In this fluently argued book, Christopher Hitchens marshals the evidence to support the case for repatriating from the British Museum the sculptures removed from Athens by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century.
He also demolishes the arguments for retaining them in London. Seething beneath the author's analysis is a barely repressed indignation at this notorious instance of 'perfidious Albion'.
Built atop the Acropolis hill in Athens about 2,400 years ago, the Parthenon was a project mired in controversy from the beginning. Design, cost, funding and the triumphalism of its progenitor, Pericles, were all challenged at the time it was built. What everyone can agree on today is that the building and the sculptures that formed an integral part of it are unique in world art.
The Parthenon has served variously as classical temple, church, mosque, school, tourist destination and cultural icon. Most disastrously, it became a store for explosives. Under siege in 1687, the building exploded from a direct hit, causing extensive damage.
A century later, the Turkish authorities that controlled Athens when Lord Elgin was appointed ambassador to the Ottoman empire, gave him permission only to draw and make casts of the Parthenon sculptures.
Elgin proceeded to send back to Britain scores of carved marble sections to decorate his country seat in Scotland, further damaging the Parthenon in the process. Strapped for cash, in 1816 Elgin sold the carvings to the British government, which presented them to the British Museum.
Whether Elgin was the hero who "saved" the Parthenon sculptures for posterity, or the villain who "stole" them from Greece, the central question tackled by Hitchens is, by what right does the British Museum continue to hold these ancient sculptures in Bloomsbury?
Hitchens concedes that Elgin probably did save the sculptures from the further damage that they would have sustained had they been left in situ. But he points out that this unintended benefit should not distract from the fact that Elgin bribed, lied and cheated to get them to Britain.
The latest edition of Hitchens' book coincides with the opening next year of the new Acropolis Museum, whose existence will remove a major argument against return.
Its space to show the Parthenon sculptures within sight of the Acropolis is superior in every way to the Duveen Gallery in Bloomsbury, where they are displayed incomplete, divorced from context and inside out. In the Acropolis Museum, the sculptures' connection with their original architectural context is clearly visible.
Hitchens uses the term reunification with good reason. After three centuries of damage, fragmentation and dispersal, we now have the opportunity to reassemble Phidias's monumental sculptural narrative.
Hitchens misses a trick in building his case. In May 2005, the high court ruled that four Old Master drawings, acquired by the British Museum in 1946/49 and now acknowledged by the trustees as looted during the Nazi era, must not be returned to the heirs of the original owner on the grounds that to do so would violate the British Museum Act 1963. Dickens had it right: "If the law supposes that… the law is a ass - a idiot."
A building of iconic cultural importance in Athens was robbed by a Briton 200 years ago and, protected by English law, the Brits hang onto the loot. And so the creaking establishment carousel continues to turn. Trustee, legislature, and tradition locked in a mindless gyration, and not even a paid servant with the wit to break the unedifying cycle.
Hard-wired into the circuitry of western museums is an ahistorical delusion that they can and should "stop the clock". For more than 2,000 years the Parthenon Marbles were integral to the architectural landscape created in Athens.
For the last 200 they have been part of the imported cultural landscape of London. Why should anyone think the story ends in Bloomsbury? Hitchens has added an important critique to the continuing narrative of these contested sculptures, as the status quo looks increasingly untenable.
Tristram Besterman is a freelance adviser and writer on museums and culture
He also demolishes the arguments for retaining them in London. Seething beneath the author's analysis is a barely repressed indignation at this notorious instance of 'perfidious Albion'.
Built atop the Acropolis hill in Athens about 2,400 years ago, the Parthenon was a project mired in controversy from the beginning. Design, cost, funding and the triumphalism of its progenitor, Pericles, were all challenged at the time it was built. What everyone can agree on today is that the building and the sculptures that formed an integral part of it are unique in world art.
The Parthenon has served variously as classical temple, church, mosque, school, tourist destination and cultural icon. Most disastrously, it became a store for explosives. Under siege in 1687, the building exploded from a direct hit, causing extensive damage.
A century later, the Turkish authorities that controlled Athens when Lord Elgin was appointed ambassador to the Ottoman empire, gave him permission only to draw and make casts of the Parthenon sculptures.
Elgin proceeded to send back to Britain scores of carved marble sections to decorate his country seat in Scotland, further damaging the Parthenon in the process. Strapped for cash, in 1816 Elgin sold the carvings to the British government, which presented them to the British Museum.
Whether Elgin was the hero who "saved" the Parthenon sculptures for posterity, or the villain who "stole" them from Greece, the central question tackled by Hitchens is, by what right does the British Museum continue to hold these ancient sculptures in Bloomsbury?
Hitchens concedes that Elgin probably did save the sculptures from the further damage that they would have sustained had they been left in situ. But he points out that this unintended benefit should not distract from the fact that Elgin bribed, lied and cheated to get them to Britain.
The latest edition of Hitchens' book coincides with the opening next year of the new Acropolis Museum, whose existence will remove a major argument against return.
Its space to show the Parthenon sculptures within sight of the Acropolis is superior in every way to the Duveen Gallery in Bloomsbury, where they are displayed incomplete, divorced from context and inside out. In the Acropolis Museum, the sculptures' connection with their original architectural context is clearly visible.
Hitchens uses the term reunification with good reason. After three centuries of damage, fragmentation and dispersal, we now have the opportunity to reassemble Phidias's monumental sculptural narrative.
Hitchens misses a trick in building his case. In May 2005, the high court ruled that four Old Master drawings, acquired by the British Museum in 1946/49 and now acknowledged by the trustees as looted during the Nazi era, must not be returned to the heirs of the original owner on the grounds that to do so would violate the British Museum Act 1963. Dickens had it right: "If the law supposes that… the law is a ass - a idiot."
A building of iconic cultural importance in Athens was robbed by a Briton 200 years ago and, protected by English law, the Brits hang onto the loot. And so the creaking establishment carousel continues to turn. Trustee, legislature, and tradition locked in a mindless gyration, and not even a paid servant with the wit to break the unedifying cycle.
Hard-wired into the circuitry of western museums is an ahistorical delusion that they can and should "stop the clock". For more than 2,000 years the Parthenon Marbles were integral to the architectural landscape created in Athens.
For the last 200 they have been part of the imported cultural landscape of London. Why should anyone think the story ends in Bloomsbury? Hitchens has added an important critique to the continuing narrative of these contested sculptures, as the status quo looks increasingly untenable.
Tristram Besterman is a freelance adviser and writer on museums and culture
By Christopher Hitchens
Verso, £11.99
ISBN 978 1 84467 252 3
Verso, £11.99
ISBN 978 1 84467 252 3
