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200 years ago, workmen were swarming over the Acropolis, | 0:00:10 | 0:00:15 | |
the rock that dominates the ancient city of Athens. | 0:00:15 | 0:00:19 | |
They were hard at work on exquisite pieces of marble sculpture | 0:00:19 | 0:00:23 | |
but this was not an act of creation. | 0:00:23 | 0:00:27 | |
The workmen were obeying the orders of one man - | 0:00:27 | 0:00:32 | |
Lord Elgin. | 0:00:32 | 0:00:34 | |
Elgin was risking his fortune, reputation and health in compulsive pursuit of a grand scheme - | 0:00:34 | 0:00:42 | |
the removal of the sculptures and their transportation to Britain. | 0:00:42 | 0:00:47 | |
Elgin's ambition was to lead to his ruin | 0:00:47 | 0:00:51 | |
and to one of the greatest international controversies of the last two centuries, | 0:00:51 | 0:00:56 | |
for the sculptures were decorating one of the oldest and most revered buildings in the world... | 0:00:56 | 0:01:02 | |
..the Parthenon. | 0:01:05 | 0:01:09 | |
This is the story of one man's obsession and the scandal his actions caused. | 0:01:10 | 0:01:16 | |
This is the story of the Elgin Marbles. | 0:01:16 | 0:01:20 | |
There's no question that Elgin performed one of the greatest acts of conservation rescue in history. | 0:01:33 | 0:01:40 | |
He was seeking to do something for the public good, for art. | 0:01:40 | 0:01:44 | |
If Elgin, today, went and dismantled a building immensely precious to another country's identity, | 0:01:46 | 0:01:53 | |
we'd regard him in the same light as we regard Nazis, you know, stripping places that they occupied. | 0:01:53 | 0:01:59 | |
One can't think about returning the Elgin Marbles until the Greeks start caring for what they already have. | 0:02:01 | 0:02:08 | |
If a woman was abusing her child, you wouldn't let her adopt another. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:13 | |
They are our pride. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:15 | |
They are a noble symbol of excellence and they are a thankful tribute to democracy. | 0:02:15 | 0:02:22 | |
And that's what all the Greeks feel. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:26 | |
You don't take away a country's pride. | 0:02:27 | 0:02:30 | |
In the year of the Athens Olympics, with the world's eyes on Greece, | 0:02:35 | 0:02:39 | |
the issue of the Elgin Marbles has exploded all over again. | 0:02:39 | 0:02:44 | |
The basics of the case remain the same. | 0:02:44 | 0:02:47 | |
200 years ago, Lord Elgin took about half of the marble sculptures that survived on the Parthenon, | 0:02:47 | 0:02:53 | |
the ancient Greek monument that for 2,500 years has occupied the rock of the Acropolis in Athens. | 0:02:53 | 0:03:00 | |
These marbles, the Elgin Marbles, | 0:03:00 | 0:03:03 | |
are now on display in London in the British Museum, and Greece wants them back. | 0:03:03 | 0:03:10 | |
I've always loved the Elgin Marbles but, until today, I've never visited the Parthenon itself | 0:03:10 | 0:03:16 | |
and, although it's a bit of a building site, packed with tourists, | 0:03:16 | 0:03:22 | |
seeing it for the first time is a breathtaking experience. | 0:03:22 | 0:03:26 | |
It's a golden monument to the golden age of Ancient Greek civilisation, | 0:03:26 | 0:03:31 | |
the civilisation that gave us democracy, philosophy, drama, comedy, tragedy. | 0:03:31 | 0:03:38 | |
But to many modern Greeks, this site is itself the scene of a tragedy - the loss of the Marbles. | 0:03:38 | 0:03:45 | |
The Elgin Marbles controversy has often generated more heat than light. | 0:03:45 | 0:03:50 | |
I wanted to get at the facts behind the arguments. Just what is it that makes the Marbles matter so much? | 0:03:50 | 0:03:56 | |
What gives them their power to rouse such passions? | 0:03:56 | 0:04:00 | |
How do they come to be in London rather than Athens? Should they be returned to Greece? | 0:04:00 | 0:04:05 | |
Controversy has always surrounded the Elgin Marbles. | 0:04:12 | 0:04:16 | |
In 1816, 14 years after Elgin took the sculptures, | 0:04:16 | 0:04:20 | |
dissenting voices had become so loud that the government appointed a parliamentary select committee | 0:04:20 | 0:04:26 | |
to uncover precisely what had happened and to question the man at the centre of the storm. | 0:04:26 | 0:04:33 | |
A man whose life, circumstances and appearance had dramatically changed. | 0:04:33 | 0:04:39 | |
You will be pleased to state your name and title. | 0:04:40 | 0:04:44 | |
Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin. | 0:04:44 | 0:04:47 | |
Your Lordship will be pleased to state the circumstances | 0:04:47 | 0:04:51 | |
under which you became possessed of this collection | 0:04:51 | 0:04:55 | |
and of the authority you received for taking the Marbles from Athens. | 0:04:55 | 0:05:00 | |
Elgin had reached rock bottom. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:05 | |
He was penniless, his reputation was in tatters | 0:05:05 | 0:05:09 | |
and he was afflicted by a mysterious wasting disease that was devouring his nose. | 0:05:09 | 0:05:15 | |
To him, it must have seemed incredible | 0:05:15 | 0:05:19 | |
that events had turned out this way. After all, it had all begun so differently, 17 years earlier. | 0:05:19 | 0:05:25 | |
In 1799, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, stood on the brink of a brilliant public career. | 0:05:29 | 0:05:37 | |
He was, of course, Earl of Elgin when he was five years old. | 0:05:37 | 0:05:41 | |
So he realised that he had a position, as it were, | 0:05:41 | 0:05:46 | |
but it was made absolutely clear to him that he didn't have any money | 0:05:46 | 0:05:52 | |
so he'd better be highly educated. | 0:05:52 | 0:05:55 | |
He had been educated as a boy in Harrow, | 0:05:55 | 0:05:59 | |
had gone to university in St Andrews and then had gone to Paris. | 0:05:59 | 0:06:05 | |
Very much brought up as a proper gentleman, young but experienced and with some success. | 0:06:05 | 0:06:12 | |
This ambitious Scotsman had mastered three careers by his early 30s. | 0:06:14 | 0:06:18 | |
In the Army, he had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel, despite never having seen military action. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:25 | |
In politics, he had taken up an elected seat in the House of Lords, | 0:06:25 | 0:06:30 | |
attending in London whenever he could find the time. | 0:06:30 | 0:06:34 | |
In international diplomacy, he had shown great promise as ambassador to Vienna, Brussels and Berlin. | 0:06:34 | 0:06:41 | |
So Elgin seemed the obvious choice for the British Government | 0:06:41 | 0:06:46 | |
to send to Constantinople, now Istanbul, as British Ambassador to the mighty Turkish Ottoman Empire. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:52 | |
It's absolutely clear that he was in some senses on the make | 0:06:52 | 0:06:58 | |
when he went to get this job in Constantinople. | 0:06:58 | 0:07:02 | |
Indeed, he quite actively canvassed for himself to get the job. | 0:07:02 | 0:07:07 | |
He was grabbing his chances. | 0:07:07 | 0:07:09 | |
There were, I think, six ambassadorships in those days of the great powers of Europe of the time. | 0:07:09 | 0:07:16 | |
So, if he had made a success of that job, then the sky's the limit. | 0:07:16 | 0:07:21 | |
He could've come back and chosen whatever career he wanted. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:25 | |
In the late 18th century, the Turkish Ottoman Empire was one of the great powers of the world, | 0:07:25 | 0:07:32 | |
controlling most of the Middle East, Asia Minor, the Balkans and the north African coast. | 0:07:32 | 0:07:39 | |
Its tentacles even reached as far as Greece, | 0:07:39 | 0:07:43 | |
which the Ottomans had controlled for nearly 400 years. | 0:07:43 | 0:07:48 | |
The Ottoman control of Greece caught the attention of the neoclassical architect Thomas Harrison. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:54 | |
Harrison happened to be building Elgin's new country pile here in Scotland, Broom Hall, | 0:07:54 | 0:08:00 | |
and it was Harrison who really fired Elgin's passion for Ancient Greece | 0:08:00 | 0:08:06 | |
and, in the process, changed his life forever. | 0:08:06 | 0:08:09 | |
The idea was first suggested to me in the year 1799 - | 0:08:09 | 0:08:13 | |
at the period of my nomination to the embassy at Constantinople - by Mr Thomas Harrison, an architect | 0:08:13 | 0:08:21 | |
who was working for me in Scotland. And his observation was that, | 0:08:21 | 0:08:27 | |
though the public was in possession of everything to give them a general knowledge of the remains of Athens, | 0:08:27 | 0:08:34 | |
yet they had nothing to convey the specifics of the antiquities to artists. He suggested | 0:08:34 | 0:08:41 | |
that casts of the originals would add greatly to such an understanding. | 0:08:41 | 0:08:46 | |
Harrison's interest in Ancient Greece was very much of the moment. | 0:08:46 | 0:08:52 | |
In 19th century Europe, there was Grecomania. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:58 | |
People were absolutely obsessed with the ancient world. | 0:08:58 | 0:09:02 | |
Obsession with the idea that there was this perfect Classical past, | 0:09:02 | 0:09:07 | |
an idealism you could look back to and live up to. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:11 | |
Indeed, for 19th-century Europeans, | 0:09:11 | 0:09:14 | |
Ancient Greece marked nothing less than the birth of Western civilisation. | 0:09:14 | 0:09:20 | |
In the city of Athens in the 5th century BC, | 0:09:22 | 0:09:25 | |
there had been a remarkable flowering of politics and culture | 0:09:25 | 0:09:29 | |
that laid the foundations of philosophy, medicine, science, theatre and democracy. | 0:09:29 | 0:09:36 | |
Athens in the 5th century BC was seen as a golden age. | 0:09:36 | 0:09:41 | |
One of the things that's prompting a fascination with the Classical at the turn of the 19th century | 0:09:41 | 0:09:48 | |
is the beginning of real exploration of the Greek and Roman worlds that starts with the Grand Tour to Italy. | 0:09:48 | 0:09:55 | |
By the late 18th century, what you're opening up is direct contact with Greece itself | 0:09:55 | 0:10:01 | |
and that means with the art and architecture. | 0:10:01 | 0:10:05 | |
And there was an expectation that untold artistic and architectural riches would be found there. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:11 | |
It was hardly surprising that Elgin jumped at Harrison's suggestion. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:15 | |
I sought to make my embassy to Constantinople | 0:10:15 | 0:10:19 | |
beneficial to the progress of the fine arts in Great Britain, | 0:10:19 | 0:10:23 | |
to bestow some benefit towards the progress of taste in England, | 0:10:23 | 0:10:28 | |
towards the advancement of literature and the arts. | 0:10:28 | 0:10:33 | |
Fine motives. It was Elgin's plan that while he went to Constantinople on diplomatic business, | 0:10:33 | 0:10:40 | |
his artists would go to Athens to draw, measure and study the ancient remains. | 0:10:40 | 0:10:46 | |
There was no talk of actually removing anything from the ruins. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:50 | |
Like so many other men of the Enlightenment caught up in the mania for all things Greek, | 0:10:50 | 0:10:56 | |
Elgin sincerely believed that drawings and casts of Ancient Greek art and architecture | 0:10:56 | 0:11:02 | |
could transform British taste, and come in handy when it came to decorating his new house. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:08 | |
Elgin pursued the plan with missionary zeal. Such was his enthusiasm, | 0:11:08 | 0:11:14 | |
he decided to fund the project himself when the government rejected his request for public money. | 0:11:14 | 0:11:20 | |
Ideas would come to him and he would take them to the full. He moved very quickly, he adored going fast. | 0:11:22 | 0:11:29 | |
If he saw the opportunity, he took it, regardless of cost. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:34 | |
On the 3rd September 1799, Elgin sailed from Portsmouth for Constantinople. | 0:11:37 | 0:11:43 | |
It was the start of an exciting adventure. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:47 | |
Elgin believed that he was embarking on a glittering international career. | 0:11:47 | 0:11:53 | |
Little did he know that this expedition would lead to his ruin. | 0:11:53 | 0:11:58 | |
On board ship were two people who would play a crucial role in Elgin's future | 0:11:59 | 0:12:06 | |
and would, in their way, prove to be his undoing. | 0:12:06 | 0:12:10 | |
The Reverend Philip Hunt was Elgin's chaplain and secretary. | 0:12:12 | 0:12:17 | |
Philip Hunt is certainly, in his own words, on the make. He believes that going to be chaplain to Elgin | 0:12:17 | 0:12:24 | |
will bring him fame and fortune. And paradoxically it has, but not in the way that Hunt would've imagined. | 0:12:24 | 0:12:31 | |
Mary Nisbett, Elgin's new 22-year-old wife was also making the long journey to Constantinople. | 0:12:32 | 0:12:39 | |
Amen. | 0:12:39 | 0:12:41 | |
She had the enormous advantage | 0:12:41 | 0:12:44 | |
of being extremely wealthy and Elgin, though probably not as impoverished as he would always like to claim, | 0:12:44 | 0:12:51 | |
was constantly short of the ready, and Mary was an extremely good catch. | 0:12:51 | 0:12:55 | |
She wrote brilliant letters home and she relished every moment of it. | 0:12:55 | 0:13:01 | |
He could be quite withdrawn because he felt that, as the ambassador, | 0:13:01 | 0:13:06 | |
you should show certain elements - dignity and so forth. | 0:13:06 | 0:13:10 | |
But they made an extremely happy and industrious pair. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:15 | |
All Elgin now needed to achieve his ambitions were artists who could carry out his plans in Athens. | 0:13:16 | 0:13:23 | |
During a stopover in Sicily, | 0:13:23 | 0:13:26 | |
Elgin hired the Italian landscape painter Giovanni Battista Lusieri and sailed on to Constantinople. | 0:13:26 | 0:13:34 | |
Lusieri hand-picked a team of artists in Italy and sailed for Athens, | 0:13:34 | 0:13:40 | |
arriving in July 1800. | 0:13:40 | 0:13:42 | |
The town they found was a far cry from the reputed glories of Ancient Greece. | 0:13:43 | 0:13:49 | |
After nearly 400 years of Turkish Ottoman rule, Athens was down at heel and impoverished. | 0:13:49 | 0:13:57 | |
But the artists were not disappointed | 0:13:57 | 0:14:01 | |
for, even in their sorry state, | 0:14:01 | 0:14:04 | |
the ruins of Athens still had sufficient power to reconnect them to the ancient past. | 0:14:04 | 0:14:10 | |
In the 5th century BC, at the height of the glory of Ancient Athens, | 0:14:14 | 0:14:19 | |
Pericles, the political leader of the city, | 0:14:19 | 0:14:22 | |
had ordered an extensive building programme on the sacred rock of the Acropolis. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:28 | |
In the space of 15 years, the most impressive building of all was constructed. The Parthenon. | 0:14:28 | 0:14:35 | |
It was a lavish spectacle, | 0:14:35 | 0:14:38 | |
an enormous and elegant temple carved from white marble, | 0:14:38 | 0:14:42 | |
probably decorated with coloured paint. | 0:14:42 | 0:14:45 | |
The Parthenon is a stunningly beautiful building. | 0:14:45 | 0:14:50 | |
Location, location, location. First of all, you couldn't get a better site - on the top of the Acropolis, | 0:14:50 | 0:14:56 | |
overlooking the Mediterranean and the city of Athens. | 0:14:56 | 0:15:00 | |
But it was also a remarkable artistic achievement, built with extraordinary luxury and care. | 0:15:00 | 0:15:06 | |
The Parthenon's a fantastically impressive architectural achievement, | 0:15:06 | 0:15:10 | |
one of the most beautiful and influential buildings ever created. | 0:15:10 | 0:15:15 | |
But it's also a building that brings us face to face | 0:15:15 | 0:15:18 | |
with the sheer distance that separates us from the world of Ancient Greece. | 0:15:18 | 0:15:24 | |
Just what did this building mean? What did it say to 5th-century Athenians? What was it for? | 0:15:24 | 0:15:30 | |
The Parthenon, in simple terms, is a temple of Athens's patron goddess, Athena. | 0:15:31 | 0:15:38 | |
It was built to house the most stupendous statue of the goddess Athena that had ever been made, | 0:15:38 | 0:15:46 | |
a gold and ivory statue. | 0:15:46 | 0:15:49 | |
But it's absolutely clear that the Parthenon is a bit like Fort Knox. | 0:15:49 | 0:15:54 | |
It's a kind of storehouse of treasure and cash. | 0:15:54 | 0:15:57 | |
And much of that cash comes from the profits of Athens' empire. | 0:15:57 | 0:16:02 | |
In the space of 30 years, Athens had risen to become the greatest power in the Eastern Mediterranean. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:12 | |
In the early decades of the 5th century BC the Persians had invaded. | 0:16:12 | 0:16:18 | |
They'd actually occupied the Athenian Acropolis, they trashed it, they'd vandalised the place. | 0:16:18 | 0:16:24 | |
The Athenians had pushed them back into their homelands in Asia | 0:16:24 | 0:16:28 | |
and they set up a sort of protection racket whereby they guarded the most vulnerable Greek cities | 0:16:28 | 0:16:35 | |
in return for this annual tribute. | 0:16:35 | 0:16:38 | |
And Pericles popularises himself by making this offer - | 0:16:38 | 0:16:43 | |
we've got money to spend, let's spend it. | 0:16:43 | 0:16:46 | |
After the Persian wars, Athens needed to be rebuilt. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:50 | |
It used the money from its own empire to glorify the city. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:55 | |
It is without doubt the case that the Parthenon was built from the spoils of empire | 0:16:55 | 0:17:01 | |
and, to many people looking at it, it remains a symbol of empire. | 0:17:01 | 0:17:05 | |
Given its huge scale and its prominent position up on the rock of the Acropolis, | 0:17:05 | 0:17:11 | |
it's pretty clear that the Parthenon was a vivid symbol | 0:17:11 | 0:17:15 | |
of Athenian wealth and self-confidence, of the city's power and glory. | 0:17:15 | 0:17:21 | |
And its message was enhanced by the mass of marble sculpture that once decorated the building. | 0:17:21 | 0:17:27 | |
The Parthenon was adorned with more sculpture than any Classical temple before. | 0:17:27 | 0:17:34 | |
These works were designed and their creation supervised by the celebrated sculptor Thiddeas. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:40 | |
It was these carvings that would attract the attention of Lord Elgin in the 19th century. | 0:17:40 | 0:17:47 | |
There were three types of sculpture on the Parthenon. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:50 | |
At each end of the building, full-scale, 3-D figures stood on the triangular pediments. | 0:17:50 | 0:17:57 | |
The sculptures of the pediments are two stories to do with Athena and Athens, patriotic myths - | 0:17:57 | 0:18:04 | |
the birth of Athena, and the contest between Athena and the sea god Poseidon | 0:18:04 | 0:18:09 | |
as to which of them will be the presiding deity over Athens. | 0:18:09 | 0:18:13 | |
On each side of the building ran a set of sculpted panels | 0:18:13 | 0:18:18 | |
called "met-opes", or "metop-es", depicting four mythic Greek victories. | 0:18:18 | 0:18:24 | |
All the metopes show all kinds of conflicts between, for example, centaurs, the half-man, half-horse, | 0:18:24 | 0:18:31 | |
barbarous creatures who often stood for barbarity, | 0:18:31 | 0:18:35 | |
a symbol of Athens's defeat of the Persians. | 0:18:35 | 0:18:39 | |
And there was a magnificent frieze around the top of the inner wall, | 0:18:40 | 0:18:45 | |
where it must've been rather hard to see. | 0:18:45 | 0:18:48 | |
It would seem almost like an act of madness to have put such a detailed piece of sculpture in that position. | 0:18:48 | 0:18:55 | |
If people from the ground can't see it properly, who can? | 0:18:55 | 0:18:59 | |
I don't think it's ridiculous to think that the deity for whom this has been created has got eyes, | 0:18:59 | 0:19:06 | |
she can see everything. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:09 | |
It's terribly unclear what it actually represents. | 0:19:09 | 0:19:13 | |
We can see that it's representing a procession of some sort, | 0:19:13 | 0:19:18 | |
which culminates over the main door of the Parthenon | 0:19:18 | 0:19:22 | |
with a rather unprepossessing piece of cloth apparently being handed from one person to another. | 0:19:22 | 0:19:28 | |
But what actually this was, in terms of ritual or festival or myth, has been intensely debated. | 0:19:29 | 0:19:36 | |
Some believe it shows the annual festival celebrating the city of Athens and the goddess Athena. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:43 | |
Others favour a mythic sacrifice from Athens's early history, | 0:19:43 | 0:19:47 | |
or it could be a commemoration of the defeat of the Persians. | 0:19:47 | 0:19:52 | |
Whichever of the various interpretations is being given of the Parthenon frieze, | 0:19:52 | 0:19:58 | |
they all say something about the legendary genealogy of Athens as a city. | 0:19:58 | 0:20:05 | |
The events are special to this city. | 0:20:05 | 0:20:08 | |
Why do the Elgin Marbles matter, what makes them so great and so compelling? | 0:20:08 | 0:20:14 | |
Well, I think it's partly the way in which they miraculously plunge you back 2,500 years | 0:20:14 | 0:20:20 | |
into this thrilling, alien, extraordinary culture which is, above all, the culture of the hero. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:27 | |
These are figures in a procession, but they collectively embody | 0:20:27 | 0:20:31 | |
the military might of Athens in a very romantic way. | 0:20:31 | 0:20:35 | |
The artist responsible, Thiddeas, and his team have conjured up this fantastic surging cavalcade, | 0:20:35 | 0:20:42 | |
this multitude of men and horses, using the most minimal of technical means. | 0:20:42 | 0:20:47 | |
Sometimes the horses are carved six deep and yet the artists have done this | 0:20:47 | 0:20:54 | |
within no more than two inches of marble, so it's a great act of carving. | 0:20:54 | 0:21:00 | |
But the reason why these battered blocks of stone | 0:21:00 | 0:21:04 | |
occupy the central place in the history of civilisation that they do, | 0:21:04 | 0:21:09 | |
is because they represent the alpha, the beginning of the entire Western art tradition. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:15 | |
The Greeks in the time of Pericles were the first to create believable realistic images of the human body. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:21 | |
And more than that, they endowed that figure with a consciousness, with an emotional life. | 0:21:21 | 0:21:28 | |
This is a great frieze of emotions. | 0:21:28 | 0:21:31 | |
You have diffidence, determination, melancholy, fear. | 0:21:31 | 0:21:37 | |
And that sense of a story being told through figures that express emotions, | 0:21:37 | 0:21:42 | |
that is the basis of Western art. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:45 | |
The Romans took it from the Greeks, the Renaissance rediscovered it, we've inherited it. | 0:21:45 | 0:21:51 | |
It's the basis for our dominant language of visual culture - the cinema, television. | 0:21:51 | 0:21:58 | |
So this procession might have begun in the 5th century BC, | 0:21:58 | 0:22:02 | |
but it's marched all the way forward into the 21st century. | 0:22:02 | 0:22:06 | |
It is, in fact, a miracle that these wonderful pieces of sculpture still survive at all. | 0:22:09 | 0:22:15 | |
Long before Elgin's artists arrived in Athens, a series of invading empires captured the city | 0:22:15 | 0:22:21 | |
and made the Parthenon their own. | 0:22:21 | 0:22:24 | |
With the arrival of Christianity in the 5th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a church | 0:22:24 | 0:22:30 | |
with some structural alteration and the defacement of many sculptures. | 0:22:30 | 0:22:35 | |
And in the 15th century, with the occupation of the Ottoman Turks, | 0:22:35 | 0:22:39 | |
it was turned into a Muslim mosque, complete with minaret. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:44 | |
Then, in 1687, disaster struck. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
A fleet of Venetian ships had landed on the Aegean coast to the west of the city. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:54 | |
A Venetian army was laying siege to Athens from Philipappou Hill. | 0:22:54 | 0:22:58 | |
The Turks had placed all of their gunpowder stores in the Parthenon, along with 300 women and children, | 0:22:58 | 0:23:05 | |
believing the Venetians would never dare to attack such a venerated monument. But the Turks were wrong. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:12 | |
The Venetians set up their cannon on this spot and aimed directly at the Parthenon. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:18 | |
The gunpowder store took a direct hit and the whole building exploded, | 0:23:20 | 0:23:25 | |
bringing down the roof, tearing a huge gap in the long colonnades and destroying half of the sculpture. | 0:23:25 | 0:23:32 | |
From this moment, the Parthenon was a standing ruin. | 0:23:33 | 0:23:38 | |
This was the building that greeted Elgin's artists in 1800, | 0:23:44 | 0:23:48 | |
a new mosque had been built in the middle of the ruin, and a shanty town had sprung up around it. | 0:23:48 | 0:23:54 | |
The artists climbed the Acropolis to start work, but immediately met with difficulty. | 0:23:54 | 0:23:59 | |
The problem about working on the Acropolis was that it was the garrison | 0:23:59 | 0:24:04 | |
and, so, getting permission to work, draw or do anything there | 0:24:04 | 0:24:09 | |
would be a bit akin to investigate antiquities inside a modern British Army base. | 0:24:09 | 0:24:14 | |
You can't just walk in, you have to be allowed in. | 0:24:14 | 0:24:17 | |
There were two Turkish officials in control of the Acropolis. | 0:24:17 | 0:24:22 | |
The Voivode was the governor of Athens. The Dizdar was the military commander of the garrison. | 0:24:22 | 0:24:29 | |
They immediately blocked the progress of Elgin's men. | 0:24:29 | 0:24:33 | |
For several months my artists had no access to the Acropolis, well, except for the purpose of drawing, | 0:24:33 | 0:24:39 | |
and that at an expense of five guineas a day. | 0:24:39 | 0:24:43 | |
-That lasted from August 1800 until the month of April 1801. -That limited access lasted about nine months? | 0:24:43 | 0:24:51 | |
-Yes. -What was the nature of the objections on the part of the Turks? | 0:24:51 | 0:24:57 | |
Their general jealousy and enmity to every Christian of every denomination. | 0:24:57 | 0:25:03 | |
They rested it upon that general objection? | 0:25:03 | 0:25:07 | |
Upon the general enmity to what they called Christian dogs. | 0:25:07 | 0:25:12 | |
That was not the manner in which they stated their objection? | 0:25:12 | 0:25:16 | |
No, but that is the fact. It was always refused. | 0:25:16 | 0:25:21 | |
-Without reasons? -Without reasons assigned. Everyone on the spot knew what those reasons were. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:28 | |
They would not give any facility to anything that was not Turkish. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:33 | |
Yet within a year, scaffolding had been erected and workmen were removing the Parthenon sculptures. | 0:25:36 | 0:25:43 | |
How on earth had Elgin managed to overcome Turkish objections so quickly? | 0:25:43 | 0:25:48 | |
The answer is a combination of war, diplomacy and sheer luck. | 0:25:51 | 0:25:56 | |
While his artists were attempting to gain entry to the Acropolis, | 0:25:56 | 0:26:01 | |
Elgin had arrived in Constantinople where he was settling into his role | 0:26:01 | 0:26:05 | |
as Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty | 0:26:05 | 0:26:10 | |
to the Sublime Porte of Selim III, Sultan of Turkey. They don't make job descriptions like that any more. | 0:26:10 | 0:26:17 | |
Elgin had been sent to Constantinople | 0:26:20 | 0:26:24 | |
on an important political mission. | 0:26:24 | 0:26:27 | |
Britain had been at war with France since 1793 | 0:26:27 | 0:26:32 | |
and the British Government was keen to usurp France's position as the Ottoman Empire's main European ally. | 0:26:32 | 0:26:39 | |
Elgin could not have arrived at a more propitious moment. | 0:26:39 | 0:26:44 | |
When Elgin arrived, | 0:26:44 | 0:26:46 | |
the French had just invaded Egypt, under General Bonaparte, | 0:26:46 | 0:26:50 | |
which was still a province of the Ottoman Empire. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:54 | |
Nelson quite shortly afterwards at the Battle of The Nile defeated the French. | 0:26:54 | 0:26:59 | |
So Elgin, as the representative of the country which had restored one of her main provinces, | 0:26:59 | 0:27:06 | |
was in tremendously high esteem. He could've asked for all sorts of things and been given them. | 0:27:06 | 0:27:11 | |
-The objections disappeared from the moment of the decided success of our arms in Egypt? -Yes. | 0:27:11 | 0:27:19 | |
The whole system of Turkish feeling met with a...revolution. | 0:27:19 | 0:27:23 | |
The Turkish government, in return for our services in Egypt, | 0:27:23 | 0:27:27 | |
did offer the British Government every public concession. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:30 | |
They were in a disposition that... I conceive they would've granted anything that could've been asked. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:38 | |
It was at this fortuitous moment that Elgin's chaplain and secretary, | 0:27:41 | 0:27:45 | |
the Reverend Philip Hunt, arrived in Constantinople | 0:27:45 | 0:27:49 | |
fresh from a visit to Athens. | 0:27:49 | 0:27:52 | |
Hunt was the key agent in the whole affair. | 0:27:52 | 0:27:56 | |
Elgin was reliant on reports from Athens. Hunt had been there | 0:27:56 | 0:28:00 | |
and said, "You have to get permission that will allow your artistic objectives to be achieved." | 0:28:00 | 0:28:06 | |
What was needed was a document called a firman. | 0:28:06 | 0:28:10 | |
This was an official permission granted by the Turkish government. | 0:28:10 | 0:28:15 | |
Hunt dictated exactly what the firman should authorise. | 0:28:15 | 0:28:19 | |
I recommended that the firman should give to His Excellency, | 0:28:19 | 0:28:23 | |
and the artists employed by him, the most extensive permission | 0:28:23 | 0:28:27 | |
to view, draw and model the ancient temples and the sculptures upon them... | 0:28:27 | 0:28:33 | |
and to make excavations and to take away any stones that might appear interesting to them. | 0:28:33 | 0:28:39 | |
The request to excavate and remove anything that Elgin's men might find | 0:28:39 | 0:28:44 | |
was a decisive moment. It marked a real escalation of Elgin's original ambition, | 0:28:44 | 0:28:51 | |
which had simply been to record and measure the remains on the Acropolis. | 0:28:51 | 0:28:56 | |
But there was still no mention of removing anything from the building itself, only from the excavations. | 0:28:56 | 0:29:03 | |
The Turks, eager to please Elgin and England, issued the firman immediately, | 0:29:03 | 0:29:09 | |
granting everything that Hunt had asked. For them, the firman was one more gift among many, | 0:29:09 | 0:29:15 | |
another gesture in the elaborate courtship dance of diplomacy. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:19 | |
Hunt left Constantinople and took the firman to Athens, | 0:29:22 | 0:29:26 | |
where he immediately presented it to the Voivode, the governor of the town. | 0:29:26 | 0:29:31 | |
When it was read out to the Voivode of Athens, | 0:29:31 | 0:29:34 | |
he seemed disposed to gratify any wish of mine with respect to the pursuit of Lord Elgin's artists. | 0:29:34 | 0:29:39 | |
Work started immediately. | 0:29:42 | 0:29:45 | |
Excavations began and scaffolding was built so plaster casts could be taken of the Parthenon sculptures. | 0:29:45 | 0:29:52 | |
Then, on 31st July 1801, the plan changed. | 0:29:52 | 0:29:59 | |
Hunt made a radical request that would mark a major turning point | 0:29:59 | 0:30:03 | |
in the acquisition of the Elgin Marbles. | 0:30:03 | 0:30:07 | |
I asked the Voivode permission to detach from the Parthenon | 0:30:07 | 0:30:13 | |
the most perfect and, as it appeared to me, the most beautiful metope. | 0:30:13 | 0:30:17 | |
I obtained that permission and acted upon it immediately. | 0:30:17 | 0:30:21 | |
Workmen climbed the scaffolding, detached and slowly lowered the best-preserved metope. | 0:30:24 | 0:30:31 | |
When I saw those beautiful statues hanging in the air, | 0:30:31 | 0:30:35 | |
I was seized with a trembling and palpitation which only ceased when they arrived safe to the ground. | 0:30:35 | 0:30:43 | |
The collection of the Elgin Marbles had begun. | 0:30:43 | 0:30:46 | |
In Constantinople, Elgin was delighted with the news | 0:30:57 | 0:31:02 | |
and immediately sent orders not only to copy, mould and dig, | 0:31:02 | 0:31:06 | |
but to take as much as possible. | 0:31:06 | 0:31:09 | |
The first on the list are the figures on the pediment of the Parthenon, | 0:31:09 | 0:31:15 | |
as many metopes as you can obtain, some further fragments of frieze and some ornaments. | 0:31:15 | 0:31:22 | |
To sum up, the slightest object from the Acropolis is a jewel. | 0:31:22 | 0:31:27 | |
Elgin got what he wanted. | 0:31:33 | 0:31:36 | |
Gangs of local Greeks were hired. | 0:31:36 | 0:31:38 | |
Many of the coveted marbles scattered by the explosion of 1687 were excavated, | 0:31:38 | 0:31:45 | |
but others were physically removed from the Parthenon itself. | 0:31:45 | 0:31:49 | |
When it came to the east pediment, there were figures in place, and those Elgin's men removed. | 0:31:49 | 0:31:56 | |
He also removed stretches of the north frieze and the south frieze | 0:31:56 | 0:32:02 | |
and 14 metopes from the south side of the building. | 0:32:02 | 0:32:06 | |
In the case of the frieze, they had to lower the blocks themselves | 0:32:06 | 0:32:11 | |
to the ground | 0:32:11 | 0:32:14 | |
and saw the back part of this very heavy block | 0:32:14 | 0:32:19 | |
and remove the sculpture which was on the outside surface. | 0:32:19 | 0:32:23 | |
So, of course, the destruction to the monument itself was huge. | 0:32:23 | 0:32:28 | |
When they found that the metopes were covered by architectural pieces in which they were embedded, | 0:32:31 | 0:32:38 | |
the architectural pieces were simply thrown to the ground and smashed. | 0:32:38 | 0:32:43 | |
What Elgin did was an outrage of vandalism. | 0:32:44 | 0:32:49 | |
Within ten months, more than half of the Parthenon sculptures | 0:33:07 | 0:33:12 | |
that were to form the Elgin Marbles had been collected and packed up. | 0:33:12 | 0:33:17 | |
These were riches beyond Elgin's wildest dreams. | 0:33:18 | 0:33:23 | |
All this amounted to a truly radical change of approach on the part of Elgin. | 0:33:27 | 0:33:33 | |
What had begun as an artistic endeavour - drawing, measuring, taking casts, | 0:33:33 | 0:33:38 | |
had turned into wholesale plunder, the removal of some of the greatest sculptures of Ancient Greece. | 0:33:38 | 0:33:45 | |
What lay behind Elgin's extraordinary change of plan? | 0:33:45 | 0:33:49 | |
Before the select committee 14 years later, Elgin gave his side of the story. | 0:33:49 | 0:33:55 | |
The Turkish government attached no importance to the sculptures. | 0:33:55 | 0:34:00 | |
Indeed, the Turks had been continually defacing the heads. | 0:34:00 | 0:34:04 | |
And in some instances, they had actually acknowledged to me | 0:34:04 | 0:34:08 | |
that they had powdered down the sculptures to convert them into mortar. | 0:34:08 | 0:34:13 | |
A very great destruction was taking place. | 0:34:13 | 0:34:16 | |
It was upon these suggestions and with these feelings that I proceeded to remove | 0:34:16 | 0:34:21 | |
as many of the sculptures as I conveniently could. | 0:34:21 | 0:34:25 | |
It was no part of my original plan to take away anything but models. | 0:34:25 | 0:34:31 | |
Elgin was very keen on stressing that the sculpture was being saved. | 0:34:31 | 0:34:35 | |
Now, there is no doubt that that's true, whatever his motive was. | 0:34:35 | 0:34:41 | |
There's no question that Elgin performed one of the greatest acts | 0:34:41 | 0:34:47 | |
of conservation rescue in history. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:50 | |
If you look in the British Museum at the west pediment sculptures, | 0:34:52 | 0:34:56 | |
essentially four sculptures that Elgin took, | 0:34:56 | 0:35:00 | |
50 years earlier, there had been 12 sculptures on that pediment. | 0:35:00 | 0:35:05 | |
And 125 years earlier, there'd been 20. | 0:35:05 | 0:35:09 | |
It was said at the time that the Turks broke off pieces for mortar, | 0:35:10 | 0:35:15 | |
but that may not have been fully accurate. | 0:35:15 | 0:35:18 | |
The main destruction that was occurring was from Western tourists | 0:35:18 | 0:35:23 | |
who bribed the soldiers to break pieces off. | 0:35:23 | 0:35:27 | |
The Parthenon suffered very, very badly during the last quarter of the 18th century before Elgin. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:33 | |
But should we take Elgin entirely at his word? He later claimed that the idea of rescue occurred to him | 0:35:33 | 0:35:40 | |
when he visited Athens for the first time in 1802 and saw the damage that was being done. | 0:35:40 | 0:35:45 | |
"Then and only then did I employ means to rescue what remained from a similar fate." | 0:35:45 | 0:35:51 | |
But the removals had actually started a year earlier in 1801, | 0:35:51 | 0:35:55 | |
so his justification begins to sound like something concocted with the benefit of hindsight. | 0:35:55 | 0:36:01 | |
Is it possible that Lord Elgin could've had other, less noble motives? | 0:36:01 | 0:36:06 | |
I think there's no doubt that when Elgin originally commenced his removal of the Marbles | 0:36:08 | 0:36:15 | |
that the seed idea in his mind had been | 0:36:15 | 0:36:19 | |
that these would go not to a museum, but to decorate his home. | 0:36:19 | 0:36:24 | |
Broom Hall is a subject that occupies me greatly | 0:36:26 | 0:36:30 | |
and offers me the means of placing in a useful, distinguished and agreeable way | 0:36:30 | 0:36:36 | |
the various things that you may perhaps be able to procure for me. | 0:36:36 | 0:36:41 | |
There is of course a lot of talk about marble being removed | 0:36:41 | 0:36:46 | |
and how he did want to engulf it in the actual design of his ballroom or this room or that room, | 0:36:46 | 0:36:54 | |
but it is not quite clear whether this would have been the sculptures themselves. | 0:36:54 | 0:37:01 | |
On the other hand, we do have all of this mention of "my acquisitions, | 0:37:01 | 0:37:05 | |
"my property, my marbles, please send them to my address", so it was very personal. | 0:37:05 | 0:37:12 | |
Elgin had never intended to house the Parthenon sculptures in Broom Hall. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:20 | |
He brought the Parthenon sculptures back | 0:37:20 | 0:37:24 | |
to revitalise the arts in England. | 0:37:24 | 0:37:27 | |
This was an entirely unselfish act of a generous Georgian gentleman. | 0:37:27 | 0:37:32 | |
It would be very essential that the artist should be able to take away exact models | 0:37:35 | 0:37:41 | |
of little ornaments or detached pieces, if any are found, which would be interesting for the arts. | 0:37:41 | 0:37:49 | |
The very great variety in our manufactures in objects either of elegance or luxury | 0:37:49 | 0:37:56 | |
offers a thousand applications for such details. | 0:37:56 | 0:38:00 | |
I have one problem | 0:38:03 | 0:38:05 | |
in having to believe that he was a lover of the arts. | 0:38:05 | 0:38:11 | |
I simply cannot imagine a lover of the arts | 0:38:11 | 0:38:15 | |
allowing saws to attack some of the greatest works ever made. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:21 | |
That's... I couldn't do that. | 0:38:21 | 0:38:24 | |
I don't think anybody could do it... to actually do that. | 0:38:24 | 0:38:29 | |
I think the most likely thing is that Elgin, | 0:38:29 | 0:38:32 | |
like any of us, was motivated by a number of different impulses. | 0:38:32 | 0:38:37 | |
The truth is, we'll never know for sure exactly what drove him. | 0:38:37 | 0:38:41 | |
While there'd be uproar if anyone today tried to do the same thing, | 0:38:41 | 0:38:46 | |
it's important not to judge Elgin by the standards of the present. | 0:38:46 | 0:38:50 | |
You have to see the man in the context of his own time. | 0:38:50 | 0:38:54 | |
If we look at what was happening in Lord Elgin's time, | 0:38:54 | 0:38:58 | |
everyone was a Lara Croft, everyone was an Indiana Jones - | 0:38:58 | 0:39:02 | |
individual English, French, German people going around the world, collecting up any nice material | 0:39:02 | 0:39:09 | |
and bringing it home to their stately piles or national museums. | 0:39:09 | 0:39:15 | |
This was the norm. | 0:39:15 | 0:39:17 | |
Many people took home pots, many people took home bits of rock. | 0:39:17 | 0:39:22 | |
Elgin went for the whole hog. | 0:39:22 | 0:39:25 | |
He was an ambitious man, he was a man who saw the chance to take something of extraordinary power and did so. | 0:39:26 | 0:39:33 | |
Elgin became gripped by the rage of possession. | 0:39:33 | 0:39:38 | |
He even wrote, in slightly chilling words, "I shall regret nothing that assists my acquisitions in Greece." | 0:39:38 | 0:39:45 | |
At one point, he even considered the scheme | 0:39:45 | 0:39:49 | |
of taking the entire Erechtheion down and transporting it to England. | 0:39:49 | 0:39:53 | |
He was only put off the idea when he couldn't find a boat big enough to carry it, | 0:39:53 | 0:39:59 | |
so he just removed one of the female figures. His collection was fast becoming an obsession. | 0:39:59 | 0:40:06 | |
Elgin finally made the trip to Athens in spring 1802 | 0:40:09 | 0:40:14 | |
to see the site for himself. He was delighted with the progress. | 0:40:14 | 0:40:18 | |
Elgin decided that his work in the Ottoman Empire was done. | 0:40:20 | 0:40:25 | |
He'd succeeded in his diplomatic mission of bringing Britain and the Ottoman Turks into alliance | 0:40:25 | 0:40:32 | |
and he'd more than fulfilled his ambition of returning to Britain with casts of the Athenian remains. | 0:40:32 | 0:40:39 | |
It was time to return home. | 0:40:39 | 0:40:41 | |
Elgin and his family set sail for Britain, | 0:40:44 | 0:40:47 | |
leaving instructions for the transport of the Marbles from Athens to London, | 0:40:47 | 0:40:52 | |
an operation that was to prove far more difficult than he'd anticipated. | 0:40:52 | 0:40:58 | |
It was easy to get the Marbles to the nearby port of Piraeus, | 0:40:58 | 0:41:03 | |
but it was very difficult to find ships' captains willing to take such heavy cargo across dangerous seas. | 0:41:03 | 0:41:10 | |
Elgin did manage to load some of his Marbles onto ships bound for England, | 0:41:10 | 0:41:15 | |
but for some of the most precious pieces he had to use his own ship, the Mentor, | 0:41:15 | 0:41:20 | |
a decision that resulted in disaster. | 0:41:20 | 0:41:23 | |
On the 17th September 1802, the Mentor hit a rock in a storm and sank. | 0:41:27 | 0:41:32 | |
She was carrying 17 cases of Marbles, including 14 pieces of the frieze. | 0:41:32 | 0:41:38 | |
They lay at the bottom of the sea for over two years while Elgin spent £5,000, | 0:41:38 | 0:41:43 | |
a small fortune in modern money, on the lengthy and hazardous salvage operation. | 0:41:43 | 0:41:49 | |
That was just the start of Elgin's problems. | 0:41:51 | 0:41:54 | |
His homecoming was to prove more or less totally catastrophic. | 0:41:54 | 0:41:58 | |
He was hit by a series of extraordinary calamities which, between them, conspired to ruin him. | 0:41:58 | 0:42:04 | |
For a start, Elgin's health was destroyed by his embassy to Constantinople. | 0:42:08 | 0:42:14 | |
He was afflicted by plagues, fevers and rheumatism while in the East. | 0:42:14 | 0:42:20 | |
He got what nowadays we call a melanoma, a cancer, | 0:42:22 | 0:42:26 | |
and because it was on his nose he couldn't not keep touching it and it developed very much more severely | 0:42:26 | 0:42:33 | |
until he had to have part of the nose cut away, | 0:42:33 | 0:42:37 | |
so he must have been quite disfigured. | 0:42:37 | 0:42:40 | |
Elgin's finances also lay in ruins. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:43 | |
He was paying for the removals in Athens with money that wasn't actually his own. | 0:42:43 | 0:42:50 | |
Elgin was a bit out of the picture and so his agents had to borrow the money at high interest rates | 0:42:51 | 0:42:57 | |
against Elgin's estates and the credibility of the British Government, | 0:42:57 | 0:43:02 | |
and so the agents could raise almost unlimited credit. | 0:43:02 | 0:43:06 | |
The original estimated cost of the artists' work in Athens was roughly £1,200 a year | 0:43:06 | 0:43:14 | |
but, after only 18 months, Elgin had spent nearly £40,000, | 0:43:14 | 0:43:19 | |
just over a million today. | 0:43:19 | 0:43:22 | |
Then, on the way home from Constantinople, Elgin made a big mistake. | 0:43:24 | 0:43:30 | |
He decided to make a detour via Paris, | 0:43:30 | 0:43:33 | |
not knowing that war had just broken out again between Britain and France. | 0:43:33 | 0:43:38 | |
Elgin was detained as a prisoner of war | 0:43:38 | 0:43:42 | |
and was kept under house arrest in France for three years. | 0:43:42 | 0:43:47 | |
This confinement was to have disastrous consequences for both his career and his marriage. | 0:43:47 | 0:43:54 | |
When he'd negotiated his release, he'd done a very specific deal with the French authorities, | 0:43:54 | 0:44:02 | |
which is that he would be prepared to come back to France if ever summoned. | 0:44:02 | 0:44:06 | |
Now, this put paid to his chances of a further ambassadorial job. | 0:44:06 | 0:44:11 | |
So, although he gets out, he gets out to become unemployable in terms of governmental employment. | 0:44:11 | 0:44:18 | |
Then, when Elgin did return home in 1806, he discovered that his wife Mary was having an affair | 0:44:20 | 0:44:26 | |
with their neighbour in Scotland, Robert Ferguson. | 0:44:26 | 0:44:30 | |
Elgin had secured Mary's release from France a year earlier when their fourth child had died. | 0:44:30 | 0:44:37 | |
Back in London, Mary had turned to Ferguson for comfort. | 0:44:37 | 0:44:41 | |
Whether that's the whole story one may doubt, | 0:44:43 | 0:44:47 | |
because Elgin was suffering from syphilis. | 0:44:47 | 0:44:50 | |
It is a symptom of syphilis that it enters the bone and part of the nose just withers away. | 0:44:50 | 0:44:57 | |
The remedies which he was taking, mercury, are those for syphilis. | 0:44:57 | 0:45:02 | |
Elgin divorced Mary in a highly publicised court case | 0:45:06 | 0:45:11 | |
and her considerable fortune reverted to her - another blow to his finances. | 0:45:11 | 0:45:17 | |
Elgin must've wondered how it had all gone so badly wrong - in debt, | 0:45:17 | 0:45:22 | |
career over, publicly shamed and facially disfigured. | 0:45:22 | 0:45:27 | |
He suffered from the curse of the Parthenon. | 0:45:27 | 0:45:30 | |
Because of his obsession with the Marbles, he ended up ruining himself financially. | 0:45:30 | 0:45:36 | |
He had that classic archaeological curse that destroyed him, destroyed the man. | 0:45:36 | 0:45:41 | |
Elgin had just one trump card left to play - the Marbles themselves. Having carted them across Europe, | 0:45:55 | 0:46:01 | |
Elgin seems to have been unsure about what to do with the Marbles. | 0:46:01 | 0:46:06 | |
He seems to have abandoned the idea of installing them at Broom Hall | 0:46:06 | 0:46:10 | |
and he toyed with the notion of donating them to the British Government as a gift to the nation. | 0:46:10 | 0:46:17 | |
In the end, he borrowed even more money and had them installed in a purpose-built museum | 0:46:17 | 0:46:24 | |
which he had constructed in the garden of a house at the corner of Old Park Lane and Piccadilly. | 0:46:24 | 0:46:30 | |
The place where Londoners first gathered to see the greatest stone carvings of Ancient Greece | 0:46:30 | 0:46:37 | |
is now, aptly, The Hard Rock Cafe. | 0:46:37 | 0:46:39 | |
The collection of Marbles was opened to an invited public in June 1807. | 0:46:50 | 0:46:55 | |
The reaction was electric. | 0:46:59 | 0:47:02 | |
It was at that moment | 0:47:03 | 0:47:05 | |
that they ceased to be decoration of a temple and became works of art. | 0:47:05 | 0:47:12 | |
These artists came and they suddenly realised that they were face to face with superb things | 0:47:12 | 0:47:19 | |
which had never been so fully appreciated before. | 0:47:19 | 0:47:24 | |
For the first time, | 0:47:24 | 0:47:26 | |
it was possible to see real Greek sculpture on a massive scale. | 0:47:26 | 0:47:33 | |
It was the event of the season and it had the effect that Elgin wanted - | 0:47:33 | 0:47:38 | |
it changed the view of art in the West. | 0:47:38 | 0:47:41 | |
Before the arrival of the Elgin Marbles, | 0:47:41 | 0:47:45 | |
the models of Classical perfection were elegant Roman copies of Greek originals like the Apollo Belvedere. | 0:47:45 | 0:47:52 | |
These had been restored and were in pristine condition. | 0:47:52 | 0:47:56 | |
The battered, weathered Greek originals were, by contrast, shockingly direct. | 0:47:56 | 0:48:02 | |
The difference of the Parthenon sculptures from the Roman copies that people were used to seeing | 0:48:02 | 0:48:08 | |
was, instead of this rather bland, academic, idealised form, they saw people in action, | 0:48:08 | 0:48:15 | |
there was so much more action and energy and sense of reality in these figures. | 0:48:15 | 0:48:22 | |
Elgin's invited audience was astonished and delighted by the sculptures' vitality and naturalism. | 0:48:27 | 0:48:35 | |
The Marbles became the talk of London. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:38 | |
Artists flocked to study and draw them. | 0:48:40 | 0:48:43 | |
A boxer was paid to pose beside them for two hours, | 0:48:43 | 0:48:46 | |
his anatomy proving just how lifelike their muscular realism was. | 0:48:46 | 0:48:52 | |
And the leading actress of the day, Sarah Siddons, was so moved | 0:48:52 | 0:48:56 | |
that she burst into a storm of theatrical tears. | 0:48:56 | 0:49:00 | |
The Elgin Marbles were a hit. | 0:49:02 | 0:49:05 | |
But there was one group in society who weren't at all impressed - the art connoisseurs. | 0:49:08 | 0:49:15 | |
Their chief spokesman was Richard Payne-Knight, an art historian whose first printed work, | 0:49:16 | 0:49:23 | |
an essay on phallus worship, had been withdrawn from publication. | 0:49:23 | 0:49:27 | |
He and his fellow connoisseurs | 0:49:27 | 0:49:30 | |
were deeply disappointed by the Marbles' dirty, chipped and fragmentary condition. | 0:49:30 | 0:49:36 | |
Payne-Knight condemned the Marbles out of hand. | 0:49:36 | 0:49:40 | |
You have lost your labour, my Lord Elgin. Your Marbles are over-rated. | 0:49:40 | 0:49:46 | |
They are not Greek, they are Roman, of the time of Hadrian. | 0:49:47 | 0:49:52 | |
Payne-Knight's announcement that the Marbles were Roman not Greek | 0:49:52 | 0:49:56 | |
spread through London, casting some doubt on the legitimacy of Elgin's collection. | 0:49:56 | 0:50:02 | |
But criticism of Elgin was about to turn far nastier and far more personal thanks to one man - | 0:50:02 | 0:50:09 | |
mad, bad and dangerous to know, the poet Lord Byron. | 0:50:09 | 0:50:14 | |
In 1809, Byron aged 22, | 0:50:18 | 0:50:21 | |
visited Athens and was appalled by the damage done to the Parthenon. | 0:50:21 | 0:50:26 | |
To Byron, Elgin was a despoiler of Greece's proud heritage, | 0:50:26 | 0:50:30 | |
robbing modern Greeks of their glorious past. | 0:50:30 | 0:50:34 | |
He launched a blistering attack in verse. | 0:50:34 | 0:50:38 | |
Cold as the crags upon his native coast | 0:50:38 | 0:50:42 | |
His mind as barren His heart as hard is he | 0:50:42 | 0:50:46 | |
Whose head conceived Whose hand prepared ought To displace Athena's poor remains. | 0:50:46 | 0:50:52 | |
The important thing for us about Byron is that it's his poetry, really, | 0:50:54 | 0:51:00 | |
that has set the tone for our understanding of Elgin | 0:51:00 | 0:51:04 | |
as a plunderer, a villain, a Scottish desperado and all the rest. | 0:51:04 | 0:51:09 | |
Elgin's situation was desperate. | 0:51:11 | 0:51:14 | |
He was forced to contemplate the only option open to him - selling his collection. | 0:51:14 | 0:51:20 | |
Elgin proposed the government buy the Marbles for the nation, | 0:51:20 | 0:51:25 | |
asking just enough to cover the cost of bringing them back to Britain. | 0:51:25 | 0:51:30 | |
The British Government was extremely uneasy about Elgin's proposal. | 0:51:30 | 0:51:34 | |
For one thing, he was asking for £70,000, around £3 million today. | 0:51:34 | 0:51:39 | |
To us, it might seem like the art bargain of all time, | 0:51:39 | 0:51:43 | |
but, in the early 19th century, people just didn't pay stratospheric amounts for works of art. | 0:51:43 | 0:51:50 | |
You could buy a Michelangelo or Raphael for a fraction of the price. | 0:51:50 | 0:51:54 | |
Secondly, there was the question of Elgin's timing, which was truly abysmal. | 0:51:54 | 0:52:00 | |
He made his proposal on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, as the Napoleonic wars reached a climax. | 0:52:00 | 0:52:06 | |
To make matters worse, ever since Byron's smear campaign, | 0:52:06 | 0:52:10 | |
questions had been asked about Elgin's right to take the Marbles. | 0:52:10 | 0:52:15 | |
Were they legally his? Or was he just a fence peddling stolen goods? | 0:52:15 | 0:52:19 | |
In 1816, the parliamentary select committee set out to get to the heart of the matter. | 0:52:20 | 0:52:27 | |
Did the permission specifically refer to removing the statues, or was that left at discretion? | 0:52:30 | 0:52:36 | |
No, it was executed by means of those general permissions granted. | 0:52:36 | 0:52:41 | |
The permission was to draw, model and remove. | 0:52:41 | 0:52:45 | |
There was a specific permission to excavate. | 0:52:45 | 0:52:49 | |
There is a considerable difference between to excavate and remove and to remove and to excavate. | 0:52:49 | 0:52:55 | |
The question was not whether Your Lordship was permitted to remove what you should find on excavation, | 0:52:55 | 0:53:01 | |
but whether Your Lordship was permitted to remove from the wall. | 0:53:01 | 0:53:05 | |
I WAS at liberty to remove from the wall. The permission was to remove, generally. | 0:53:05 | 0:53:11 | |
Was there a specific permission alluding to the statues particularly? | 0:53:11 | 0:53:16 | |
I do not know whether it specified the statues or whether it was a general power to remove. | 0:53:18 | 0:53:25 | |
Elgin's answers were deeply ambiguous, | 0:53:26 | 0:53:30 | |
as though he wasn't too sure about the exact terms of the firman. But that's hardly surprising | 0:53:30 | 0:53:36 | |
since there's still significant disagreement about what the firman did or didn't allow | 0:53:36 | 0:53:42 | |
and about whether Elgin acted legally or not. | 0:53:42 | 0:53:45 | |
Elgin behaved entirely legally within the terms of the firman. | 0:53:45 | 0:53:51 | |
The Sultan said he could take any old bits of old stone he liked, | 0:53:51 | 0:53:56 | |
and by old stone the Sultan meant ancient sculpture, that was the term the Ottomans used for them. | 0:53:56 | 0:54:03 | |
There is a specific sentence in the middle of the document, | 0:54:03 | 0:54:08 | |
saying that under no occasion is there going to be any harm to the monuments themselves. | 0:54:08 | 0:54:14 | |
So that's quite different than what really happened, | 0:54:14 | 0:54:19 | |
which was the removal of a large amount of sculpture from the monument itself. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:25 | |
The problem is that there is a great deal of ambiguity in the wording of the firman. | 0:54:25 | 0:54:31 | |
In some places, it's relatively clear, specifying, for example, that artists be allowed to... | 0:54:31 | 0:54:37 | |
"dig the foundations to find inscribed blocks among the rubbish, | 0:54:37 | 0:54:41 | |
"particularly as there is no harm in the said buildings being examined, contemplated and drawn." | 0:54:41 | 0:54:48 | |
Now, that's clear enough. But then it finishes by ordering that, | 0:54:48 | 0:54:52 | |
"No opposition be made to the taking away of some pieces of stone with inscriptions and figures." | 0:54:52 | 0:54:59 | |
Which pieces of stone? The whole lot? It's just not clear. | 0:54:59 | 0:55:05 | |
But there was one important witness to the select committee | 0:55:05 | 0:55:09 | |
who suggested that the terms of the firman had indeed been exceeded - | 0:55:09 | 0:55:15 | |
the Reverend Philip Hunt. | 0:55:15 | 0:55:17 | |
Hunt had never been paid by Elgin for his work in the East and the two men were no longer close. | 0:55:17 | 0:55:23 | |
The man who had instigated the removals from the Parthenon | 0:55:23 | 0:55:27 | |
was about to contradict his former employer. | 0:55:27 | 0:55:30 | |
Was the tenor of the firman so full and explicit as to convey upon the face of it | 0:55:30 | 0:55:37 | |
the right to displace and take away whatever the artists might have a fancy to? | 0:55:37 | 0:55:43 | |
Not "whatever" the artists might have a fancy to. | 0:55:43 | 0:55:46 | |
Do you imagine the firman gave a direct permission | 0:55:46 | 0:55:50 | |
to remove figures and pieces of sculpture from the walls of temples? | 0:55:50 | 0:55:54 | |
That was the interpretation that the Voivode of Athens was... | 0:55:54 | 0:55:59 | |
induced to allow it to bear. | 0:55:59 | 0:56:02 | |
Was there any difficulty in persuading the Voivode to give this interpretation to the firman? | 0:56:02 | 0:56:09 | |
Not a great deal of difficulty. | 0:56:09 | 0:56:13 | |
Hunt threatened the local authorities - | 0:56:14 | 0:56:17 | |
the governor and the military governor. | 0:56:17 | 0:56:21 | |
He said, "You'll lose your job." In fact, "You'll go to the galleys," he said to one person. | 0:56:21 | 0:56:27 | |
He also paid them a lot of money. | 0:56:27 | 0:56:30 | |
Was there any sum of money given to the Voivode anterior to his interpretation of the firman? | 0:56:30 | 0:56:36 | |
Presents were given to him at the time of presenting the firman but I'm not aware of more being given. | 0:56:36 | 0:56:43 | |
Can you form any idea of the value of the presents you gave? | 0:56:43 | 0:56:47 | |
I cannot now. They consisted of brilliant cut-glass lustres, | 0:56:47 | 0:56:51 | |
firearms and other articles of English manufacture. | 0:56:51 | 0:56:55 | |
He paid the military governor of the Acropolis, in the first year alone, | 0:56:55 | 0:57:00 | |
sums equivalent to 35 times his annual salary. | 0:57:00 | 0:57:05 | |
Now, very few systems can withstand that weight of money and pressure. | 0:57:05 | 0:57:12 | |
But regardless of whether Hunt used bribery or whether the terms of the firman were exceeded, | 0:57:14 | 0:57:21 | |
the Turkish authorities knew exactly what was happening on the Acropolis | 0:57:21 | 0:57:26 | |
and could have intervened at any time if they had objected. | 0:57:26 | 0:57:31 | |
Did the Turkish government know Your Lordship was removing these statues under the permission you obtained? | 0:57:31 | 0:57:38 | |
No doubt was ever expressed to me of their knowledge of it. | 0:57:38 | 0:57:43 | |
The thing was done publicly before the whole world. | 0:57:43 | 0:57:47 | |
I employed 300 or 400 people a day. | 0:57:47 | 0:57:50 | |
All the local authorities were concerned in it as well as the Turkish government. | 0:57:50 | 0:57:57 | |
I conclude that they must have been in intimate knowledge of everything that was doing. | 0:57:57 | 0:58:03 | |
But the question of legality was not the only concern of the select committee. | 0:58:03 | 0:58:08 | |
They also wanted to know if Elgin had abused his office as Ambassador. | 0:58:08 | 0:58:13 | |
Had he secured the Marbles as a British Government representative or as a private individual? | 0:58:13 | 0:58:19 | |
Were the Marbles Elgin's to sell? Or did they, in fact, already belong to Britain? | 0:58:19 | 0:58:25 | |
Does Your Lordship believe, to the best of your judgement, | 0:58:25 | 0:58:30 | |
that you obtained in your character as Ambassador any authority for removing these Marbles | 0:58:30 | 0:58:36 | |
which Your Lordship would not have obtained in your private capacity? | 0:58:36 | 0:58:40 | |
I certainly consider that I obtained no authority as given to me in my official capacity. | 0:58:40 | 0:58:46 | |
This was a personal favour, granted quite extra-officially to me. | 0:58:46 | 0:58:51 | |
And asked as such? | 0:58:51 | 0:58:53 | |
Asked as such, and granted as such. | 0:58:53 | 0:58:57 | |
Was the same permission to erect scaffolding and make excavations given to other persons at Athens? | 0:58:59 | 0:59:05 | |
I believe the permission granted to me was the same in substance and in purport as granted to other persons, | 0:59:05 | 0:59:13 | |
with the difference of the extent of means and an unlimited use of money. | 0:59:13 | 0:59:18 | |
I did not receive more as Ambassador than anyone else received. | 0:59:18 | 0:59:24 | |
Other witnesses begged to differ. | 0:59:25 | 0:59:28 | |
Do you think that ANY British subject, not in the situation of Ambassador, | 0:59:28 | 0:59:34 | |
-would have been able to obtain from the Turkish government a firman of such extensive powers? -Certainly not. | 0:59:34 | 0:59:41 | |
In your opinion, was this permission given to Lord Elgin | 0:59:41 | 0:59:45 | |
entirely in consequence of the situation he held as British Ambassador? | 0:59:45 | 0:59:50 | |
I'm inclined to think such a permission would not have been asked for | 0:59:50 | 0:59:57 | |
by any person NOT an ambassador of a highly favoured ally. Nor granted to any other individual. | 0:59:57 | 1:00:04 | |
Thank you. | 1:00:04 | 1:00:07 | |
Next, the committee turned their attention to the artistic worth and monetary value of the Marbles. | 1:00:07 | 1:00:13 | |
They wanted to be sure they weren't buying duff goods. | 1:00:13 | 1:00:17 | |
A selection of artists and sculptors appeared before the committee. | 1:00:17 | 1:00:21 | |
What is your opinion of those Marbles as to the excellency of the work? | 1:00:21 | 1:00:26 | |
They are the finest things that ever came to this country. | 1:00:26 | 1:00:30 | |
Works of such prime importance could not remain in the country without improving the public taste. | 1:00:30 | 1:00:37 | |
In what class of art do you place the finest works in this collection? | 1:00:37 | 1:00:42 | |
I rate them of the first class of art. | 1:00:42 | 1:00:47 | |
The artists all gave glowing praise. | 1:00:47 | 1:00:49 | |
Then Richard Payne-Knight was called to give the opinion of the detractors. | 1:00:51 | 1:00:58 | |
It proved to be an uncomfortable encounter. | 1:00:58 | 1:01:01 | |
In what class of art do you place the finest works in this collection? | 1:01:01 | 1:01:06 | |
I should put them in the second rank. | 1:01:06 | 1:01:10 | |
I think some were added in the time of Hadrian, from the style of them. | 1:01:10 | 1:01:15 | |
Upon what authority do you state that a great part of these Marbles belong to the time of Hadrian? | 1:01:15 | 1:01:21 | |
From no other authority but the writings of Spon and Wheeler. | 1:01:21 | 1:01:26 | |
Do you not recollect that Spon and Wheeler's observations were exceedingly loose | 1:01:26 | 1:01:34 | |
-and in some cases wholly inaccurate? -Very loose, certainly. -And in some cases wholly inaccurate. | 1:01:34 | 1:01:41 | |
It is a long while since I read them. | 1:01:42 | 1:01:46 | |
After two weeks, the select committee retired to make its deliberations. | 1:01:46 | 1:01:51 | |
Its conclusions were good news for Elgin. | 1:01:51 | 1:01:54 | |
The committee's report affirmed the artistic worth of the Marbles | 1:01:54 | 1:01:59 | |
but, more importantly, it cleared Elgin himself of any wrongdoing. | 1:01:59 | 1:02:03 | |
It stated that, since the Turks had known exactly what was going on, | 1:02:03 | 1:02:08 | |
Elgin had had every right to remove the Marbles and it stated that he'd acted as a private individual. | 1:02:08 | 1:02:14 | |
Given the somewhat conflicting nature of the evidence, that now seems, perhaps, a little surprising. | 1:02:14 | 1:02:21 | |
But then again, it's in the great tradition of the British parliamentary report. | 1:02:21 | 1:02:27 | |
However, there was one disappointment for Elgin. | 1:02:28 | 1:02:32 | |
The report recommended a price of £35,000, | 1:02:32 | 1:02:36 | |
only half of what he'd spent and asked for. | 1:02:36 | 1:02:40 | |
But Elgin had no choice but to agree to the sale. | 1:02:40 | 1:02:44 | |
Finally, he was rid of the Marbles that had obsessed him for 15 years | 1:02:44 | 1:02:48 | |
and wrecked his life. | 1:02:48 | 1:02:51 | |
The Marbles, now called the Elgin Marbles, were entrusted to the British Museum in 1816 | 1:02:53 | 1:02:59 | |
where they became the star attraction. More than 1,000 people a day flocked to see them there | 1:02:59 | 1:03:06 | |
and their influence began to be felt in the arts, much as Elgin had hoped. | 1:03:06 | 1:03:11 | |
The Marbles had an enormous effect on British, and Western, art. | 1:03:11 | 1:03:16 | |
You only have to walk round the streets of London now | 1:03:16 | 1:03:21 | |
to see the varieties of replicas of the Marbles from the Parthenon | 1:03:21 | 1:03:26 | |
or female formed column, the caryatid, that Elgin brought back from the Erechtheion. | 1:03:26 | 1:03:33 | |
They really do launch a whole set of British artistic and literary responses. | 1:03:33 | 1:03:38 | |
Ancient Athens came to be seen as the one true model for any civilised democratic society | 1:03:38 | 1:03:45 | |
and 19th-century Britons, filled with the self-confidence of Empire, came to see themselves | 1:03:45 | 1:03:52 | |
as the only true living heirs to the great Classical past. | 1:03:52 | 1:03:56 | |
When it came to redesigning the building that was to house their treasure, the Elgin Marbles, | 1:03:56 | 1:04:02 | |
they gave it the form of a modern Parthenon, as if to underline their belief | 1:04:02 | 1:04:07 | |
that, while London may not have been the place of origin of the Marbles, it had become their spiritual home. | 1:04:07 | 1:04:13 | |
But Lord Elgin's own fate was not as happy as that of his Marbles. | 1:04:17 | 1:04:21 | |
Although the report had cleared his name, Elgin never really fully recovered. | 1:04:21 | 1:04:27 | |
Elgin is a tragic figure, in a way, | 1:04:27 | 1:04:30 | |
because he devoted his life to this one enterprise and it brought him down and ruined him and his family. | 1:04:30 | 1:04:37 | |
Towards the end of his life, the house had to be closed up and he lived in a corner of it. | 1:04:37 | 1:04:43 | |
His sons had to go abroad to try and retrieve the fortune. | 1:04:43 | 1:04:47 | |
It's very hard to know how to remember Elgin. He was certainly not as bad, nor as good, as he's painted. | 1:04:47 | 1:04:54 | |
You have to judge him really by the...the effect. | 1:04:54 | 1:04:58 | |
The effect is, for better or worse, he saved for humanity a lot of sculptures that we value very highly | 1:04:58 | 1:05:06 | |
and in some ways he was instrumental in changing the course of how Britain engaged with the Classical world. | 1:05:06 | 1:05:14 | |
It's not bad. Whether he did it for good reasons or not is quite another matter. | 1:05:14 | 1:05:19 | |
Elgin died in Paris in 1841 owing £150,000 - | 1:05:21 | 1:05:26 | |
over £6.5m in today's money. | 1:05:26 | 1:05:29 | |
It would take Elgin's heirs decades to pay off his debts. | 1:05:29 | 1:05:33 | |
But the story of the Elgin Marbles was far from over. | 1:05:35 | 1:05:39 | |
The controversy caused by Elgin's actions was just beginning and soon grew to international proportions. | 1:05:39 | 1:05:46 | |
Should they remain here where they've been ever since 1817, | 1:05:49 | 1:05:54 | |
or go back where they came from? | 1:05:54 | 1:05:57 | |
The Greeks ought to be grateful to us | 1:05:57 | 1:05:59 | |
for having preserved their inheritance, and to Lord Elgin too, | 1:05:59 | 1:06:03 | |
and it's a base ingratitude that they try to put this absurd argument on its feet, it won't stand. | 1:06:04 | 1:06:10 | |
They are our ancestry - | 1:06:10 | 1:06:12 | |
they are our cultural heritage. | 1:06:13 | 1:06:15 | |
They are our soul. | 1:06:17 | 1:06:20 | |
I think this is cultural fascism - | 1:06:20 | 1:06:23 | |
it's nationalism and it's cultural danger, enormous cultural danger, | 1:06:23 | 1:06:29 | |
if you start to destroy great intellectual institutions, you're culturally fascist. | 1:06:29 | 1:06:36 | |
The colonial era is over. | 1:06:36 | 1:06:38 | |
Let's find a new way of building our collections. | 1:06:38 | 1:06:41 | |
Nobody's saying "send everything back", but if something shouldn't have been taken in the first place, | 1:06:41 | 1:06:47 | |
if it has to go back, it has to go back. | 1:06:47 | 1:06:49 | |
In 1835, when the British Museum offered the Greek government a set of casts of the Elgin Marbles, | 1:06:49 | 1:06:55 | |
the Greeks replied by saying they'd far rather have the originals back. | 1:06:55 | 1:06:59 | |
There'd been precious few Greek objections when Elgin had taken them 30 years earlier. | 1:06:59 | 1:07:05 | |
So why this sudden change of heart? | 1:07:05 | 1:07:07 | |
The answer was revolution. | 1:07:12 | 1:07:15 | |
While British society had been swooning over the Elgin Marbles, | 1:07:15 | 1:07:19 | |
Greece had been fighting a bloody battle for independence. | 1:07:19 | 1:07:23 | |
There'd been no independent Greek state since the Roman occupation, | 1:07:23 | 1:07:27 | |
and Greece had been part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries. | 1:07:27 | 1:07:31 | |
Dissatisfaction with Turkish rule was fuelled by the stirrings of Greek national consciousness, | 1:07:31 | 1:07:37 | |
and revolution erupted in 1821. | 1:07:37 | 1:07:39 | |
The ensuing war dragged on for six years, when European powers including Britain, France and Russia | 1:07:39 | 1:07:46 | |
intervened, putting an end to Turkish rule. | 1:07:46 | 1:07:50 | |
Modern Greece came into being, although on terms very much laid down by the Western powers. | 1:07:50 | 1:07:57 | |
I think that Greek Classicism | 1:07:57 | 1:07:59 | |
was what urged the foreign powers, apart from politics, of course, | 1:07:59 | 1:08:05 | |
to help the Greeks and their revolution, | 1:08:05 | 1:08:09 | |
and they did help. It wouldn't have been possible otherwise. | 1:08:09 | 1:08:13 | |
Ironically, the removal of the Marbles from Greece | 1:08:13 | 1:08:17 | |
may have actually helped the cause of Greek independence. | 1:08:17 | 1:08:21 | |
There can be no doubt at all that the presence of the Parthenon sculptures in London | 1:08:21 | 1:08:25 | |
was a major factor | 1:08:25 | 1:08:28 | |
in Western European consciousness, that there was a Greek inheritance | 1:08:28 | 1:08:33 | |
which was a European inheritance and which, uniquely, they thought ought not to be under Ottoman control. | 1:08:33 | 1:08:39 | |
So I think Elgin's role in creating free modern Greece is a very important one. | 1:08:39 | 1:08:44 | |
The European mania for all things Ancient Greek is most monumentally visible here in Bavaria. | 1:08:53 | 1:08:59 | |
King Ludwig of Bavaria, who wanted to buy the Marbles from Elgin, | 1:08:59 | 1:09:04 | |
had to content himself with building his very own Parthenon overlooking the Danube - the Valhalla. | 1:09:04 | 1:09:11 | |
But Ludwig's love for Ancient Greece was to be felt much further afield than his own country, | 1:09:11 | 1:09:17 | |
because it was Ludwig's son Otto | 1:09:17 | 1:09:19 | |
who was chosen by the major European powers to be the very first king of modern Greece. | 1:09:19 | 1:09:25 | |
His problem is absolutely clear at that point, which is how do you give some sense of nationhood | 1:09:25 | 1:09:32 | |
to this war-wracked country which had been part of the Ottoman Empire? | 1:09:32 | 1:09:36 | |
And it seems pretty clear that what he opts for is buying in big time | 1:09:36 | 1:09:41 | |
to the 5th-century Classical past of Greece. | 1:09:41 | 1:09:44 | |
One of Otto's first actions as king | 1:09:44 | 1:09:47 | |
was to declare the Acropolis a Greek national monument | 1:09:47 | 1:09:51 | |
in an extravagant ceremony, surrounded by Greek girls bearing wreaths of laurel | 1:09:51 | 1:09:58 | |
and banners emblazoned with the goddess Athena. | 1:09:58 | 1:10:01 | |
Otto tapped three times on one of the columns of the Parthenon. | 1:10:01 | 1:10:05 | |
Modern Greece was born with the Parthenon as its symbolic heart. | 1:10:05 | 1:10:10 | |
The newly-crowned German king of Greece asked the Bavarian architect | 1:10:11 | 1:10:16 | |
who designed the Valhalla to devise a plan for the real Acropolis. | 1:10:16 | 1:10:19 | |
He advised the site should be cleared of any building that didn't date from the Classical period. | 1:10:19 | 1:10:26 | |
This was a vast undertaking, but carried out with typical German efficiency. | 1:10:26 | 1:10:31 | |
When Otto cleared the space of the Acropolis, he was typical of his period. | 1:10:31 | 1:10:37 | |
For him, the only thing that counted was the glorious days of the 5th-century Athens. | 1:10:37 | 1:10:44 | |
So he cleared away everything else. | 1:10:44 | 1:10:45 | |
He took away the Roman buildings, the Byzantine buildings... | 1:10:45 | 1:10:49 | |
It was an act of archaeological vandalism, | 1:10:49 | 1:10:51 | |
but it allowed the national symbol of Greece to arise. | 1:10:51 | 1:10:56 | |
During the early 19th century, the Greeks had begun to rediscover their Classical heritage for themselves, | 1:10:56 | 1:11:02 | |
but there's no denying the whole process was vastly accelerated | 1:11:02 | 1:11:06 | |
by the enthusiasm of Western Europeans, especially the Bavarians. | 1:11:06 | 1:11:11 | |
The Bavarian approach to antiquity was extremely exclusive - | 1:11:11 | 1:11:15 | |
a stripping away that promoted a purified view of the ancient past, | 1:11:15 | 1:11:21 | |
according to which anything that lay outside the golden period of the 5th century BC was classed as barbarous, | 1:11:21 | 1:11:28 | |
degenerate, and the result was a kind of ethnically cleansed view of cultural history. | 1:11:28 | 1:11:35 | |
Now, of course, every new nation needs an identity to hold on to, needs its symbols, | 1:11:35 | 1:11:42 | |
but I also think there's a danger in plucking this one moment, | 1:11:42 | 1:11:46 | |
this 5th-century BC moment, | 1:11:46 | 1:11:49 | |
out of the vast multicultural continuum | 1:11:49 | 1:11:53 | |
of the history of the Greek lands, and elevating it to canonical status. | 1:11:53 | 1:11:58 | |
By wiping out the intervening 2,000 years of history, | 1:11:58 | 1:12:02 | |
there's a risk of disenfranchising all sorts of modern Greek citizens - | 1:12:02 | 1:12:07 | |
Jews, Muslims, whose cultures have also made a contribution to the history of modern Greece. | 1:12:07 | 1:12:13 | |
I think it's very dangerous when culture becomes politicised in this way. | 1:12:15 | 1:12:21 | |
It's a recent development to invest these sculptures with national identity, | 1:12:21 | 1:12:27 | |
as is now done, and I think it's always problematic | 1:12:27 | 1:12:32 | |
when governments attempt to impose on objects | 1:12:32 | 1:12:36 | |
meanings that are essentially political rather than cultural. | 1:12:36 | 1:12:40 | |
Actually, I feel that in their hearts, | 1:12:40 | 1:12:44 | |
and in their genes, | 1:12:44 | 1:12:47 | |
the Greeks always felt a connection to their antiquities and symbols. | 1:12:47 | 1:12:52 | |
It was probably a matter of knowledge. They probably did not know their history, | 1:12:52 | 1:12:58 | |
but they felt very close to it. | 1:12:58 | 1:13:01 | |
Whichever side you take, | 1:13:04 | 1:13:06 | |
there's no denying the current depth of Greek feeling about the Parthenon and about the Marbles. | 1:13:06 | 1:13:12 | |
There's even a set of casts of the Elgin Marbles in the Athens Metro, | 1:13:12 | 1:13:16 | |
a poignant reminder to modern Greeks of all that they've lost. | 1:13:16 | 1:13:19 | |
In recent years, nobody did more to campaign for the Marbles' return | 1:13:19 | 1:13:23 | |
and to link them to the very idea of Greek nationhood | 1:13:23 | 1:13:27 | |
than the actress and Greek culture minister Melina Mercouri. | 1:13:27 | 1:13:31 | |
'I want the Marbles back to the Greeks | 1:13:31 | 1:13:36 | |
'because we have created them, | 1:13:36 | 1:13:39 | |
'because is our identity,' | 1:13:39 | 1:13:43 | |
and because, after all, they belong where they were made. | 1:13:43 | 1:13:48 | |
I think Melina said it very well. | 1:13:48 | 1:13:51 | |
They are our pride, they are a noble symbol of excellence | 1:13:51 | 1:13:56 | |
and they are a thankful tribute to democracy. | 1:13:56 | 1:14:01 | |
That's what all the Greeks feel. | 1:14:01 | 1:14:04 | |
You don't take away a country's pride. | 1:14:06 | 1:14:09 | |
Mercouri's campaign in the 1980s took the issue of the Marbles' return | 1:14:14 | 1:14:18 | |
to an international level, with the result that the debate became even more heated. | 1:14:18 | 1:14:23 | |
Accusations of neglect and maltreatment were thrown by both sides. | 1:14:23 | 1:14:28 | |
In the early 20th century, well-intentioned restoration | 1:14:31 | 1:14:35 | |
of the much-battered Parthenon had caused a good deal of damage. | 1:14:35 | 1:14:40 | |
-Under Nikolaos Balanos, the temple was partially rebuilt. -It was a disaster. | 1:14:40 | 1:14:45 | |
Instead of using iron clamps - which the Ancient Greeks had used - | 1:14:45 | 1:14:49 | |
that were seated in lead, | 1:14:50 | 1:14:52 | |
they just used iron clamps, and when water gets onto iron it rusts, | 1:14:52 | 1:14:56 | |
it corrodes, it expands, it split the marble, it stained the marble. | 1:14:56 | 1:15:01 | |
Balanos also put the columns up | 1:15:01 | 1:15:05 | |
wherever he thought they looked nice. He didn't worry about original positions. | 1:15:05 | 1:15:09 | |
I mean, he was an over-enthusiastic child | 1:15:09 | 1:15:12 | |
playing with a sort of Lego set of Parthenon blocks. | 1:15:13 | 1:15:17 | |
In order to rectify the damage that Balanos did to the Parthenon, | 1:15:17 | 1:15:22 | |
the Greek authorities have, since 1986, been carrying out extensive painstaking restoration | 1:15:22 | 1:15:29 | |
on the Acropolis. | 1:15:29 | 1:15:32 | |
A lot of our work has to do with the Balanos restoration, of course, | 1:15:32 | 1:15:35 | |
so we have to replace any of these iron connectable elements with the titanium one. | 1:15:35 | 1:15:41 | |
The purpose is to put the original pieces back to the original position, | 1:15:41 | 1:15:46 | |
to increase the stability of the members, | 1:15:46 | 1:15:50 | |
so in that way, we are giving some more years to this famous monument. | 1:15:50 | 1:15:56 | |
The Acropolis restoration project is one of the most respected of its kind in the world. | 1:15:56 | 1:16:04 | |
But they can't solve the greatest danger that now faces the Parthenon - | 1:16:04 | 1:16:09 | |
Athens's extremely high and damaging pollution levels. | 1:16:09 | 1:16:13 | |
Whatever view one takes of the original decision to bring the sculptures to London, | 1:16:13 | 1:16:20 | |
there can be no doubt that those that remained on the Parthenon | 1:16:20 | 1:16:24 | |
have suffered dramatically and seriously from pollution effects, | 1:16:24 | 1:16:28 | |
which is why the Greek authorities have continued Elgin's work and removed most remaining sculptures. | 1:16:28 | 1:16:35 | |
It would be nice to say that the Greeks had removed all the sculptures from the Parthenon | 1:16:35 | 1:16:40 | |
and are caring for it in a museum but they're not. The west frieze is still awaiting restoration | 1:16:40 | 1:16:46 | |
and quite a few of the original 5th-century metopes are still on the building. | 1:16:46 | 1:16:52 | |
One can't even think about returning the Elgin Marbles to Athens | 1:16:52 | 1:16:57 | |
until the Greeks start caring for what they already have. | 1:16:57 | 1:17:00 | |
I'm sure they'd take great care of the Parthenon sculptures if they were returned, | 1:17:00 | 1:17:05 | |
but if you knew a woman was abusing her child, you wouldn't let her adopt another. That's what the Greeks want. | 1:17:05 | 1:17:11 | |
For years, the British could safely say that the Marbles wouldn't have been safe back in Greece, | 1:17:11 | 1:17:18 | |
but as it turned out, they weren't that safe in London either. | 1:17:18 | 1:17:22 | |
On Sunday 25th September 1938, | 1:17:25 | 1:17:28 | |
the director of the British Museum, John Forsdyke, was walking through the basement | 1:17:28 | 1:17:33 | |
when he was surprised to find some of the Marbles in the process of being cleaned. On the bench, | 1:17:33 | 1:17:39 | |
he saw a number of copper tools and a piece of carborundum. | 1:17:39 | 1:17:43 | |
Using metal to clean ancient marble went against every rule of responsible conservation. | 1:17:43 | 1:17:50 | |
Forsdyke called a halt to the cleaning and instituted an inquiry. | 1:17:50 | 1:17:56 | |
The British Museum had accepted an offer from Sir Joseph Du Vine, art dealer and millionaire, | 1:17:56 | 1:18:02 | |
to finance the construction of new exhibition galleries to house the Elgin Marbles. | 1:18:02 | 1:18:07 | |
It was one of those cases | 1:18:07 | 1:18:09 | |
where the will of a multi-millionaire donor and the needs of the museum | 1:18:09 | 1:18:14 | |
didn't entirely coincide, | 1:18:14 | 1:18:17 | |
and it's absolutely clear that Du Vine wanted his marbles to be very nice and white and Classical. | 1:18:17 | 1:18:22 | |
What happened was they were cleaned much too aggressively, as we would now think. | 1:18:24 | 1:18:30 | |
This should never have happened, as the British Museum was the first to recognise. | 1:18:30 | 1:18:35 | |
A great deal of damage was done. | 1:18:35 | 1:18:38 | |
There are quite a number of pieces that were not scraped, | 1:18:38 | 1:18:41 | |
but the trouble is it was the best surviving pieces that were scraped. | 1:18:41 | 1:18:46 | |
You sometimes hear people say, "Oh, just a millimetre here or there", | 1:18:46 | 1:18:50 | |
but if you also say | 1:18:50 | 1:18:53 | |
these are the greatest works of sculpture ever created, your millimetre is quite a lot. | 1:18:53 | 1:18:59 | |
The resulting inquiry discovered that the cleaning had gone on for a year-and-a-half, | 1:18:59 | 1:19:05 | |
and that "the damage which has been caused is obvious and cannot be exaggerated". | 1:19:05 | 1:19:11 | |
There was a failure of trusteeship and a failure of curatorship, but the main scandal, I think, | 1:19:11 | 1:19:19 | |
is that the story which had been traditionally told, | 1:19:19 | 1:19:23 | |
the one of rescue and stewardship, just doesn't stand up to scrutiny. | 1:19:23 | 1:19:28 | |
I think it's perhaps better to understand that a lot of this cleaning | 1:19:28 | 1:19:34 | |
was done of backgrounds rather than of the figures themselves, | 1:19:34 | 1:19:40 | |
and that it was a cleaning technique that was used some 20 years later | 1:19:40 | 1:19:44 | |
in Athens itself on the sister building of the Parthenon, the Hephaisteion, | 1:19:44 | 1:19:49 | |
by Greek technicians with the permission of the Greek authorities. | 1:19:49 | 1:19:55 | |
Maybe passions always will run high as far as the Elgin Marbles are concerned, | 1:19:55 | 1:19:59 | |
but I still have the sense that in recent years the terms of the debate have begun to shift, | 1:19:59 | 1:20:05 | |
and arguments on both sides have become a little bit more civilised and a bit less narrowly jingoistic. | 1:20:05 | 1:20:11 | |
People, I think, are now really looking to the future with a degree of objectivity | 1:20:11 | 1:20:16 | |
and the question they're asking themselves is how best to show and to appreciate the Marbles in London | 1:20:16 | 1:20:21 | |
AND in Athens as one of the world's great works of art. | 1:20:21 | 1:20:24 | |
The most important reason for having the Marbles come back to Athens | 1:20:25 | 1:20:31 | |
is to be reunited with the remaining pieces | 1:20:31 | 1:20:35 | |
and create the totality of the remaining sculptural decoration of the Parthenon | 1:20:35 | 1:20:43 | |
to which they belong, of course, conceptually, architecturally, | 1:20:43 | 1:20:47 | |
aesthetically, historically, | 1:20:47 | 1:20:50 | |
in any possible way, their context is here. | 1:20:50 | 1:20:53 | |
But the sad truth is that the Parthenon can never be put together again | 1:20:53 | 1:20:58 | |
and roughly half the sculptures have got lost, destroyed, so it's completely impossible | 1:20:58 | 1:21:03 | |
to recover one aesthetic unit - that is a fantasy. | 1:21:03 | 1:21:07 | |
Even those that remain can't go back on the building, | 1:21:07 | 1:21:12 | |
and those that remain are never going to give a proper indication | 1:21:12 | 1:21:17 | |
of the original aesthetic achievement. | 1:21:17 | 1:21:19 | |
When you have two equal halves of a monument | 1:21:24 | 1:21:28 | |
which would join together in hundreds of places, | 1:21:28 | 1:21:33 | |
which even includes individual figures and individual slabs that are split between Athens and London, | 1:21:34 | 1:21:41 | |
then it does seem pretty crazy | 1:21:41 | 1:21:44 | |
not to allow these to be brought even temporarily together. | 1:21:44 | 1:21:49 | |
As part of their push to reunite the Marbles, | 1:21:49 | 1:21:52 | |
the Greek authorities are building a new state of the art museum at the foot of the Acropolis | 1:21:52 | 1:21:58 | |
to house the sculptures left behind by Elgin's agents, along with other antiquities. | 1:21:58 | 1:22:03 | |
When digging the foundations, workmen discovered an important Byzantine archaeological site. | 1:22:03 | 1:22:09 | |
Now excavated, it'll form part of the museum's display. | 1:22:09 | 1:22:13 | |
You start with an excavation that you can see at the bottom of the museum through a glass floor - | 1:22:13 | 1:22:19 | |
an extant excavation that's been taking place recently. | 1:22:19 | 1:22:24 | |
You move up through sculptures from the archaic and Classic periods | 1:22:24 | 1:22:28 | |
as you would've done on the slopes of the Acropolis itself, up to the gallery at the top, | 1:22:28 | 1:22:33 | |
which is the alignment of the Parthenon and the size of the Parthenon. | 1:22:33 | 1:22:38 | |
The big friezes are displayed facing outwards as they were originally | 1:22:38 | 1:22:42 | |
and the pediments and so on are placed around them as originally. | 1:22:42 | 1:22:46 | |
And it offers the nearest, I think, to an opportunity to display them in a recreation of the Parthenon. | 1:22:46 | 1:22:53 | |
Gaping holes will deliberately be left for the Elgin Marbles, | 1:22:53 | 1:22:57 | |
a vivid plea to the British Museum for their return. | 1:22:57 | 1:23:01 | |
The museum is next to Acropolis, and it is a visual connection between the museum and the Acropolis. | 1:23:01 | 1:23:09 | |
Because the Parthenon hall is on the top of the museum, | 1:23:09 | 1:23:13 | |
the visitors can see both the Parthenon and the sculptures. | 1:23:13 | 1:23:19 | |
I think it's the best we can wish for this monument and these sculptures. | 1:23:19 | 1:23:24 | |
But even the new Acropolis museum has faced a barrage of criticism, | 1:23:24 | 1:23:28 | |
-again centring on the issue of care and neglect. -In order to build this new museum, | 1:23:28 | 1:23:34 | |
the Greeks are now effectively destroying one of the most important archaeological sites in the world, | 1:23:34 | 1:23:39 | |
the ancient centre of Athens, and this museum is being planted on top of it on stilts | 1:23:39 | 1:23:45 | |
which have been driven down into the ground. It's just a great crime against art and history. | 1:23:45 | 1:23:51 | |
Wherever you build a museum near the Acropolis, you'd come across an archaeological site, | 1:23:51 | 1:23:56 | |
so you were damned if you did and damned if you didn't. If there wasn't a new museum, people say, | 1:23:56 | 1:24:01 | |
"Isn't it appalling? You go to the Acropolis and the Parthenon and there's no decent museum." | 1:24:01 | 1:24:07 | |
As soon as you build one, people say you're destroying archaeological remains. Everything I've seen of it, | 1:24:07 | 1:24:12 | |
and the feedback I've had is this is about as good as you could get for a museum on an archaeological site. | 1:24:12 | 1:24:19 | |
With the new museum in sight, it was suggested by the Greeks that the Marbles return on indefinite loan, | 1:24:19 | 1:24:27 | |
with the British Museum retaining stewardship. | 1:24:27 | 1:24:31 | |
The British Museum continues to beware Greeks requesting gifts. | 1:24:31 | 1:24:36 | |
-Its answer is still...no. -In the British Museum, | 1:24:36 | 1:24:40 | |
the Elgin Marbles are a part of the story of the cultural achievement of humanity, | 1:24:40 | 1:24:46 | |
and if you want to look at what the greatest points in civilisation | 1:24:46 | 1:24:50 | |
of Egypt, Syria, Greece, Rome, | 1:24:50 | 1:24:53 | |
India, China, Africa achieved, you can do that in the British Museum. | 1:24:53 | 1:24:59 | |
The Elgin Marbles are a part of that narrative, and it's important for the world that it be told somewhere. | 1:24:59 | 1:25:06 | |
Some claim that the return of the Marbles would have dire consequences for world museums. | 1:25:11 | 1:25:17 | |
That would undoubtedly unleash forces all over the world. | 1:25:17 | 1:25:22 | |
There would be demands for similar returns of sculptures to every great museum, | 1:25:22 | 1:25:29 | |
to the Louvre, to the Metropolitan Museum in New York, | 1:25:29 | 1:25:32 | |
and there would be all the attendant campaigns and agitation and politics would get very much uglier. | 1:25:32 | 1:25:40 | |
There's a very important distinction between the Marbles and any other objects that might be under dispute. | 1:25:40 | 1:25:46 | |
I'm not aware of any other collection of objects | 1:25:46 | 1:25:50 | |
that belongs to an existing famous building like the Parthenon. | 1:25:50 | 1:25:54 | |
It's the equivalent of a couple of the stones from Stonehenge being in a museum somewhere, | 1:25:54 | 1:25:59 | |
where you've the rest of Stonehenge is still there. That's a different argument from other objects, | 1:25:59 | 1:26:04 | |
taken from their original homes, but where the homes have been destroyed. | 1:26:04 | 1:26:09 | |
It's unique in its scale, | 1:26:09 | 1:26:12 | |
it's unique in the precise bisection of what we have, | 1:26:12 | 1:26:17 | |
it's unique in the fact that the building is an icon of a modern nation, | 1:26:17 | 1:26:24 | |
located at the heart of its capital, appearing on every banknote, coin and stamp. | 1:26:24 | 1:26:32 | |
All of which raises the question of whether the Marbles are specifically part of Greek culture, | 1:26:34 | 1:26:42 | |
-or of world culture. -Ultimately, what is being fought out is - where does the Parthenon belong? | 1:26:42 | 1:26:49 | |
And there two good answers to that, at least. | 1:26:49 | 1:26:52 | |
One good answer is that it belongs in Athens, another good answer is that it belongs where it's ended up, | 1:26:52 | 1:26:58 | |
or at least the sculptures do, in London, and both of those, in some ways, | 1:26:58 | 1:27:03 | |
are negotiating the difficult fact that it's now a monument that belongs to everybody. | 1:27:03 | 1:27:08 | |
Great civilisations belong to the whole world. | 1:27:08 | 1:27:12 | |
Greek civilisation is the inheritance of the whole world. | 1:27:12 | 1:27:17 | |
In the art galleries of Europe, we take it completely for granted | 1:27:17 | 1:27:22 | |
that great masterpieces of one country, great heritage pieces, hang in the galleries of other countries | 1:27:22 | 1:27:29 | |
because they're all part of the European shared inheritance. | 1:27:29 | 1:27:34 | |
The message is - the Greeks are not really our equals. | 1:27:34 | 1:27:39 | |
They may be equal partners in the EU, they may be a country which has been our ally for nearly 200 years, | 1:27:39 | 1:27:46 | |
but we can't really treat them the way we would treat them if, say, it were the French. | 1:27:46 | 1:27:54 | |
Suppose the British Museum had half of the sculpture from Chartres Cathedral, | 1:27:54 | 1:27:59 | |
does anybody believe that 200 years later it would still be in London? | 1:27:59 | 1:28:05 | |
Do we believe that culture is something that unites humanity, | 1:28:05 | 1:28:10 | |
and that we should see humanity as somehow one through its culture? | 1:28:10 | 1:28:15 | |
Or do we want to see culture as what defines and differentiates and separates nations and peoples? | 1:28:15 | 1:28:22 | |
-That is the choice that the world has to make. -So what should happen to the Elgin Marbles? | 1:28:22 | 1:28:27 | |
Well, I don't think it's my place to pronounce on the matter one way or the other, and the fact is, | 1:28:27 | 1:28:34 | |
that if the arguments weren't strong on both sides, then this debate couldn't have gone on for 200 years. | 1:28:34 | 1:28:40 | |
The British Museum would certainly be a poorer place without the Marbles, | 1:28:40 | 1:28:44 | |
take them away and, in a sense, you rip the heart out of the museum, and that would be a great loss. | 1:28:44 | 1:28:51 | |
But on the other side, there's no denying the strength of the Greek claim | 1:28:51 | 1:28:56 | |
that the Marbles would be best seen reunited in Athens, | 1:28:56 | 1:28:59 | |
and I think that argument's gonna seem all the stronger when the new museum's been built, | 1:28:59 | 1:29:04 | |
and you'll be able to see the gaps in the jigsaw puzzle of the Marbles. | 1:29:04 | 1:29:09 | |
I don't think Lord Elgin can have ever imagined that his actions would lead to such a huge controversy, | 1:29:09 | 1:29:16 | |
and whatever happens, I get the feeling this one is not going to be sorted out in a hurry. | 1:29:16 | 1:29:22 | |
Subtitles by Dermot Fitzsimons and Mary Easton BBC Broadcast 2004 | 1:29:44 | 1:29:48 | |
E-mail us at [email protected] | 1:29:48 | 1:29:51 |