Parthenon Marbles
... Between 1801 and 1812, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin and British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, removed several sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens and shipped them to England, where he sold them to the British Museum in 1816. 167 years later, Melina Mercouri, Greek Minister of Culture, requested that the “Elgin” Marbles be returned. ... For the past two decades, people have argued over who has the rights to these Marbles. ... However, from the standpoint of legality and logic, it is hard to make a solid case against the Marbles’ continued presence in Britain. Legally, Greece could call for the return of the Parthenon Marbles if it could prove that they were wrongly taken and never belonged, legally or morally, to the British. ... The Ottoman officials had a solid claim to authority over the Parthenon because it was public property, which the successor nation acquires on change of sovereignty. ... ” Most experts agree that this document appears to give Elgin authority principally over measuring, drawing, and making casts of the sculpture of the Parthenon. ... However, a different attitude was taken publicly, and the party set to work removing and packing pieces of the Parthenon. ... This would seem to create a good argument for the Marbles’ return to Greece, as Elgin had exceeded his authority, and damaged the structure of the Parthenon, all without officially obtaining the property rights. ... Together, these two events offer a strong indication that the Ottoman government did, in fact, ratify the removal of the Parthenon sculptures. Therefore, under international law, Elgin’s title -- and Great Britain’s as well -- was legal, and England is entitled to keep the Marbles. ... However, in the more than 150 years since Greece gained their independence, they have never pursued such an action, and Mercouri’s request that the Marbles be returned was in fact the first official response that the Greek government ever issued. Therefore, with no legal claims to the Parthenon Marbles, it falls on Greece to prove that these sculptures would actually be better off there than in London, something which it has not been overly successful at accomplishing. The restitutionist movement has come up with several arguments over the past 20 years advocating the return of the Elgin Marbles to their country of origin. ... Yet the level of attention paid to these disowned works is not even comparable to that of the Elgin Marbles. ... Possession of the Marbles in a nation’s public collection nourishes that country’s tourism.