Some of the stolen
Parthenon Marbles
on display in London

Lord Elgin was a Scottish Lord who hoped to do well in politics. At the beginning of the 19th century Lord Elgin was appointed ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Lord Elgin wanted to find some ancient Greek statues to decorate his mansion in Scotland. He travelled in Greece, looking for things to send back to Britain. He employed an artist to make drawings of Greek statues and buildings. When he came to the Acropolis he was given permission to remove anything which was lying on the ground. But Elgin decided to take the statues of the Parthenon frieze and send them back to England. Elgin took about half of the frieze and some other sculptures from the Parthenon. He sent them back to England. After that things went very badly for Elgin. He found himself so short of money that he decided to sell the Parthenon Marbles to the British government. Some Members of Parliament thought that Elgin had done a terrible thing in removing the Parthenon Marbles. However, it was decided to buy the Parthenon Marbles from Elgin and put them in the British Museum. And they have stayed there ever since.

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When work began on the Parthenon in 447 BC, the Athenian Empire was at the height of its power. Work on the temple continued until 432; the Parthenon, then, represents the tangible and visible efflorescence of Athenian imperial power, unencumbered by the depradations of the Peloponnesian War. Likewise, it symbolizes the power and influence of the Athenian politician, Perikles, who championed its construction.

The request for the restitution of the Parthenon Marbles is not made by the Greek government in the name only of the Greek nation or of Greek history.

It is made in the name of the cultural heritage of the world and with the voice of the mutilated monument itself, that cries out for its marbles to be returned.

Elginism (el’giniz’?m) n. 1801. [f. the name of Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin (1766-1841)]

An act of cultural vandalism. A term coined by the destructive actions of Lord Elgin who illegally transported the Parthenon Marbles from Greece to London between 1801 and 1805. Now also applies to other cultural objects. Usually refers to artefacts taken from poorer nations to richer ones.

It has a profound negative effect on the art world because many artefacts are destroyed when they are torn out of their cultural & spatial context. Due to this, scholars are unable to retrieve valuable historical information because they can only deal with fragmentary remains instead of a complete unified object. Decontextualised artefacts that end up in a museum or gallery are often given the name of the person who perpetrated their removal from their original setting (see Elgin Marbles).

The French use the term elginisme to describe the practice of stealing antique fittings from old houses.

The act of elginism has been going on for thousands of years, however the Elgin Marbles are now considered to be the classic case of elginism.

UNESCO has now put in place international laws to deal with acts of elginism by protecting monuments & preventing illicit traffic.

These include the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, with its two Protocols of 1954 and 1999, the 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property, the 1972 Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage & the 1995 UNIDROIT Convention on Stolen or Illegally Exported Cultural Objects. In 1999 UNESCO launched an international fund for the return and restitution of cultural property.

"If it would be me, I would give them back immediately."
                              Bill Clinton, President of the United States

"The Greeks are trying to bring back what belongs not only to them but to all humanity. This shows that your efforts are to your [the Greeks] credit and we [the Russians] will support you in this"

                                                  Vladimir Putin, President of Russia

We will never give up!

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