Why would the UK even want them? What message are they trying to convey to their citizens by putting them on display?
It’s a major attraction at the British Museum, along with the Rosetta Stone and dozens of other items with somewhat checkered pasts. It draws lots of visitors and helps make the British Museum a must-see site in London.
Sounds selfish.
Not Constantinople? 
They were not stolen. nor looted. The corrupt government sold them. Just like the corrupt, bankrupt government of Mexico sold us Alta California.
The study of Classical Greece was an important part of the education of the elite in many countries in western Europe. In fact it still is in the UK, recent Prime Minister, Boris Johnson got a degree in Classics from Oxford. That reverence for Ancient Greece dates from the decline of Byzantium and the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453 and the departure of Byzantine Greeks to the Italian city states and their spread through Europe courtesy of the printing press. In Elgin’s day a grand tour to Italy and Greece was part of the education of the elite. They did, of course, come back with souvenirs. Elgin seemed to have rather more baggage capacity than most. He had his critics. Lord Byron was particularly scathing and wrote a nasty poem about him. Byron is very fondly appreciated by the Greeks because of his support during the struggle for Greek independence from the Ottomans. He died leading a military campaign.
This appreciation of Classical Greece was the reason it was a fitting contribution to the British Museum which itself is an example of neo classical architecture. Otherwise they would have been ignored as worthless old stones.
Now pinching a bit of the Parthenon by doing a deal with the ruling Ottomans may seem very wrong, but it was not as if it was appreciated at the time by the Greeks themselves. They probably had other things to think about, like fighting the Ottomans.
Greece did not officially ask for them back until the issue was championed by a Greek politician Melina Mercouri in the 1980s. Mercouri was quite a remarkable politician and cultural campaigner as well as an actress. She campaigned for a new Acropolis museum to hold the marbles which was built in 2008.
The most recent pressure was a recommendation in 2021 from UNESCO that the Elgin marbles be returned to Greece. This is significant international pressure. So I expect something will give.
That is IMO the critical point. If a country has a change of government, does it get to revisit every action taken by its predecessors? Maybe modern France might want Louisiana back?
That was the approach the Soviet Unuon took with respect to bonds issued by Tsarist government. Said that it wasn’t bound to pay.
France and Britain disagreed. Russia eventually paid up, after the fall of the USSR a century later, to get access to British and French bond markets.
CNC copies of them in marble and then sell the originals back to Greece at the original price adjusted for inflation. Everybody wins.
Please. Those “fine people” were still fucking stealing Native kids in the 1970s. “Good faith” my ass, they knew.
Ironic, given Johnsons’s actual family history.
I did not know cursing was allowed in this forum. In any case, what do you think ought to be done with Australia? Where should the English-speaking, White people be resettled?
…and, by implication, the sweaty masses simply didn’t have access.
This I think underpins the best argument for having collections of international relics, which is that there is such a thing as universal human heritage and it is in fact no bad thing for a collection to transcend national boundaries and to tell a wider story of human culture and society.
We could break up the collections of Western museums and distribute the contents back to their places of origin - Marbles in the Parthenon, Rosetta Stone in Egypt, Assyrian reliefs in Syria etc. That would enable these countries to tell the best story of their history and culture. And if you were wealthy enough, you could indeed do a tour and view all these incredible objects of heritage and it would benefit you enormously. And if you’re not, then you can’t.
I’ve been round the British museum. It’s not that the individual pieces are amazing, although a lot of them are. The impact is of seeing a coherent story of humanity’s varying and burgeoning cultural development across time and across civilisations.
Is that experience something that we would want people to have access to?
If so, that’s not an argument for leaving things as they are. Maybe the best place for a Museum of Universal Heritage isn’t London or Paris or New York, maybe it’s Cairo or Beijing, or the Great Rift Valley where (I think?) it all began. Maybe it should be a travelling museum.
Maybe the collection should be owned by UNESCO or some other international body rather than a national one. Maybe proceeds should be distributed among the countries who have the best claim to the exhibits.
This is difficult! It may be too difficult. And it certainly doesn’t negate issues of rightful ownership. But if we do return to a place where the ability to be edified by great works of universal cultural heritage is the preserve of those wealthy enough to do a modern Grand Tour then something will have been lost.
That said, I do think the Elgin Marbles should be returned to Greece less because of questions of ownership and more because of questions of artistic integrity.
“Elgin Marbles” is a misnomer. They are the Parthenon Statuary. The were designed to be viewed as part of the Parthenon complex. The Parthenon complex was designed to have this exact statuary. I have seen both the Marbles and the Parthenon and each were amazing but each was also clearly woefully incomplete.
It’s like having the left half of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre and the right half in the Uffizi. You could go and see each bit and appreciate the skill and artistry, but you wouldn’t have the whole experience.
It’s a crime against art for the Marbles and the Parthenon to be sundered like this, and as we can’t move the Parthenon…
Well, one is never too old to learn…
Personally, I think they should start by not continuing to oppress Native Australians.
Somewhere under that giant man-shaped pile of straw you just shovelled up, I’d say. I never said anything about resettling White people.
Don’t give the BM ideas…
I don’t think the intention is to mount them back on the Parthenon itself. They will go into a special museum in Athens.
I guess it is more challenging to deal with large bits of building than with discrete objects in a collection.
Ha! Although, thinking about it, uprooting architecture (chapels, bridges) and re-siting it somewhere more convenient is more of an American approach so the prospect of both Parthenon and Marbles ending up in Bezos’ post-apocalyptic compound in Nebraska can’t be entirely ruled…
You know what, I’ll just stop talking.
Man, I’ve got vision and the rest of the world’s wearing bi-focals.
Even having them both in the same city so you only have to make one trip to see them is a distinct improvement however. A lot of people currently will see one but not both.
The return of the Elgin marbles seems quite straightforward compared to the situation in Nigeria with the Benin Bronzes.
This is a very comprehensive account. It reveals a lot of conflicting political issues going on within Nigeria.
What’s the old joke?
Q: Why are the pyramids in Egypt?
A: Because they were too heavy for British soldiers to take home.
I agree, but some of the rooms (most especially the marbles) are breathtaking not only due to the works themselves but because of the sheer hubris on display. My time there was a kind of roller-coaster of emotions. It’s wonderful and beautiful and also kind of sad.
I came across the Admonitions Scroll while I was there and it was amazing to look at when you know its history. Why does the British Museum have it? Because some British soldier just yoinked! it during the Boxer Rebellion and sold it to the museum for a pittance.
It kept going through my head: “a lot of this stuff should probably go back, but I’m so glad I get to see it while it’s all in one place.” Even moreso than when I visited the Pergamon Museum.