Greece is now prepared for the return of the Elgin Marbles

For many years, one of the excuses for the British Museum’s retention of the Parthenon Sculptures was that there was no suitable place in Greece to host them. This has now been solved with the completed Acropolis Museum which continues to receive overwhelmingly positive reviews.

For anyone who considers themselves a budding ruinologist, and who has taken the time to explore the wonders of the ancient world from the Mayans to the Romans, for such a cultured person, Greece presents a most appealing, if not troubling, opportunity. The nation is the cradle of Western civilization, and Athens is chockablock with museums and historical sites — despite the whispers of bad traffic, of poor air quality, of stifling heat during the summer months.

The intrigued but uncommitted observer is precisely the type of person who will be swayed by the new Acropolis Museum in Athens, which opened to the public at the end of June. Some 30-plus years, countless delays and at least $210-million in the making, the ultra-modern structure was designed by Swiss-born architect Bernard Tschumi to rest at the foot of the Acropolis and house the treasures of that most famous of ancient Greek site’s and was the visionary dream of ex. PM and president mr K. Karamanlis (Senior) and for which in true Greek fashion just happened to be completed during his nephew’s (and namesake’s) reign.

Besides being the jewel in the crown of touristic Athens, the museum is also intended as a political cudgel with which to beat the United Kingdom. Between 1801 and 1812, the Englishman Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, made off with a goodly portion of the marble sculptures at the Acropolis under somewhat murky circumstances, during a period in which Greece was a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. Among his spoils was roughly 40% of the Parthenon frieze, a masterful 160-metre piece of sculpture that ringed the upper part of the Parthenon and depicted a great religious procession. Lord Elgin eventually sold these plundered marbles to the British Museum, where they reside to this day.

Greece is a country in which issues of cultural heritage take on striking levels of political significance. The fact that the British continue to hold these treasures of Greek antiquity has led the country’s politicians to trip over one another to denounce English villainy, and the construction of this new Acropolis museum is intended as a riposte to the British Museum’s claim that it couldn’t possibly return the Elgin Marbles to Greece because the nation had no proper site at which to display them.

On the issue of the return of the marbles Greece draws support not only from its many EU partners but also from its many friends one of which is British essayist and cultural gadabout Christopher Hitchens, who has long agitated for the return of the marbles to Greece. In a New York Times comment piece shortly before the opening of the museum he declared that the British Museum’s central objection was no longer operative: “The Greeks have now excelled themselves in creating a place worthy of its breath-taking contents,” he declared, adding, “It is impossible to visit Athens and not yearn for the day when Britain decides to right [its] ancient wrong.”
Despite the fanfare surrounding the museum’s opening, however, the British continue to reject Greek demands. In a curious public relations gambit, the British Museum recently offered to loan some of the marbles back to Greece on the condition that the Greek government acknowledges permanent British sovereignty over Lord Elgin’s loot. Greece rejected the offer. Government officials, though, seem confident they are on the side of angel. “Sooner or later, the marbles in the British Museum will find their natural homes,” said the museum’s director, Dimitrios Pandermanlis, during the opening festivities. “Of this I am certain.”

Keeping in line with this key came the words “We didn’t build this for the sake of the British,” from the Greek Cultural Minister Antonis Samaras who also declared to the media in late June before the museum’s opening. “But look around. Does this not negate the argument that Athens has no place good enough to house the Parthenon Marbles?” showing the deep rooted feelings the issue of the marbles has evoked in both the citizens and the politicians of Greece.

Indeed, with this new museum and other welcome changes made in Athens over the past few years (including a brand-new subway system, and large portions of the old town converted to pedestrian zones), the city rebuts those who would whisper that Athens is still not a worthwhile travel destination, making it all the more difficult for the British to justify there stance of “claim” on a piece as significant to the history of city of Athens as this.

With all this in mind then, maybe the time is near when Greece should push the debate regarding the repatriation of Cultural assets to the next level, once and for all telling the British primarily and the world ultimately that it is ready for an obvious wrong to be righted by demanding the return of the colonial booty to it’s rightful heir, Athens, making the case that Greece is all set to receive with open arms (and immaculate accommodations) their Elgin Marbles.