SaintLucifer said:
It is a point of controversy whether museums should be allowed to possess artifacts taken from other countries, and the British Museum is a notable target for criticism. The Elgin Marbles and the Benin Bronzes are among its most disputed collections, and organisations have been formed demanding the return of both sets of artifacts to their native countries of Greece and Nigeria respectively.
The British Museum has refused to return either set, or any of its other disputed items, stating that the "restitutionist premise, that whatever was made in a country must return to an original geographical site, would empty both the British Museum and the other great museums of the world".[1] The Museum has also argued that the British Museum Act of 1963 legally prevents it from selling any of its valuable artifacts, even the ones not on display. Critics have particularly argued against the right of the British Museum to own objects which it does not share with the public.
Supporters of the Museum claim that it has provided protection for artifacts that may have otherwise been damaged or destroyed if they had been left in their original environments. While some critics have accepted this, they also argue that the artifacts should now be returned to their countries of origin if there is sufficient expertise and desire there to preserve them.
The British Museum continues to assert that it is an appropriate custodian and has an inalienable right to its disputed artifacts under British law.
*blows you a kiss*
And yet in that entire thing, the truth about what the British Museum actully did to the marbles is never mentioned.
In the 1800's Lord Elgin paid the Turks, who were ruling Greece at the time, significant amounts of money and began to remove treasures from Greece by the Boatload. Bare in mind that there was no greek voice in this decision at all. His crowning achievement in stupidity was the removal of the Pediment sculptures and most of the medopie frieze from the Parthenon.
Why? Didn't he do the right thing by removing them before they were further destroied by nature?
No. As Elgin set to remove the Marbles from the Pediment, he did a significant amount of damage to the pediment as the marbles needed to be chiseled out of their respetive areas. When He removed the Medopie frieze, they had to be torn and chiseled off, destroying major parts of the Medopie.
When the Sculpture was brought back to England, the Museum spent months upon months scraping the sculptures so that they appeared more white, as they believed they should be. For some stupid ass reason, common thought back in that day was that all the marble used in Temples and sculptures was always white. This is not true. They were white after all the paint had eroded away. This scraping by the idiots of the museum not only destroyed any evidence of paint that was once on the sculptures, but also did irreparable damage to them.
Also, a tragic accident occured even before Elgin started his dumbass removal. After winning a decisive battle, a venitian tried removing the West pediment sculptures. The pulley system they were using broke and an entire group of life sized pediment sculpture shattered against the ground.
Should artifacts that were given away during the reign of the turks be given back? Yes, because Britain had no right to ask the Turks for control of something that was not theirs to give.
