- 15 Jan 2023 02:58
#15262111
I'm going to deposit arguments and sources in a crude manner before I collate them.
History:
On Osborne's motives to return them now:
Greece has already won the legal case and now the international community as represented by UNESCO recognizes Greek legal ownership of the Parthenon Marbles.
Britain should give them back and be done with it before this "special case" turns into the mainstream thus emptying the British Museum entirely.
That is what Osborne is actually trying to do. Save the British Museum from going empty by the precedent of having to change the British Museum Act as instructed by UNESCO to take this matter to governmental level.
Daniel Hannan(leader of the Brexit campaign) calls Greek people Slavs, misquotes Byzantine Greek Emperor in the process:
Reply:
The Byzantine Emperor & Historian was a Greek, the same kind of Greek Emperor that defended against the Slavic raids and repopulated the war-torn areas. The guy is using a Greek emperor and historian to argue for the extinction of the Greeks!
Moreover, he is misquoting Constantine by misdirecting the reader about the area which Constantine is talking about, primarily Macedonia except for Salonica.
Also:
David Abulafia, Professor of History at Cambridge University claims in Telegraph article that Greek people cannot claim Classical & Byzantine Heritage at the same time.
As if these are mutually exclusive or that identity is a zero-sum game.
Reply:
Are the London marbles better preserved than the ones in Greece?
No, not really:
Are the Brits worse than both Ottomans and Nazis?
When it comes to looting the Parthenon, definitely so. Both Ottomans and Germans treated it as sacred.
History:
W L C Knight, an “official on the Greek desk at the Foreign Office” (Consul-General, Tunis, 1937–40; Basra, 1942–46; Athens, 1946; Salonica, 1946–49;) was tasked to provide an expert opinion in 1941:
“The task of collating the expert opinion and drafting a memorandum for Ministers was undertaken by the official on the Greek desk at the Foreign Office, Mr W.L.C. Knight. Knight took the view that a decision on the general question of return should be reached in the fairly near future, invoking not only Britain’s exceptional relations with Greece, but also the interest now being taken in the question by the British public, as shown by the recent correspondence in The Times. Of the letters published the great majority were in favour of the marbles being restored to Greece. But since some time might be needed for this decision, he suggested a non-committal reply to Miss Cazalet’s question, along the lines followed word for word in Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden’s final recommendation that the present moment is inopportune for a final decision on a subject which raises several important issues, and has given rise to so much controversy in the past; but that His Majesty’s Government will not fail to give the matter their careful and sympathetic consideration.
Knight also suggested that, if return were eventually decided on, the best time for it would be after the war when transport would again be safe: ‘It would thus set the seal on Anglo-Greek friendship and collaboration in the way that would most appeal short of the cession of Cyprus – to Greek patriotic sentiment’. And he concluded:
‘For the gift to be complete and completely acceptable it should comprise, in addition to the Parthenon friezes, the Caryatid and the column from the Erechtheum which all together constitute the Elgin Marbles.’
Once ready, the Knight Memorandum was passed up the line accompanied by a note from his immediate superior, Mr (later Sir) James Bowker (Deputy Head of the South-East European Department), in which he said:
‘Everything points to a decision in principle to return the Elgin marbles to Greece on certain conditions, as enumerated in Mr Knight’s memorandum. In order that the memorandum should be quite complete I think it should include recommendations, and I have appended a draft final paragraph accordingly.’ ”
[This is an extract from “ ‘Position of the Foreign Office in 1941’ Published by the British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles © Copyright 2001. All Rights Reserved”].
I’m impressed that matters like this were seen as important enough to be considered at a high level in government while we were just two years into World War II and the outcome still uncertain!
https://davidallengreen.com/2023/01/the ... n-marbles/
On Osborne's motives to return them now:
Greece has already won the legal case and now the international community as represented by UNESCO recognizes Greek legal ownership of the Parthenon Marbles.
Britain should give them back and be done with it before this "special case" turns into the mainstream thus emptying the British Museum entirely.
That is what Osborne is actually trying to do. Save the British Museum from going empty by the precedent of having to change the British Museum Act as instructed by UNESCO to take this matter to governmental level.
https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000379856
DECISION 22.COM 61The Committee,
1.Recalling Article 4, paragraphs 1 and 2 of its Statutes,
2.Noting that the request for the Return of the Parthenon Sculptures is inscribed in its Agenda since 1984,
3.Recalling its 16 Recommendations on the matter,
4.Recalling further that the Parthenon is an emblematic monument of outstanding universal value inscribed on the World Heritage List,
5.Aware of the legitimate and rightful demand of Greece,
6.Acknowledging that Greece requested the United Kingdom in 2013 to enter into mediation in accordance to the UNESCO Rules of Procedure for Mediation and Conciliation,
7. Recognizing that the case has an intergovernmental character and, therefore, the obligation to return the Parthenon Sculptures lies squarely on the United Kingdom Government,
8.Expresses its deep concern that the issue still remains pending;
9.Expresses, further, its disappointment that its respective recommendations have not been observed by the United Kingdom;
Daniel Hannan(leader of the Brexit campaign) calls Greek people Slavs, misquotes Byzantine Greek Emperor in the process:
The Byzantine emperor and historian Constantine VII tells us that, by his day, the entire area had been “overrun by Slavs and lost to civilization”."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/0 ... humanitys/
Reply:
The Byzantine Emperor & Historian was a Greek, the same kind of Greek Emperor that defended against the Slavic raids and repopulated the war-torn areas. The guy is using a Greek emperor and historian to argue for the extinction of the Greeks!
Moreover, he is misquoting Constantine by misdirecting the reader about the area which Constantine is talking about, primarily Macedonia except for Salonica.
Also:
Constantine VII's De Administrando Imperio:[21]
"Be it known that the inhabitants of Castle Maina are not from the race of aforesaid Slavs (Melingoi and Ezeritai dwelling on the Taygetus) but from the older Romaioi, who up to the present time are termed Hellenes by the local inhabitants on account of their being in olden times idolatres and worshippers of idols like the ancient Greeks, and who were baptized and became Christians in the reign of the glorious Basil. The place in which they live is waterless and inaccessible, but has olives from which they gain some consolation."
David Abulafia, Professor of History at Cambridge University claims in Telegraph article that Greek people cannot claim Classical & Byzantine Heritage at the same time.
....for many Greeks, Greek identity still revolves not around the classical past but the Greek Orthodox Church and its Byzantine heritage.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/0 ... n-marbles/
As if these are mutually exclusive or that identity is a zero-sum game.
Reply:
What a bunch of nationalist tosh coming from a Professor of Cambridge.
Modern Greek people have classical Greek and Byzantine Christian heritage in equal measure. Greek identity is not a zero-sum game.
It is quite hilarious how zero-sum applies only to Greek people in a desperate & racist attempt to divorce them from their own identity.
Prof. Anthony D. Smith , Nationalism and Modernism, page 191, Cambridge University Press:
"Again, one could point to both ethnic continuity and ethnic recurrence.
Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Persians, Chinese and Japanese could be cited as examples of ethnic continuity, since, despite massive cultural changes over the centuries, certain key identifying components—name, language, customs, religious community and territorial association—were broadly maintained and reproduced for millennia."
Second, Britain has neither legal nor moral argument. Elgin stole the Metopes of the Parthenon causing more damage than Venetian artillery according to his own British witnesses:
Edward Daniel Clarke witnessed the removal of the metopes and called the action a "spoliation", writing that "thus the form of the temple has sustained a greater injury than it had already experienced from the Venetian artillery," and that "neither was there a workman employed in the undertaking ... who did not express his concern that such havoc should be deemed necessary, after moulds and casts had been already made of all the sculpture which it was designed to remove."[55] When Sir Francis Ronalds visited Athens and Giovanni Battista Lusieri in 1820, he wrote that "If Lord Elgin had possessed real taste in lieu of a covetous spirit he would have done just the reverse of what he has, he would have removed the rubbish and left the antiquities."[56][57]
Are the London marbles better preserved than the ones in Greece?
No, not really:
"The 14 slabs that Elgin did not remove revealed a surprising array of original details, such as the original chisel marks and the veins on the horses' bellies. Similar features in the British Museum collection have been scraped and scrubbed with chisels to make the marbles look white.[95][96]"
wiki
Are the Brits worse than both Ottomans and Nazis?
When it comes to looting the Parthenon, definitely so. Both Ottomans and Germans treated it as sacred.
Lord Byron strongly objected to the removal of the marbles from Greece, denouncing Elgin as a vandal.[52] In his narrative poem Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, published in 1812, he wrote in relation to the Parthenon:[53]
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!
Byron was not the only one to protest against the removal at the time. Sir John Newport said:[54]
The Honourable Lord has taken advantage of the most unjustifiable means and has committed the most flagrant pillages. It was, it seems, fatal that a representative of our country loot those objects that the Turks and other barbarians had considered sacred.
Edward Daniel Clarke witnessed the removal of the metopes and called the action a "spoliation", writing that "thus the form of the temple has sustained a greater injury than it had already experienced from the Venetian artillery," and that "neither was there a workman employed in the undertaking ... who did not express his concern that such havoc should be deemed necessary, after moulds and casts had been already made of all the sculpture which it was designed to remove."[55] When Sir Francis Ronalds visited Athens and Giovanni Battista Lusieri in 1820, he wrote that "If Lord Elgin had possessed real taste in lieu of a covetous spirit he would have done just the reverse of what he has, he would have removed the rubbish and left the antiquities."[56][57]
-wiki
EN EL ED EM ON
...take your common sense with you, and leave your prejudices behind...
...take your common sense with you, and leave your prejudices behind...
- By Pants-of-dog
- By paeng
- By Godstud