20:20And Mary was already out of love with Elgin, tired of being his breeding machine and pocketbook,
20:28and she started to return Robert Ferguson's affections.
20:32And so, Elgin filed for divorce, which was a very big thing at the time.
20:39Mary's father made sure that he didn't get any of her money, and so he's broke.
20:46He still has his ambitions, but he has no money.
20:51In 1812, more than a decade after Elgin's workmen began removing the marbles from the Parthenon,
20:58the final consignment sailed up the Thames into London.
21:04Elgin had serious money troubles, and his best hope was to sell the marbles to the government.
21:10So the arrival of the cargo gave him new hope.
21:16In a letter to a friend in Scotland in June 1812, he wrote,
21:20I am happy to say all my marbles are safe arrived, so that nothing is now in the way of
21:27an arrangement with government.
21:30His critics today take a dim view of his motivation.
21:35He presented himself as someone who cared about improving the arts in Great Britain.
21:44But the truth is, someone who wants to improve the arts makes a donation,
21:49does not ask the state to buy his collection.
21:57And not only he asked for the government to purchase the marbles he had brought to the UK,
22:06but he also haggled over the price.
22:12But even at the time, many in Britain called him a plunderer and a thief.
22:18Including Britain's most famous Romantic poet, Byron, who expressed his outrage in two poems.
22:25In one, the goddess Athena talks of Elgin's hated name.
22:31In the other, Byron addresses the Parthenon itself.
22:35Dull is the eye that will not weep to see thy walls defaced,
22:40thy mouldering shrines removed by British hands.
22:53So it took four more years for Elgin to sell the marbles.
22:59He asked the government for £75,000, several million dollars in today's money.
23:06In response, Parliament set up a special committee to investigate the acquisition of the sculptures,
23:14and to find out if they were worth what he was asking.
23:20Did he have written permission to remove sculptures from the Parthenon?
23:26Had he gone beyond what was allowed?
23:29Had he used bribery to get what he wanted?
23:33How Elgin answered the politicians' questions is recorded in their original report.
23:40We found a copy of it in this museum in the heart of London's legal district.
23:45Perhaps, ironically, it's part of the collection of Sir John Soane, a contemporary of Elgin's,
23:51who stuck to only acquiring copies of ancient sculptures.
23:56It's a fragile 200-year-old document.
23:59This is the famous, this is the famous book.
24:02It is indeed.
24:03We're not, I'm not allowed to touch it.
24:04No, no, I'll be turning the pages.
24:06You're, you're, you're in charge. Okay, I promise I won't touch it.
24:10The report is a window into Elgin's mind when he took the marbles.
24:16He insisted he had permission from the Turkish authorities.
24:20Did the permission specifically refer to removing statues, he was asked.
24:27No was Elgin's answer.
24:30It was executed by the means of those general permissions granted.
24:38Those general permissions were contained in a document written by a senior Ottoman official in Constantinople,
24:46giving instructions to a local official in Athens.
24:49The key part said that Elgin's men should be allowed to measure, copy and excavate among the rubble.
24:58And they should not be stopped when they wish to take away any pieces of stone.
25:05There was no mention of removing sculptures from the walls of the building itself.
25:11But Elgin insisted.
25:13I was at liberty to remove from the walls.
25:18Elgin could only provide the committee with an English translation of an Italian translation of the original Turkish document,
25:26which has never been found.
25:32What really is important is that the document, the original document does not, I was going to say does not
25:39exist, which is not true, is not to be found.
25:43We don't have it.
25:44We have only a translation into Italian, which is a very common practice because Italian was the lingua franca of
25:52diplomacy in the Levant at the time.
25:55So it's perfectly normal that it should have been translated first into Italian and then into English.
26:03However, the problem is that when you don't have the original, you're not able to check if the translation is
26:10really honest or not.
26:12So my feeling, because I start with the idea that the document did exist, that it was issued,
26:21the problem is that the translation, as far as I can see it, may have been tweaked a little bit,
26:27especially when it came to authorizing Elgin to take any,
26:32as the Italian, any stone and whatever.
26:36I think there was a poetic license, let's say, in the way in which it was translated into Italian,
26:43and therefore communicated to the British and international public.
26:49Lord Elgin plundered, stole the marbles from the Parthenon.
26:55So what he transported up the Thames to London was in fact stolen goods,
27:01and they are still stolen goods in the possession of the British Museum.
27:04He had some kind of permission, didn't he, to remove this stuff from the Parthenon,
27:11and some kind of permission to export it.
27:15The historical belief is that there was some kind of permission to remove,
27:21and some kind of permission to take bits of the Parthenon.
27:24But actually, when you look at it, it doesn't stand the test of scrutiny.
27:29He said he had a permission from the Ottoman ruler, who was an absolute ruler,
27:35and if that absolute ruler had given a direction to the military leader in Athens for the Ottoman Empire,
27:44he would have carried it out.
27:45Yet Elgin felt it necessary to give the military ruler bribes.
27:52But Mario Trubucco, a classical archaeologist who opposes returning the marbles to Greece,
27:59is sure the document existed, and gave Elgin the permission he needed.
28:05Mary Nisbet, the Countess of Elgin, the wife of Lord Elgin,
28:09writes in a private letter to her own parents in 1801.
28:14It gives us the power of taking away anything that we want, et cetera, et cetera.
28:18So there's a lot of evidence that is basically telling us that we have F permission,
28:26and then this permission is also confirmed from the Ottoman side.
28:30There is a memo of 1810 from the Ottoman archives published by Professor Eldam in 2011,
28:39and this memo basically says, at a certain point,
28:42we have verified that image-bearing stones were given to the English, meaning Elgin.
28:50So there is a clear framework of evidence that says that there is a permission,
28:57and that this permission allowed them to do whatever they did.
29:01On the other side, where is the proof of this theft?
29:05There is not one single source on the Greek side that says,
29:09I know, it was a theft, and I have the proof here about the theft.
29:13Elgin told the committee the document was really permission
29:17to do the best deal he could with the local governor in Athens.
29:22So what bargain did they do with local authorities in Athens?
29:28Evidence for that was given to the committee by Elgin's man on the spot,
29:34the Reverend Philip Hunt, who said there had not been much difficulty
29:39persuading the local governor to be cooperative.
29:43Was the governor persuaded with money?
29:46Not money, but presents, said Reverend Hunt,
29:50who explained how the governor's helpful attitude
29:53persuaded him to push for more.
29:58Nowadays, we call that mission creep.
30:01What started as an exercise in copying turned into large-scale removal of the original sculptures.
30:10Elgin justified that by saying he was saving them from further destruction and pilfering,
30:16but he added,
30:17It was no part of my original plan to bring away anything but my models.
30:26Despite some further attacks on Elgin as a vandal and a spoiler,
30:31the committee and parliament backed him.
30:38The government bought the sculptures for half the price Elgin had asked and gave them to the British Museum,
30:45where they've now been for more than 200 years.
31:03You know, there's something magnificent about seeing all of this in this place.
31:11But there's also something desperately uncomfortable.
31:20In that you know so many people feel that it simply shouldn't be here.
31:31The marbles are displayed with the gods at each end and relief sculptures down the sides,
31:37similar to how they were on the Parthenon, but all facing inwards rather than out.
31:44The marbles, which are still in Athens, are represented by plaster casts.
31:50And 28 sculptures are split, part in London and part in Athens.
31:56The Greek government says 60% of all the surviving sculptures are here,
32:02only 40% in the specially built Acropolis Museum in Athens,
32:07but that they should all be sent back there.
32:11The British Museum says it welcomes debate,
32:15but it maintains it's a universal museum, not just a national one,
32:20which means the marbles can be seen and understood next to other cultures.
32:32It says, please take a leaflet to find out more about the controversy
32:37surrounding the Parthenon sculptures, but there aren't any leaflets.
32:42And we wanted to talk to someone from the British Museum, but there's no one available.
32:49It's just me and the marbles.
32:51The British Museum maintain that the museum in Athens and the British Museum are complementary.
32:59And they have a statement on the controversy.
33:02They say the Acropolis Museum allows the Parthenon sculptures that are in Athens,
33:08about half of what survives from the ancient world,
33:11to be appreciated against the backdrop of Athenian history.
33:16The Parthenon sculptures in London are an important representation
33:20of ancient Athenian civilization in the context of world history.
33:27So the argument now is not just about how the marbles were acquired and who they belong to,
33:33but where is the best place for them.
33:36A question that can still divide right outside the British Museum.
33:41They should be in Greece.
33:42They should be in Greece.
33:43If you needed an opinion, they should go back.
33:45We've just been having that discussion.
33:46You're a Londoner. How can you say that?
33:49Because in Greece they know about restoration and conservation and it should go back.
33:54It belongs to Greece.
33:56And it's not safe for the British Museum maybe, is that what you're saying?
33:59It's safe, but...
34:01I disagree.
34:02Oh, there's a disagreement between them.
34:04How lovely.
34:06You think they should stay here?
34:08I do, yes.
34:09I think the repatriation, I mean, where do you stop?
34:14What, you mean they'd have to open the doors and everything would have to be returned?
34:17Well, we could empty the whole museum, couldn't we,
34:19on the basis of you start repatriation of everything that's...
34:23Maybe that's morally right though.
34:26If it wasn't ours, then maybe it should go back.
34:29Maybe.
34:30That's what I would say.
34:31Well, throughout history things have been taken.
34:35Nations have been conquered, civilisations have started and fallen.
34:40I mean, you know, you're looking to rewrite history from the position that you're in now, if you start.
34:52We are on the third floor of the new Acropolis Museum, which was inaugurated in 2009.
35:04The Greeks say this is where the marbles belong, in a purpose-built museum barely 300 metres from the Parthenon.
35:13Its director, Nikolai Stampolidis, took us on a tour.
35:17As you can see, we have these metallic columns.
35:22These are 17, and the distances between them are exactly the distances and the numbers of the columns of the
35:33monument itself.
35:35So, here we have the exact measurements of Parthenon itself.
35:46The sculptures are displayed as they would have been on the Parthenon, in the same dimensions and facing out, but
35:53lower down.
35:55Missing ones in the British Museum are indicated by black dots on plaster casts.
36:01Two hundred years later, the sense of disbelief and outrage at what Elgin's men did is palpable.
36:10Look what they have done.
36:12They have chiseled that, and they have sewn that in order to take it away.
36:22This is... I don't want even to express the words.
36:29You don't have to. You can see it.
36:32Yeah, you can see it. This figure is not there anymore.
36:39They wanted to capture. They wanted to take the beauty to...
36:45To own it.
36:46To own it.
36:48Do you understand those who will say, Elgin came here, and others, and looked upon a monument that was in
37:00ruins,
37:00that had been used to contain gunpowder, and they took them for safety.
37:07Do you accept some semblance of that argument?
37:11What does it mean, safety?
37:14For safekeeping.
37:15Safekeeping of what?
37:17Of the sculptures.
37:19Of the beauty.
37:19Yes.
37:21Of some of the beauty.
37:22Some of the beauty.
37:22Not the monument itself.
37:25No.
37:26The monument is still standing here, 2,005 years after.
37:32And it is the body of the Parthenon that needs the pieces back.
37:39If I cut your hands and your legs, wouldn't you like them back?
37:45You're one of the most distinguished names in the world of museums.
37:50Do you have any sympathy with those directors of museums, including the British Museum, who will say,
37:58Look, if these are returned to Greece, there'll be nothing left.
38:03You might as well open all of the doors in every museum of the world and give your stock back,
38:10if it has a difficult past, a difficult history.
38:13That's the problem with this argument.
38:16No.
38:16No, no, no, no.
38:17This is not the case.
38:18First of all, if we speak philosophically, number one is not the beginning if there is number two, number three,
38:27number four.
38:28First of all, it's start and end.
38:34This is why Greece has never asked as far as I am, as I know, never asked of anything else.
38:45We are asking the parts of the body of the Parthenon back for the humanity and this is a unique
38:56case.
38:58It is not a piece of art.
39:00It's not a painting.
39:01It's not a statue found here or there.
39:06That is the heart of the Greek case for reuniting the marbles in Greece, that they are not separate works
39:15of art that can be seen out of context.
39:19The Greeks say they are part of the unique Parthenon building itself, which is not just a national Greek monument,
39:27but a universal embodiment of democracy.
39:33UK law currently prevents the British Museum from letting go of the marbles.
39:39It could loan them, but then Greece would have to give them back.
39:45What's wrong with a loan?
39:48Well, loan is something you can have if it is not yours.
39:59I can say, can you loan me your jacket?
40:03Because it's cold.
40:05But it belongs to you.
40:08These belong to the Parthenon.
40:11I'm not talking about Greeks and Greece.
40:15I'm talking about the Parthenon as a symbol of the humanity and the world.
40:21We don't want them for us.
40:24For us, the monument is there.
40:26It's still there.
40:28We want them back for the monument itself and for the humanity.
40:38This is very important to be understood.
40:43It was something understood by all the visitors, American tourists, we approached at the Acropolis itself.
40:51I think they should go back to Greece.
40:54Why?
40:55Because they originally were from Greece.
40:58Oh, I think it's high time for King Charles to send them back.
41:01I mean, that's a beautiful museum.
41:02We were here a couple of years ago, so we saw it.
41:04In two days, we have tickets to go again.
41:06You want King Charles to interview?
41:08Who else should?
41:10I will not go in the British Museum.
41:11Why?
41:12Because everything in there was stolen from somebody else.
41:15What?
41:17Really?
41:18Is that what you honestly think?
41:20Yeah.
41:21So you will not go in the British Museum?
41:23There's no point.
41:24We came here to see the real deal.
41:27You feel that strongly about it?
41:29Well, they should give it back.
41:33It is history.
41:34But history that belongs to Greece doesn't belong to the UK.
41:43It was supposedly given by the Ottomans, correct?
41:48So it wasn't actually a Greek person.
41:51The Greek people did not say it was okay at the time.
41:56My take is, if it belongs to somebody else, why do the British still want to hold on to it?
42:05One man has no right to sell what belongs to the nation.
42:08Okay, well.
42:09– National symbols matter, too.
42:18Like the uniform of the presidential guard,
42:21the same one worn by soldiers who defeated the Ottoman occupation
42:25a few years after Elgin took the sculptures.
42:29For many Greeks, the Parthenon is one of the most important symbols.
42:36So why hasn't Greece taken legal action to get the marbles back?
42:42A question we put to the Greek government's legal advisor.
42:46So the legal claim is that the marbles have not been legally removed from the Acropolis site
42:54and therefore they do not belong to Britain.
42:59However, saying that this is the legal title, we need to make sure that Greece does not believe
43:07that this is a case that we should be taking to the courts.
43:11We believe that there are ethical issues also that dictate the return of the marbles.
43:17So from a legal point of view, if I were to speak as a lawyer, this is not necessarily an
43:24actionable case.
43:26Meaning that if you take a case to the court, this case may be dismissed on procedural grounds
43:33because, for example, there's so much time has lapsed or because this is not the competent court
43:40or because we don't know which the applicable law is and so on and so forth.
43:46But if Athens was just a province of the Ottoman Empire and Greece wasn't a nation state
43:53until the revolution 20 years after Elgin removed the marbles, can Greece claim to have been wronged?
44:01This British cultural property lawyer says yes.
44:05Greece, as we know, didn't exist at the time.
44:08But this is a straw man argument which is put up by people who want to defend the plundering of
44:14Athens.
44:15Yes, there was a series of states in the same way that Italy was made up a federation of states.
44:21But the items on the Parthenon were iconic of a time, time of Pericles, and of a place, Athens.
44:29And as a consequence of that, the right place for them geographically and every other way is Athens.
44:36And it's not in London or anywhere else.
44:39And so it's not necessarily about wronging a particular country.
44:44This is completely irrelevant.
44:46It's about wronging the people who live in the place about which the items are iconic.
44:54And everybody will understand that the Parthenon marbles are iconic of the Parthenon,
45:00are iconic of ancient Greece, and iconic of that particular place.
45:05And that's why they should be there.
45:07Let's leave aside archaeology.
45:09Let's leave aside law.
45:10Let's leave aside ethics.
45:12If you have one of the most important World Heritage monuments,
45:18if you have the number one on the list of the European culture heritage monuments,
45:25if you have the most characteristic example of ancient Greece,
45:32how on earth can you argue that you serve better humanity
45:36by having it broken instead of having it unified?
45:42Arguments that don't persuade this British lawyer.
45:45Cultural objects and pieces of art don't have a home.
45:49They belong to humanity.
45:50And a very great number of them are split in all sorts of places around the world.
45:55It's a complete fallacy to think that something belongs where it was made
45:58or that it necessarily has to be always in one piece.
46:02That's simply not the case.
46:03And there are thousands of examples.
46:06The director of the Acropolis Museum would say the Parthenon sculptures
46:12are a world asset and should be experienced in a world museum as a whole,
46:19not divided.
46:20He's right, isn't he?
46:22The Parthenon sculptures will never be experienced as a whole
46:25because when Lord Elgin turned up,
46:27already half of them were missing,
46:29so they can never be reconstituted.
46:31At the most, it's a jigsaw with every other piece missing.
46:34Isn't there a moral obligation to put part of the jigsaw back together?
46:39I don't think there's a moral obligation
46:41because I think that plays into the idea that objects have a home,
46:44that they have nationality.
46:47So you think the Greeks are just being nationalistic?
46:51I think it's very understandable that countries can want things
46:54that were created in their country to be in their country.
46:57But I think the overriding imperative is not to give internationalism
47:01and actually to allow these objects to be ambassadors for their countries
47:04all over the world, as many British objects are in other countries.
47:09It's not just the British who hold parts of the Parthenon.
47:13A previous French ambassador, a rival to Elgin,
47:17acquired several sculptures which ended up in the Louvre in Paris,
47:21at least one of which was dropped in the sea as well.
47:26The head, which probably detached from the Parthenon
47:31after the bombardment of 1687,
47:34is thought to have fallen overboard
47:36during transfer onto a ship in the port of Piraeus.
47:42The Louvre didn't respond to our request to talk about the sculptures.
47:46This legal expert, though, says both museums have the same responsibility,
47:52even if the circumstances were somewhat different.
47:56We definitely have at least one fragment
47:58that it seems was found itself on the floor,
48:03on the ground of the Acropolis
48:05after the Venetian bombardment of 1687.
48:12But the Louvre is very particular about insisting
48:16that its fragments were all taken from the ground.
48:22It's significant that it considers that this makes a difference.
48:27So they should be retained in France.
48:30Do you agree with that?
48:32No, I don't agree, of course, with that.
48:35But, of course, there is a big difference
48:37with what is in the British Museum,
48:40and the biggest difference is that the British Museum
48:43has half the remaining sculpture of the Parthenon.
48:47But surely it's the principle?
48:50Absolutely, yes.
48:51If you ask me, yes,
48:52I think they should also be returned.
48:55A few pieces have been given back by other museums.
49:00This head was one of three sculptures
49:02returned by the Vatican in 2023.
49:06This fragment, the foot and part of the dress of a goddess,
49:10had been held by a museum in Sicily.
49:13The agreement done to return it avoided a battle
49:16over the language of ownership
49:17by calling it a deposit to begin with.
49:22Perhaps that could set a precedent
49:24for Britain to follow.
49:32We headed to the Italian island of Sicily to find out.
49:44The Antonino Salinas Museum
49:47and the Sicilian capital Palermo
49:49acquired the fragment in the 19th century
49:52when it took over the collection of another Briton
49:55and minor diplomat Antony Fagin.
50:06It says here it's not known
50:09how Fagin came into possession of the artefact,
50:12but he clearly had a rather dubious reputation.
50:17On this board it says Fagin's activities in Sicily
50:21were very controversial due to his unscrupulous conduct.
50:29But for the Sicilians,
50:31it was not the character of the collector that mattered.
50:34Dr. Katerina Greco was director of the museum
50:37when it handed back the fragment.
50:39I was convinced of the need that this fragment
50:47should return to Athens because it was there
50:51that it had a sense, that it had its authentic sense.
50:57And this has made it so that my will,
51:01and my conviction,
51:04that I found the request of the Greci.
51:07Then, of course,
51:09there have been the political relations
51:12between the governments,
51:14between the Greek government
51:16and the regional government
51:18and then also the minister,
51:21and also the relations between the museums.
51:26This is the way.
51:29The relationship between the museums,
51:32the cultural relationship between the museums
51:34is what can enhance
51:39the difficulties of which she spoke about.
51:43What should happen to the Parthenon Marbles
51:45in the British Museum?
51:47The great national museums
51:49before the end of the 1700s
51:51in the great European states
51:54did not exist.
51:56So the idea,
51:58which was from the British,
52:00but also from the Louvre,
52:02of telling the history of the world
52:05through the archaeological and pittorians
52:10of all ages,
52:12this is a very important part
52:14of the history
52:17that has favoured the birth
52:20of that European consciousness
52:22that we bring in today.
52:27But perhaps today
52:28is the time
52:29to do the contrary path.
52:32I mean,
52:34to restrain the archaeological goods
52:39to the countries
52:41that are the legitimate
52:45citizens.
52:46of the archaeological areas
52:47of the Ontario
52:47A statement by
52:49a British Minister
52:50in the House of Lords
52:51of the Royal
52:51in July 2025 suggests
52:54there's no political will
52:55yet to hand back the marbles.
52:59The Parthenon sculptures
53:00were lawfully acquired
53:02and legally owned
53:02by the trustees
53:03of the British Museum.
53:04By definition,
53:05any loan agreement
53:06acknowledges that.
53:07The requirement of a loan
53:09is that the item be returned
53:11and assurances after the return would be provided.
53:15And the Greek government was outraged at a star-studded British Museum fundraising event in October
53:22which used the marbles as a backdrop.
53:25It accused the museum of provocative indifference
53:28and covering Greek culture in the shade of Barbie.
53:33There has been a long-running British campaign to return the marbles
53:38and politicians and cultural figures are making a new push
53:42to right what they see as an historic injustice.
53:46Anybody who thinks keeping the Elgin marbles is a patriotic act is such a fool.
53:53Don't they see how the world would see us?
53:56Oh God, it's Britain being Britain again.
53:58An absolute catastrophe for our good name.
54:02I started working on the marbles case 14 years ago.
54:07Everybody said to me at the time, you're mad Mark, the marbles are never going back.
54:11We are now in a position where I think there is an inexorable tide of return.
54:18You want to see the Parthenon as complete as it can be.
54:22And therefore, I think people recognise today that we have a dishonourable past
54:27and the best we can do is to repatriate those things to the places they were looted from.
54:33But there are still voices strongly opposed to Britain giving up the marbles.
54:39One of the beautiful things of the British Museum is that you can look at the Elgin marbles on one
54:44particular room
54:45and then you can go and look at what the Persians were doing at the same time
54:50and how the two were interacting to each other on a cultural and artistic basis.
54:55And this cultural and artistic basis justifies holding on to the world's artefacts.
55:00When they are yours, absolutely.
55:02Because there is no reason why you should wreck what is now in itself a cultural monument,
55:13which is the collection of the British Museum, and deprive yourself of antiquities in this particular case,
55:20and elements that have been legitimately acquired just to make a favour to somebody else
55:26or just to prop what, in many cases, is an ethno-nationalistic propaganda campaign.
55:34Lord Elgin's descendants told us they have made a family decision not to engage in the controversy.
55:41However, photographs taken inside Broomhall House for a magazine a few years ago
55:46showed the portrait of Elgin still prominently displayed
55:50and a copy of one of the most iconic of the Parthenon sculptures.
55:55And perhaps copies are the answer to this dispute.
55:59This is an exact replica of that same exhausted horse.
56:03It was cut from the same pentelic marble we saw at the beginning.
56:09Are we too hung up on the authentic originals when even Elgin was only after copies to begin with?
56:16When you go to the Louvre in Paris and that you see the Mona Lisa from 30 metres behind bulletproof
56:25glass,
56:26I mean, they could have put a photograph, a good photograph of it.
56:30You wouldn't know the difference.
56:32And yet, people are queuing up because it's like a pilgrimage.
56:36It's almost like a religious thing.
56:39And you ascribe to that object because you assume it's authentic.
56:45You don't really know. You have no way of checking.
56:49You assume that it is a transcendental kind of experience to be able to watch the Mona Lisa.
56:57So, you have the same problem with these decontextualized objects like the friezes, the Parthen friezes.
57:06Because we do have, and that's where it gets a bit cynical, we do have the technology to make perfect
57:14copies.
57:14So much so that in the Acropolis Museum, they made a special effort to make the ones that were signalled
57:24as being in London look different.
57:27So that people would know the difference.
57:29Because otherwise, they can be, and they're out of reach, right?
57:33You know, so my fantasy would be to have, you know, British and Greek agents blindfolded or something and copies
57:44of the originals shuffled in some kind of a space and ask them to pick and never be able to
57:52tell what is what and exhibit them in their museums.
57:59Nobody would know the difference.
58:01But the Greeks insist the original should be altogether in the Acropolis Museum and should never have been taken.
58:11If you met Lord Elgin face to face, if that were possible, what would you say?
58:16I would say that I can understand him then because we have to think the way they were thinking.
58:29He wanted to have beauty for his own house.
58:34You see, you fascinate me because you say you understand Lord Elgin.
58:41Psychologically speaking.
58:43You've spent your life trying to put right what he took away, but I'm intrigued that you understand Lord Elgin.
58:52Of course I understand it as a doctor does for a sick man.
58:58The marbles in the British Museum will have to be moved soon as the gallery housing them is redeveloped.
59:05Could that be a moment to resolve the dispute?
59:09Or could Greece still be demanding the return of what Lord Elgin took for decades or centuries more?
59:17Can you forgive him?
59:19I'm not a priest, but I will, as a human being, I will.
59:27Yes, for sure.
59:30Yes, yes.
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