It came as a pleasant surprise for me to see that Greece has taken another step to enhance its claim for return of the so-called Elgin Marbles from the British Museum, where they have resided for two centuries. The original removal and transfer to Britain of these marble sculptures and other artifacts from the Parthenon by Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin, who was British ambassador to the Ottoman court at the turn of the 19th century, was controversial even at the time. In modern times, requests from the Greek government that they be returned have been declined for various reasons, including recently that the Greeks had no place to properly protect and exhibit them.
Now, with the opening of the new Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greek President Papoulias and his Culture Minister Samaras say with some apparent justification that that excuse is no longer valid. The new museum was designed specifically to house the full reunited collection (those that Bruce removed and those that were left in Greece).
The new museum does put more pressure on the Brits to act, but is unlikely to solve the argument immediately. Of course, the British Museum also has a space designed to house them, but that seems somewhat irrelevant now. There's also the argument that Elgin had permission from the Ottoman Emperor, who controlled Greece at the time, to access, or even remove, the works; but the authenticity of that permission is also in doubt.
Finally, museum officials everywhere will doubtless be reluctant to set any precedent for the return of art works once acquired. A century or two ago, it was common for intrepid archaeologists and explorers to go off on an expedition and return with works of art or other artifacts, much as the great white hunter might bring back a rhinoceros head. There are many, many huge works of architecture and art in western museums that have been removed from their original sites under such circumstances, and whose return might be claimed: Think of the famous Pergamon Museum in Berlin, which houses both the Great Altar of Pergamon (an ancient site now in Turkey) and the Ishtar Gate of Babylon.
Ultimately, though, in cases like these, regardless of the strained legality of how such works were obtained, or the raw fact of simple possession, isn't it really about fairness and justice? One recent example was the U.S. acquisition of the Crown of St. Stephen, captured by U.S. troops in 1945 and brought to this country to save it from the advancing Soviets; it was returned to Budapest in 1978. The Elgin Marbles should go back to Greece. Since it's not uncommon for museums to have, either by trade or purchase, objects from all over the globe, perhaps it would be possible to reach an agreement by which a relative few original pieces might be kept. But as time passes, the continued holding of these raided works far from their cultural milieux seems less and less justifiable.
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