By Danika Koo - South Korea
The glistening Acropolis Museum belies the original rubble from which Lord Elgin “rescued” what has become one of the world’s most contested cultural artifacts: the Parthenon Marbles. First removed from Athens with Ottoman permission and then sold to the British Museum in 1812, this collection of ancient Greek sculptures from the Parthenon and its centuries-long odyssey from home have come to represent the countless cultural artifacts scattered across the West as a result of colonial plunder. To this day, the British Museum and the Acropolis Museum house different parts from the shrine that has become an enduring symbol of Greek culture and Western civilization as much as contested cultural ownership.
Since gaining independence from the Ottomans in 1832, the Greeks have sought to restore the cherished Hellenic legacy at the heart of their emerging national identity, which included efforts to retrieve stolen statues from their iconic cultural heritage site. These demands gained renewed impetus in the later 20th century as shifting global attitudes on postcolonial justice prompted calls for the return of looted national treasures from across the world. In 1983, the Greek government made an official request for repatriation, which the British Museum then declined the following year. Ever since, repatriation demands have persisted across formal and informal diplomatic channels, but the demands have become more vociferous with the election of incumbent Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in 2019. As a form of compromise, the British Museum has recently proposed the temporary loan of the Parthenon sculptures on the condition of their eventual retrieval, but the Greek government has declined this offer on the grounds that a loan necessarily acknowledges the British Museum’s current ownership as rightful.
The two countries are at an impasse. The UK insists on its rightful ownership of one of the British Museum’s most prized possessions on the grounds of its legal acquisition and the collection’s superior preservation in British hands. To this, defenders of British ownership further add that the Elgin Marbles have a justified place in the British Museum, which serves as a “universal museum” offering the full breadth of human achievement under a single roof to best preserve and display the world’s collective cultural heritage. The Greek government, however, has responded by stressing the significance of the collection to Greek cultural heritage and the historical injustice not only perpetrated but further perpetuated by its continued display in London as a result of “imperial theft.” Furthermore, as Mitsotakis argued in a BBC interview from November 2023, refusing to reconcile the marbles with the rest of the Parthenon is arguably no different from cutting the Mona Lisa in half, as pieces taken from the shrine are incomplete when estranged from their original historical and architectural context. Moreover, the Greeks have effectively rebuked British claims to better stewardship by erecting their own state-of-the-art museum right below the Acropolis hill.
The struggles that surround the Parthenon Marbles are repeated across the globe. The Benin Bronzes, the Rosetta Stone, the Moai Statues, and the bust of Queen Neferetiti are just a handful of the other iconic cultural artifacts with contested histories, and their international significance has only increased as former colonies gain greater political and cultural independence at moments of renewed post-colonial awareness and nationalism. More importantly, these demands for the repatriation of “looted” cultural heritage are not falling on deaf ears as increased global advocacy and public awareness have also prompted Western museums to seriously reckon with issues of ethical stewardship and restorative justice. Independent museums and private collections have taken the lead by returning stolen cultural artifacts in their possession, and even national governments have pledged and executed repatriation agreements with other countries. In a key symbolic moment, French President Emmanuel Macron declared in 2017 that looted treasures will be permanently returned to their rightful owners as a matter of “top priority.” Voluntary repatriation has since emerged as a diplomatic means of establishing goodwill and strengthening soft power. However, these promised returns are admittedly occurring at a slow pace and remain limited to less iconic objects. There are further concerns that governments like France that have made grand declarations are ex post facto seeking a “middle way that would be a mix of restitution and circulation” contrary to demands for complete repatriation.
At the end of the day, former colonizers are not subject to any legal obligation to return the spoils of colonial conquest. The one multilateral treaty on illicitly transferred cultural objects does not retroactively apply to artifacts looted centuries ago. The domestic law on the UK’s national museum possessions explicitly bars the British Museum from deaccessioning and returning objects that are not duplicates, physically damaged, or otherwise “unfit to be retained” and no longer of public interest. A successful 2022 legal amendment to allow repatriation on “moral grounds” was ultimately revised in 2024 to exclude national museums. Moreover, the current British leadership lacks the political will to push for the necessary legal amendments to pave the path for repatriation. When Mitsotakis spoke of the Parthenon Marbles in the aforementioned BBC interview, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak canceled his planned meeting with the Greek Prime Minister whom he accused of breaking a promise to avoid public discussion on the topic. Earlier that year, Sunak also refuted reports of possible repatriation by publicly declaring that the UK has “no plans” to return the sculptures.
In response to this gridlock, one groundbreaking proposal has sought to employ digital technology to render physical location less important for the museum’s primary purpose of edification. A troop of archaeologists have proposed to manufacture facsimile 3D printed copies of the Elgin Marbles and other looted bounty so that the originals can be returned to their places of origin. Enthusiasts argue that this could reconcile the Greek desire to see the cultural legacy of their ancestors restored to their sacred homeland and the British desire to bequeath a symbol of Western civilization intact to progeny. Perfect replicas of the statues could be combined with immersive, historically accurate augmented reality (AR) experiences of the artifact’s origins and trajectory for visitors to the British Museum, while the original pieces can be reunited with the other half of the Parthenon’s fresco in the historical location that imbues the artifacts with their timeless significance.
While practical, this most recent proposal fails to understand the issue at the core of this global challenge. Equally important as the physical return of the Parthenon Marbles are the public acknowledgment of past wrongdoing and future commitment to restorative justice that must then follow. In the same way that cultural artifacts are imbued with meaning by the historical and cultural context of their creation and use, their return is also embedded in larger narratives of colonial injustice and global inequality. The protracted battle over repatriation has added only insult to injury, as former colonies see in arguments of stewardship and universal museums further imperial hubris and exploitation. Only when past imperial powers are willing to reckon with past wrongs in open and equal dialogue with looted nations will the odyssey of these stolen artifacts finally come to a close.
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