Nigeria’s Benin bronzes, Egypt’s bust of Ramesses the Great, Mexico’s double-headed serpent, India’s Amravati Marbles and Egypt’s Parthenon sculptures. To view these pieces of history from different parts of the world, one must visit London’s British Museum.
The last of these, the Greek Parthenon sculptures from 5th century BC — a collection of marble artworks from the ancient temple of Athena (the Parthenon) in Greece — became the centre of a diplomatic fallout between London and Athens this week.
Earlier this week, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak canceled a one-on-one meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. Sunak accused his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis of “grandstanding” during a recent trip to London over ownership of the Parthenon sculptures.
The purported “grandstanding” moment was a BBC interview Mitsotakis gave ahead of his visit in which he compared Parthenon’s absence at the ancient temple of Athena akin to Mona Lisa cut in half.
People visit Parthenon gallery with a view of the Parthenon temple ruins atop the Acropolis archaeological site at the Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece | Reuters
“This is not a question of returning artefacts… this is not an ownership question, this is a reunification argument. Where can you best appreciate what is essentially one monument? It’s as if I had told you had cut the Mona Lisa in half and you would have half of it at the Louvre and half of it at the British Museum,” the Greek Prime Minister said.
The Greek media reported that Prime Minister Mitsotakis was going to raise the issue of return of Parthenon sculptures back to Greece with his British counterpart.
Sunak, in a parliamentary statement, said: “It was clear that the purpose of the meeting was not to discuss substantive issues for the future, but rather to grandstand and relitigate issues of the past.”
The frustration in and beyond the Greek capital Athens over what they called was Sunak’s ‘insult’ to the ‘greatness of Greek culture’ became a rallying point this week for the return of artefacts stolen during the era of British imperial exploitation in past centuries.
The Parthenon sculptures have been in display at British museum since 1817 when they were sold to the London-based establishment.
They were removed from the Acropolis in Athens by agents of the 7th Earl of Elgin who had been the British ambassador to Constantinople — then the capital of the Ottoman Empire — at the start of the 19th century, when Greece was controlled by the Ottomans.
It’s not that negotiations have not been initiated by Athens for the return of a crucial Greek symbol of the ancient city-state of Athens, which is often considered the birthplace of Western civilisation.
But nothing has moved beyond symbolic progress.
Last year, the chair of the British Museum, George Osborne, said that there is a “deal to be done” over sharing the Parthenon Marbles with Greece.
Earlier this month, he reiterated this plan, expressing a hope that “we can reach an agreement with Greece”, for at least some of the British Museum’s sculptures “to be seen in Athens”. In return, he wants “other treasures from Greece, some that have never left those shores, to be seen here at the British Museum”.
Despite a calming of current London-Athens row over Parthenon sculptures, Greece has vowed to intensify its campaign for the reunification of these marbles amid Britain’s reluctance.
Sunak’s cancellation of talks with his Greek counterpart ended up giving the cause of return of objects of colonial loot more global publicity than at any other time.
That’s all for The Capitals this week. See you next weekend.
