Elgin Marbles - Description, Interpretation of the frieze, Criticism by Elgin's contemporaries, Damage to marbles

Marble sculptures of the mid-5th-c BC from the Parthenon of Athens. Acquired in 1801–3 by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin (1766–1841), in circumstances of doubtful legality while Greece was under Turkish rule, they were shipped to England, and in 1816 purchased by the government for the British Museum, where they remain on display. In the 1980s in particular, the question of their return to Greece became a heated political issue there, and the matter continues to be raised, given a focus by the ongoing restoration of the Parthenon. A request to borrow the Marbles for the 2004 Olympic Games was turned down.

The Elgin Marbles (IPA: /ˈɛl gən/), sometimes called the Parthenon Marbles, are a large collection of marble sculptures brought to Britain in 1806 by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799 to 1803.

Description

The Elgin Marbles include some of the statuary from the pediments, the metope panels depicting battles between the Lapiths and the Centaurs, as well as the Parthenon Frieze which decorated the horizontal course set above the interior architrave of the temple. As such, they represent more than half of what now remains of the surviving sculptural decoration of the Parthenon: the Elgin marbles and freize cover about 1km of land laid out flat, 15 out of 92 metopes; Lord Elgin took half of the marbles from the Parthenon and wax casts were produced from the remaining ones.

Interpretation of the frieze

At present, about two-thirds of the frieze is in London and a third remains in Athens. This section of the frieze is currently under-appreciated as it is split between London and Athens, a doorway in the British Museum masking the absence of the relevant section of Frieze.

Criticism by Elgin's contemporaries

When the marbles were shipped to Britain, there was criticism of Elgin (who had spent a fortune on the project) but also much admiration of the sculptures. Lord Byron strongly objected to their removal from Greece:

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. Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved, And once again thy hapless bosom gored, And snatch'd thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred! —"Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"

Byron was not the only Englishman to protest the removal at the time:

"The Honourable Lord has taken advantage of the most unjustifiable means and has committed the most flagrant pillages.

John Keats was one of those who saw them privately exhibited in London, hence his two sonnets about the marbles. They were eventually purchased by Parliament for the nation in 1816 for £35,000 and deposited in the British Museum, where they were displayed in the Elgin Saloon (constructed in 1832), until the Duveen Gallery was completed in 1939.

Damage to marbles

The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. While the artifacts held in London, unlike those remaining on the Parthenon, have been saved from the hazards of pollution, neglect, and war, they have also been irrevocably damaged by the unauthorised "cleaning" methods employed by British Museum staff in the 1930s, who were dismissed when this was discovered. Acting under the erroneous belief that the marbles were originally bright white, the marbles were cleaned with copper tools and caustics, causing serious damage and altering the marbles' coloring. (The Pentelicon marble on which the carvings were made naturally acquires a tan color similar to honey when exposed to air.) In addition, the process scraped away all traces of surface coloring that the marbles originally held. The Greek claim to the marbles The Greek government claims that the marbles should be returned to Athens on moral grounds, although it is no longer feasible or advisable to reposition them onto the Parthenon. As part of the campaign, it is building the New Acropolis Museum, designed by the Swiss/American architect Bernard Tschumi, designed to hold the Parthenon sculptures arranged in the same way as they would have been on the Parthenon. It is intended to leave the spaces for the Elgin Marbles empty, rather than using casts in these positions, as a reminder to visitors of the fact that parts are held in other museums. The British Museum position A range of slightly different points have been put by British Museum spokespersons over the years in defence of retention of the Elgin Marbles within the museum. It has been argued however, that connections between the legal ruling and the Elgin Marbles were more tenuous than implied by the Attorney General. Other displaced Parthenon art Lord Elgin was neither the first, nor the last, to disperse elements of the marbles from their original location. The remainder of the surviving sculptures that are not in museums or storerooms in Athens are held in museums in various locations across Europe (including the Louvre Museum). The British Museum also holds additional fragments from the Parthenon sculptures acquired from various collections that have no connection with Lord Elgin. Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Elgin Marbles Further reading Christopher Hitchens, The Elgin Marbles: Should they be returned to Greece? (with essays by Robert Browning and Graham Binns) (Verso, March 1998) William St. Clair, Lord Elgin and the Marbles (Oxford University Press, 1998) Dorothy King, "The Elgin Marbles" (Hutchinson / Random House, January 2006)