On December 16, Pope Francis of the Vatican announced the return to Greece of all Parthenon marble fragments from the Vatican Museums' collection. The pope called the return a "gift" to the Greek Orthodox archbishop, and the three fragments — the head of a horse, a boy and a man's head — have been in the Vatican's collection since the 19th century.
This "gift" once again pushed the British Museum to the wind. In 1983, Greece made its first formal request to the United Kingdom to return the "Elgin stone carvings", but to this day, it has not been successful.
The Vatican Museums returned a horse's head in Greece.
Built on the Acropolis in the 5th century BC, the Parthenon is the temple dedicated to the goddess Athena in ancient Greece and the most important surviving building of the classical Hellenistic era, with carvings and decorations that culminate ancient Greek art, depicting characters from Greek mythology, legendary battle scenes and processions of Panathenaea.
Parthenon in 2022
The temple existed for thousands of years as a dedicated Athena. Later, even though the regime changed, the city was ransacked, and the temple was turned into a church and mosque, the building remained intact. Until 1687, when the Republic of Venice under Francesco Morosini attacked Athens, the Turks used the temple as a powder magazine to strengthen the defense of the acropolis, and then the explosion of the powder magazine due to shelling destroyed part of the building, and Francesco Morosini ransacked the carvings in the ruins, and the temple was almost abandoned.
An explosion in 1687 caused permanent damage to the southern end of the Parthenon.
By the 18th century, the unique uniqueness of the remains of the Parthenon was known to more Europeans, drawing attention to Greece in Britain and France, and early travelers and archaeologists measured the building, depicting the first Parthenon map based on the measurements, which was published in 1787.
The details of the western pillar wall illustrate the current state of the temple after 2,500 years of war, pollution, unstable protection, plunder, destruction.
In 1801, Thomas the Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, obtained permission from the Greek rulers of the time to collect statues, and he hired local workers to remove the marble sculptures from the building and also purchased some from the locals. Between 1801 and 1812, Elgin removed 21 statues, 15 panels, and a Parthenon frieze about 250 feet long and shipped them to England. At that time, British public opinion was controversial, and among the opponents, the poet Byron denounced the move as robbery, and the British media called it antiquities destruction and greed. But after some debate, the British Parliament decided not to prosecute Elgin, who sold the stones to the British government in 1816 and kept them in the British Museum.
After Greece's independence in 1832, the Greek government began to recover these lost stone sculptures, repeatedly demanding that the British government return the property to its original owners. In 2014, UNESCO coordinated it, but in the end, the British Museum still refused to return the "Elgin stone carving", which has not been successful.
The Vatican Pope's decision to "gift" was made based on increasing pressure on the British Museum to return. In the past, there have also been ways to ease contradictions through borrowing. For example, a man's head returned to Greece by the Vatican was loaned to Greece for a year in 2008.
The Vatican returns a man's head from Greece
Back in early 2022, the Regional Archaeological Museum of Antonio Salinas in Sicily has transported a marble fragment from the Parthenon with leg patterns and feet (the right foot of the goddess Artemis) back to the Acropolis Museum for long-term loan. The move has also been interpreted as encouraging institutions with Greek artifacts such as the British Museum to follow suit.
A fragment of the Parthenon, the right foot of the goddess Artemis, was transported from Italy to the Acropolis Museum.
The fragment of the sculpture comes from the collection of Robert Fagan, a British diplomat and art dealer who was appointed Consul General of Sicily and Malta in the early 19th century. After his death, the widow sold the slab to the Reggio Museum of the University of Palermo, now the Archaeological Museum. For the next four years, the sculpture fragments will be on display at the Acropolis Museum, after which it may be renewed. In exchange, the Italian museum will receive a statue of Athena from the fifth century BC and a geometric amphora jar from the eighth century BC.
The piece, which has been added to the Acropolis Museum, combines original marble and plaster replicas.
However, this time the Vatican "gifted" the sculpture to the Greek Orthodox Church in a religious way, rather than returning it directly to the Greek government, is widely regarded as a precedent for the Vatican to avoid it, and if it is directly mentioned, it may affect the treasures involved in colonization in the museum's collection. The Vatican Museums themselves are home to artifacts from around the world, and this summer, Canada's Indigenous leaders called on popes to return their artifacts at the Vatican. But so far there has been no return response.
In 1983, Greece first formally requested the return of the Elgin Stone to the United Kingdom, and since then, Greece has repeatedly appealed, and the British Museum has repeatedly ruled out the possibility of restitution, insisting that they were obtained legally.
Greek Exhibition Hall of the British Museum
On June 18 this year, about 60 protesters gathered at the British Museum to renew their call for the Parthenon marble in London to be returned to Greece, an event that also coincides with the 13th anniversary of the opening of the Acropolis Museum, which officially opened on June 20, 2009, is the most visited museum in Greece, with a collection of 4,250 artifacts from the archaeological site of the Acropolis. Its top floor, the Parthenon Gallery, combines original artifacts with sculptures that have been taken or destroyed. One of the motives behind the construction of the specialized museum was allegedly to refute British officials' claims that Greece did not have a suitable site to display Parthenon sculptures.
Acropolis Museum
June 18, 2022, a protest calling for the return of the Parthenon marble in London to Greece.
In the 2,500 years since its construction, about half of the original Parthenon original marble has been destroyed. The surviving museums are currently distributed in six countries, of which the British Museum and the Acropolis Museum are equally divided, and the Louvre and the Vatican Museums also hold some fragments.
Acropolis Museum
At present, the Vatican Museums have been returned as a "gift". The British Museum has always maintained its position that sculpture should exist between the two museums, each telling and complementing a very different story. "These works of art are loved all over the world, and we believe that public tours should be at the heart of the conversation, but discussions now tend to be limited to legal issues and hostile environments, rather than focusing on how to share them with the world." A spokesman for the British Museum said.
However, the British Museum and the British government have given different signals about the Parthenon. At the beginning of April of this year, the museum rejected a request from the Institute of Digital Archaeology to 3D scan the "Elgin Stone" to create a replica that is indistinguishable from the original. Later that month, however, Britain's arts minister asked to meet with Greece's culture minister to discuss the restitution of the items.
It was revealed that earlier this month, representatives of the British Museum held secret talks with the Greek prime minister about the restitution. The Greek government said it would not make an immediate decision, while the British Museum said that while it hoped to "establish a new Parthenon partnership with Greece", "we will not dismantle our great collection because it tells a unique story that we share".
NOTE: THIS ARTICLE WAS COMPILED FROM THE GUARDIAN, HYPERALLERGIC