Leave the Marbles Where They Are!

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The publication of “Thinking About the Elgin Marbles” (Michigan Law Review, vol. 85 [1985]) confirmed John Henry Merryman’s status as a leading authority on cultural property matters. Merryman is Sweitzer Professor of Law at Stanford University and one of the founders of the International Journal of Cultural Property. When not trying to figure out who owns what, Merryman spends his time playing decent jazz piano and bad golf.

The preservation and enjoyment of world culture and the fate of the world’s great museum collections are at stake in the debate over the Elgin Marbles. If the principle were established that works of foreign origin should be returned to their sources, the major Western museums will be drastically depleted.

The Greek case for the return of the Parthenon marbles has two parts. One is that the marbles were wrongly taken and have never belonged, legally or morally, to the British. The other is that even if the marbles legitimately became British property, they ought now to be returned to Greece.

In 1801, when the crucial transaction took place, Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire. According to international law of the time, the Ottomans had absolute legal authority over the Parthenon.

Although Elgin arguably overstepped the authority granted by the firman he obtained from the Ottoman government, it is the law everywhere that an act in excess of the authority granted can be legalized by ratification after the fact. And the Ottomans twice ratified Elgin’s removals. First, when Elgin’s actions were widely known and discussed, the Ottoman sultan issued additional firmans to the local officials in Athens expressly approving everything they had done to accommodate Elgin. Another time, a large shipment of Elgin’s marbles was detained in Piraeus because the local Ottoman officials, under pressure from the French, refused to permit their embarkation. Written orders came from Constantinople to release the shipment, and the marbles were allowed to leave for England.

These events clearly amount to ratification. Even if the Ottoman officials were bribed, they had legal authority to act as they did. Ottoman officials routinely had to be bribed to perform their legal duties (as is still true today in much of the world), so the fact that bribes occurred in Elgin’s case is not a significant consideration, particularly in view of the ratification of Elgin’s actions by the sultan.

Sometimes, however, what is legal seems morally wrong. Is that the case here?

Judgments about Lord Elgin vary sharply. One view, popularized by Lord Byron in a long poem entitled “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage,” depicts Elgin as an unfeeling despoiler of a helpless Greece. Many who believe that the marbles should be returned to Greece base their positions on the Byronic version of events and Elgin’s motivations.

History, however, provides a more complex—and interesting—picture. The Ottomans clearly were prepared to dispose of the Parthenon marbles as counters in their relations with the major European powers. The French, rivals of the British for influence in Turkey, actively sought to acquire the marbles for the Louvre. If Elgin had not removed the marbles, the French or the Bavarians (who also actively sought to acquire them) would certainly have done so.

Thus the question was not whether the marbles would be taken, but by whom. That may not be a powerful moral argument, but it accurately describes the morality prevailing in that time and place, which is the morality applicable to a judgment about Elgin’s actions. Since removal of the marbles was bound to occur, does moral blame attach to one who did the inevitable?

It is remotely possible that the marbles might not have been taken by someone else if they had been left in place by Elgin, but that would have left them exposed to a variety of serious hazards. The Ottomans were insensitive both to the beauty and to the artistic and cultural importance of the Acropolis. The Propylaea was shattered when explosives that Ottoman soldiers had stored in it were struck by lightning. The Ottomans then moved their powder magazine to the nearby Parthenon; the magazine later exploded when struck by a Venetian cannonball. The Ottomans also deliberately razed the Acropolis’s small temple of Athena Nike to make way for an artillery post. Most Turks, including those of the military establishment 030quartered on the Acropolis, had only contempt for the works of the Greeks. At least one of them boasted that he had used marble from the statues to make mortar for his home.

As the cause of Greek independence gathered force, the temptation for the Turks to damage Greek monuments, and the possibility that these monuments might be unintentional victims of military action, only increased. The growing trade in antiquities, fed by Greeks as well as Turks, would have led to the dispersion of more works in individual collections of uncertain fate. Many works in fact disappeared in this way, plundered by travelers, and were eventually lost or discarded—or made anonymous by the loss of context.

We know what has happened to the few works that were left on the Parthenon. Those that were not removed have deteriorated terribly in the intervening 175 years. Those taken to England and installed in the British Museum have been well preserved.

In sum, the applicable moral considerations are those of that time and place. It would be unreasonable to suggest that Elgin was entirely blameless in taking the marbles and damaging the Parthenon, but it would be equally unreasonable, in view of all of the facts, to conclude that the removal was morally wrong. The Greeks do not have either a strong legal or moral case.

Should the marbles be returned nonetheless?

To answer this question, we must start with the general principle of repose: An existing situation should continue unless there is some reason to change it. (This is a principle that is consistent with the common human tendency to rely on appearances and to assume that the present state of affairs will persist.) The principle of repose usually justifies the retention of cultural property by nations of origin. For example, it seems right that Mayan artifacts remain in Mexico unless there is some good reason to remove them. In the case of the Parthenon marbles, however, the principle works the other way. Britain has the marbles, and it is up to those who wish the marbles returned to Greece to justify their removal.

The most obvious argument for their removal is that they belong in Greece because they are Greek. They were created in Greece by Greek artists for civic and religious purposes specific to the Athens of that time. The appealing implication is that being in this sense Greek, they belong among Greeks. This argument has two kinds of appeal: emotional and rational.

Public attitudes in the international campaign for restitution of cultural property often are emotional, based on unthinking acceptance of the cultural nationalist premise—the continuing power of which suggests how influential Byronic romanticism remains in our attitudes toward cultural objects. In the case of the Elgin Marbles, the argument from cultural nationalism is more an assertion than a reason. It is not self-evident that something made in a place belongs there, or that something produced by artists of an earlier time ought to be returned to the territory occupied by their cultural descendants, or that the present government of a nation should have power over artifacts historically associated with its people or territory.

The rational basis of cultural nationalism recognizes the relation between cultural property and cultural definition. For a full life and a secure identity, people need exposure to their history, much of which is represented or illustrated by objects. Such artifacts are important to cultural definition and expression, to shared identity and community. In helping to preserve the identity of specific cultures, such artifacts help the world preserve texture and diversity. They nourish artists and generate art (it is a truism among art historians that art comes from art). Cultural property stimulates learning and scholarship. A people deprived of its artifacts is culturally impoverished.

The difficulty comes in relating the notion of cultural deprivation to the physical location of the Elgin Marbles. If the British had attempted to appropriate the identity of the marbles, disguising or misrepresenting their origin, then the Greeks, and all the rest of us, would rightly object. But the British have always presented the marbles openly and candidly as the work of Greek artists of extraordinary genius and refinement. Presented as they are, spectacularly mounted in their own fine rooms in one of the world’s greatest museums, the marbles honor Greece and bring admiration and respect for the Greek achievement. No visitor to the British Museum could come away with any other impression.

The cultural nationalist argument usually incorporates two other arguments, one economic and one political. Economically, whoever has the marbles has something of value: They would bring an enormous price if offered for sale, and their presence in a public collection nourishes the tourist industry. Possession is obviously necessary in order to enjoy economic value, but that merely raises once again the question of legal title, and we have seen that the law supports the British side of the legal argument.

Politically based cultural nationalism treats the presence of the marbles in England, or in any place other than Greece, as an offense to Greeks and to the Greek nation. Here the demand for the return of the marbles is based on national pride. No candid observer can deny the power of political nationalism in world affairs. But with assertions of national pride often come 064superstition and prejudice, an unsavory record of imposed state religion and international conflict, whether economic, social, political or armed. “Patriotism,” as Dr. Johnson remarked, “is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

Nor does cultural nationalism argue definitively for the return of the marbles to Greece. The marbles have been in England since the early 19th century; they have become a part of the British cultural heritage. The Elgin Marbles and other works in the British Museum have entered British culture. They help define the British to themselves, inspire British arts, give Britons identity and community, civilize and enrich British life, stimulate British scholarship. While one may argue that the Greek claim is more (or less) powerful than that of the British, it is not unreasonable to perceive the two positions as roughly equivalent.

There is also the principle of cultural internationalism. The Hague Convention of 1954 concluded that, other claims aside, “cultural property belonging to any people whatsoever” is “the cultural heritage of all mankind.”

If the legal and moral arguments are balanced evenly, and if the argument from nationalism is inconclusive, are there considerations flowing from the principle of cultural internationalism that indicate the proper way to allocate the marbles?

There are three such considerations: preservation, integrity and distribution. If the marbles are destroyed, all cultures will be deprived, and the problems of integrity and distribution disappear. In the British Museum the marbles are well mounted and maintained. The sculptures remaining on the Parthenon have been badly eroded by exposure to a variety of hazards, including the smog of Athens. If one had to make a decision based solely on concern for the physical preservation of the marbles, it would be difficult to justify moving them to Athens. Even if they are placed in a new museum there, as the Greeks plan to do, rather than reinstalled on the Parthenon, what reason is there to expect that they would be safer in Athens than they have been in London over the past 175 years?

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The second concern is for the integrity of the work of art. If we think of the intact Parthenon as an integrated work of art, with the whole having more beauty and significance than the sum of the dismembered pieces, then it makes sense to argue that the sculptures should be reinstalled on the temple. If the restoration of the entire Parthenon were possible, then the argument by integrity would favor the Greek position.

But it is not possible. At a time when the remaining sculptures on the Parthenon have had to be taken indoors by the Greek authorities to preserve them from further erosion, it cannot seriously be argued that the marbles should be restored to their places on the temple. In fact, the Greek proposal is to transfer them from a museum in London to a museum in Athens. It is simply not possible to restore the integrity of the Parthenon without exposing the marbles to unacceptable hazards. This argument is a red herring.

The third international interest is in an appropriate distribution of cultural heritage, so that all peoples have reasonable access to their own cultural achievements and to those of others. How should this consideration affect the allocation of the marbles? Greek antiquities can be found in major museums and private collections throughout the world. But it is difficult to argue that Greece is for this reason culturally impoverished. Greek museums and private collections remain enormously rich in antiquities from all periods, and many people visit the country to enjoy its wealth of cultural treasures. At the same time, the rest of the world is enormously enriched in being able to view and study Greek antiquities. The distribution argument favors the dispersion, rather than the retention in one place, of the works of a culture.

Thus the late art critic John Canaday argued that American art, too, should be spread around the world. “Missionary art,” which makes a culture vivid and comprehensible abroad, would promote international understanding. If all the works of the great artists of classical Athens were returned and kept there, the rest of the world would be culturally impoverished.

The marbles should stay where they are.

This article is an abridged version of a longer manuscript.

The publication of “Thinking About the Elgin Marbles” (Michigan Law Review, vol. 85 [1985]) confirmed John Henry Merryman’s status as a leading authority on cultural property matters. Merryman is Sweitzer Professor of Law at Stanford University and one of the founders of the International Journal of Cultural Property. When not trying to figure out who owns what, Merryman spends his time playing decent jazz piano and bad golf. The preservation and enjoyment of world culture and the fate of the world’s great museum collections are at stake in the debate over the Elgin Marbles. If the principle were established […]