0:00:10 > 0:00:15200 years ago, workmen were swarming over the Acropolis,
0:00:15 > 0:00:19the rock that dominates the ancient city of Athens.
0:00:19 > 0:00:23They were hard at work on exquisite pieces of marble sculpture
0:00:23 > 0:00:27but this was not an act of creation.
0:00:27 > 0:00:32The workmen were obeying the orders of one man -
0:00:32 > 0:00:34Lord Elgin.
0:00:34 > 0:00:42Elgin was risking his fortune, reputation and health in compulsive pursuit of a grand scheme -
0:00:42 > 0:00:47the removal of the sculptures and their transportation to Britain.
0:00:47 > 0:00:51Elgin's ambition was to lead to his ruin
0:00:51 > 0:00:56and to one of the greatest international controversies of the last two centuries,
0:00:56 > 0:01:02for the sculptures were decorating one of the oldest and most revered buildings in the world...
0:01:05 > 0:01:09..the Parthenon.
0:01:10 > 0:01:16This is the story of one man's obsession and the scandal his actions caused.
0:01:16 > 0:01:20This is the story of the Elgin Marbles.
0:01:33 > 0:01:40There's no question that Elgin performed one of the greatest acts of conservation rescue in history.
0:01:40 > 0:01:44He was seeking to do something for the public good, for art.
0:01:46 > 0:01:53If Elgin, today, went and dismantled a building immensely precious to another country's identity,
0:01:53 > 0:01:59we'd regard him in the same light as we regard Nazis, you know, stripping places that they occupied.
0:02:01 > 0:02:08One can't think about returning the Elgin Marbles until the Greeks start caring for what they already have.
0:02:08 > 0:02:13If a woman was abusing her child, you wouldn't let her adopt another.
0:02:13 > 0:02:15They are our pride.
0:02:15 > 0:02:22They are a noble symbol of excellence and they are a thankful tribute to democracy.
0:02:22 > 0:02:26And that's what all the Greeks feel.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30You don't take away a country's pride.
0:02:35 > 0:02:39In the year of the Athens Olympics, with the world's eyes on Greece,
0:02:39 > 0:02:44the issue of the Elgin Marbles has exploded all over again.
0:02:44 > 0:02:47The basics of the case remain the same.
0:02:47 > 0:02:53200 years ago, Lord Elgin took about half of the marble sculptures that survived on the Parthenon,
0:02:53 > 0:03:00the ancient Greek monument that for 2,500 years has occupied the rock of the Acropolis in Athens.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03These marbles, the Elgin Marbles,
0:03:03 > 0:03:10are now on display in London in the British Museum, and Greece wants them back.
0:03:10 > 0:03:16I've always loved the Elgin Marbles but, until today, I've never visited the Parthenon itself
0:03:16 > 0:03:22and, although it's a bit of a building site, packed with tourists,
0:03:22 > 0:03:26seeing it for the first time is a breathtaking experience.
0:03:26 > 0:03:31It's a golden monument to the golden age of Ancient Greek civilisation,
0:03:31 > 0:03:38the civilisation that gave us democracy, philosophy, drama, comedy, tragedy.
0:03:38 > 0:03:45But to many modern Greeks, this site is itself the scene of a tragedy - the loss of the Marbles.
0:03:45 > 0:03:50The Elgin Marbles controversy has often generated more heat than light.
0:03:50 > 0:03:56I wanted to get at the facts behind the arguments. Just what is it that makes the Marbles matter so much?
0:03:56 > 0:04:00What gives them their power to rouse such passions?
0:04:00 > 0:04:05How do they come to be in London rather than Athens? Should they be returned to Greece?
0:04:12 > 0:04:16Controversy has always surrounded the Elgin Marbles.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20In 1816, 14 years after Elgin took the sculptures,
0:04:20 > 0:04:26dissenting voices had become so loud that the government appointed a parliamentary select committee
0:04:26 > 0:04:33to uncover precisely what had happened and to question the man at the centre of the storm.
0:04:33 > 0:04:39A man whose life, circumstances and appearance had dramatically changed.
0:04:40 > 0:04:44You will be pleased to state your name and title.
0:04:44 > 0:04:47Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin.
0:04:47 > 0:04:51Your Lordship will be pleased to state the circumstances
0:04:51 > 0:04:55under which you became possessed of this collection
0:04:55 > 0:05:00and of the authority you received for taking the Marbles from Athens.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05Elgin had reached rock bottom.
0:05:05 > 0:05:09He was penniless, his reputation was in tatters
0:05:09 > 0:05:15and he was afflicted by a mysterious wasting disease that was devouring his nose.
0:05:15 > 0:05:19To him, it must have seemed incredible
0:05:19 > 0:05:25that events had turned out this way. After all, it had all begun so differently, 17 years earlier.
0:05:29 > 0:05:37In 1799, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, stood on the brink of a brilliant public career.
0:05:37 > 0:05:41He was, of course, Earl of Elgin when he was five years old.
0:05:41 > 0:05:46So he realised that he had a position, as it were,
0:05:46 > 0:05:52but it was made absolutely clear to him that he didn't have any money
0:05:52 > 0:05:55so he'd better be highly educated.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59He had been educated as a boy in Harrow,
0:05:59 > 0:06:05had gone to university in St Andrews and then had gone to Paris.
0:06:05 > 0:06:12Very much brought up as a proper gentleman, young but experienced and with some success.
0:06:14 > 0:06:18This ambitious Scotsman had mastered three careers by his early 30s.
0:06:18 > 0:06:25In the Army, he had risen to the rank of lieutenant colonel, despite never having seen military action.
0:06:25 > 0:06:30In politics, he had taken up an elected seat in the House of Lords,
0:06:30 > 0:06:34attending in London whenever he could find the time.
0:06:34 > 0:06:41In international diplomacy, he had shown great promise as ambassador to Vienna, Brussels and Berlin.
0:06:41 > 0:06:46So Elgin seemed the obvious choice for the British Government
0:06:46 > 0:06:52to send to Constantinople, now Istanbul, as British Ambassador to the mighty Turkish Ottoman Empire.
0:06:52 > 0:06:58It's absolutely clear that he was in some senses on the make
0:06:58 > 0:07:02when he went to get this job in Constantinople.
0:07:02 > 0:07:07Indeed, he quite actively canvassed for himself to get the job.
0:07:07 > 0:07:09He was grabbing his chances.
0:07:09 > 0:07:16There were, I think, six ambassadorships in those days of the great powers of Europe of the time.
0:07:16 > 0:07:21So, if he had made a success of that job, then the sky's the limit.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25He could've come back and chosen whatever career he wanted.
0:07:25 > 0:07:32In the late 18th century, the Turkish Ottoman Empire was one of the great powers of the world,
0:07:32 > 0:07:39controlling most of the Middle East, Asia Minor, the Balkans and the north African coast.
0:07:39 > 0:07:43Its tentacles even reached as far as Greece,
0:07:43 > 0:07:48which the Ottomans had controlled for nearly 400 years.
0:07:48 > 0:07:54The Ottoman control of Greece caught the attention of the neoclassical architect Thomas Harrison.
0:07:54 > 0:08:00Harrison happened to be building Elgin's new country pile here in Scotland, Broom Hall,
0:08:00 > 0:08:06and it was Harrison who really fired Elgin's passion for Ancient Greece
0:08:06 > 0:08:09and, in the process, changed his life forever.
0:08:09 > 0:08:13The idea was first suggested to me in the year 1799 -
0:08:13 > 0:08:21at the period of my nomination to the embassy at Constantinople - by Mr Thomas Harrison, an architect
0:08:21 > 0:08:27who was working for me in Scotland. And his observation was that,
0:08:27 > 0:08:34though the public was in possession of everything to give them a general knowledge of the remains of Athens,
0:08:34 > 0:08:41yet they had nothing to convey the specifics of the antiquities to artists. He suggested
0:08:41 > 0:08:46that casts of the originals would add greatly to such an understanding.
0:08:46 > 0:08:52Harrison's interest in Ancient Greece was very much of the moment.
0:08:52 > 0:08:58In 19th century Europe, there was Grecomania.
0:08:58 > 0:09:02People were absolutely obsessed with the ancient world.
0:09:02 > 0:09:07Obsession with the idea that there was this perfect Classical past,
0:09:07 > 0:09:11an idealism you could look back to and live up to.
0:09:11 > 0:09:14Indeed, for 19th-century Europeans,
0:09:14 > 0:09:20Ancient Greece marked nothing less than the birth of Western civilisation.
0:09:22 > 0:09:25In the city of Athens in the 5th century BC,
0:09:25 > 0:09:29there had been a remarkable flowering of politics and culture
0:09:29 > 0:09:36that laid the foundations of philosophy, medicine, science, theatre and democracy.
0:09:36 > 0:09:41Athens in the 5th century BC was seen as a golden age.
0:09:41 > 0:09:48One of the things that's prompting a fascination with the Classical at the turn of the 19th century
0:09:48 > 0:09:55is the beginning of real exploration of the Greek and Roman worlds that starts with the Grand Tour to Italy.
0:09:55 > 0:10:01By the late 18th century, what you're opening up is direct contact with Greece itself
0:10:01 > 0:10:05and that means with the art and architecture.
0:10:05 > 0:10:11And there was an expectation that untold artistic and architectural riches would be found there.
0:10:11 > 0:10:15It was hardly surprising that Elgin jumped at Harrison's suggestion.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19I sought to make my embassy to Constantinople
0:10:19 > 0:10:23beneficial to the progress of the fine arts in Great Britain,
0:10:23 > 0:10:28to bestow some benefit towards the progress of taste in England,
0:10:28 > 0:10:33towards the advancement of literature and the arts.
0:10:33 > 0:10:40Fine motives. It was Elgin's plan that while he went to Constantinople on diplomatic business,
0:10:40 > 0:10:46his artists would go to Athens to draw, measure and study the ancient remains.
0:10:46 > 0:10:50There was no talk of actually removing anything from the ruins.
0:10:50 > 0:10:56Like so many other men of the Enlightenment caught up in the mania for all things Greek,
0:10:56 > 0:11:02Elgin sincerely believed that drawings and casts of Ancient Greek art and architecture
0:11:02 > 0:11:08could transform British taste, and come in handy when it came to decorating his new house.
0:11:08 > 0:11:14Elgin pursued the plan with missionary zeal. Such was his enthusiasm,
0:11:14 > 0:11:20he decided to fund the project himself when the government rejected his request for public money.
0:11:22 > 0:11:29Ideas would come to him and he would take them to the full. He moved very quickly, he adored going fast.
0:11:29 > 0:11:34If he saw the opportunity, he took it, regardless of cost.
0:11:37 > 0:11:43On the 3rd September 1799, Elgin sailed from Portsmouth for Constantinople.
0:11:43 > 0:11:47It was the start of an exciting adventure.
0:11:47 > 0:11:53Elgin believed that he was embarking on a glittering international career.
0:11:53 > 0:11:58Little did he know that this expedition would lead to his ruin.
0:11:59 > 0:12:06On board ship were two people who would play a crucial role in Elgin's future
0:12:06 > 0:12:10and would, in their way, prove to be his undoing.
0:12:12 > 0:12:17The Reverend Philip Hunt was Elgin's chaplain and secretary.
0:12:17 > 0:12:24Philip Hunt is certainly, in his own words, on the make. He believes that going to be chaplain to Elgin
0:12:24 > 0:12:31will bring him fame and fortune. And paradoxically it has, but not in the way that Hunt would've imagined.
0:12:32 > 0:12:39Mary Nisbett, Elgin's new 22-year-old wife was also making the long journey to Constantinople.
0:12:39 > 0:12:41Amen.
0:12:41 > 0:12:44She had the enormous advantage
0:12:44 > 0:12:51of being extremely wealthy and Elgin, though probably not as impoverished as he would always like to claim,
0:12:51 > 0:12:55was constantly short of the ready, and Mary was an extremely good catch.
0:12:55 > 0:13:01She wrote brilliant letters home and she relished every moment of it.
0:13:01 > 0:13:06He could be quite withdrawn because he felt that, as the ambassador,
0:13:06 > 0:13:10you should show certain elements - dignity and so forth.
0:13:10 > 0:13:15But they made an extremely happy and industrious pair.
0:13:16 > 0:13:23All Elgin now needed to achieve his ambitions were artists who could carry out his plans in Athens.
0:13:23 > 0:13:26During a stopover in Sicily,
0:13:26 > 0:13:34Elgin hired the Italian landscape painter Giovanni Battista Lusieri and sailed on to Constantinople.
0:13:34 > 0:13:40Lusieri hand-picked a team of artists in Italy and sailed for Athens,
0:13:40 > 0:13:42arriving in July 1800.
0:13:43 > 0:13:49The town they found was a far cry from the reputed glories of Ancient Greece.
0:13:49 > 0:13:57After nearly 400 years of Turkish Ottoman rule, Athens was down at heel and impoverished.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01But the artists were not disappointed
0:14:01 > 0:14:04for, even in their sorry state,
0:14:04 > 0:14:10the ruins of Athens still had sufficient power to reconnect them to the ancient past.
0:14:14 > 0:14:19In the 5th century BC, at the height of the glory of Ancient Athens,
0:14:19 > 0:14:22Pericles, the political leader of the city,
0:14:22 > 0:14:28had ordered an extensive building programme on the sacred rock of the Acropolis.
0:14:28 > 0:14:35In the space of 15 years, the most impressive building of all was constructed. The Parthenon.
0:14:35 > 0:14:38It was a lavish spectacle,
0:14:38 > 0:14:42an enormous and elegant temple carved from white marble,
0:14:42 > 0:14:45probably decorated with coloured paint.
0:14:45 > 0:14:50The Parthenon is a stunningly beautiful building.
0:14:50 > 0:14:56Location, location, location. First of all, you couldn't get a better site - on the top of the Acropolis,
0:14:56 > 0:15:00overlooking the Mediterranean and the city of Athens.
0:15:00 > 0:15:06But it was also a remarkable artistic achievement, built with extraordinary luxury and care.
0:15:06 > 0:15:10The Parthenon's a fantastically impressive architectural achievement,
0:15:10 > 0:15:15one of the most beautiful and influential buildings ever created.
0:15:15 > 0:15:18But it's also a building that brings us face to face
0:15:18 > 0:15:24with the sheer distance that separates us from the world of Ancient Greece.
0:15:24 > 0:15:30Just what did this building mean? What did it say to 5th-century Athenians? What was it for?
0:15:31 > 0:15:38The Parthenon, in simple terms, is a temple of Athens's patron goddess, Athena.
0:15:38 > 0:15:46It was built to house the most stupendous statue of the goddess Athena that had ever been made,
0:15:46 > 0:15:49a gold and ivory statue.
0:15:49 > 0:15:54But it's absolutely clear that the Parthenon is a bit like Fort Knox.
0:15:54 > 0:15:57It's a kind of storehouse of treasure and cash.
0:15:57 > 0:16:02And much of that cash comes from the profits of Athens' empire.
0:16:05 > 0:16:12In the space of 30 years, Athens had risen to become the greatest power in the Eastern Mediterranean.
0:16:12 > 0:16:18In the early decades of the 5th century BC the Persians had invaded.
0:16:18 > 0:16:24They'd actually occupied the Athenian Acropolis, they trashed it, they'd vandalised the place.
0:16:24 > 0:16:28The Athenians had pushed them back into their homelands in Asia
0:16:28 > 0:16:35and they set up a sort of protection racket whereby they guarded the most vulnerable Greek cities
0:16:35 > 0:16:38in return for this annual tribute.
0:16:38 > 0:16:43And Pericles popularises himself by making this offer -
0:16:43 > 0:16:46we've got money to spend, let's spend it.
0:16:46 > 0:16:50After the Persian wars, Athens needed to be rebuilt.
0:16:50 > 0:16:55It used the money from its own empire to glorify the city.
0:16:55 > 0:17:01It is without doubt the case that the Parthenon was built from the spoils of empire
0:17:01 > 0:17:05and, to many people looking at it, it remains a symbol of empire.
0:17:05 > 0:17:11Given its huge scale and its prominent position up on the rock of the Acropolis,
0:17:11 > 0:17:15it's pretty clear that the Parthenon was a vivid symbol
0:17:15 > 0:17:21of Athenian wealth and self-confidence, of the city's power and glory.
0:17:21 > 0:17:27And its message was enhanced by the mass of marble sculpture that once decorated the building.
0:17:27 > 0:17:34The Parthenon was adorned with more sculpture than any Classical temple before.
0:17:34 > 0:17:40These works were designed and their creation supervised by the celebrated sculptor Thiddeas.
0:17:40 > 0:17:47It was these carvings that would attract the attention of Lord Elgin in the 19th century.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50There were three types of sculpture on the Parthenon.
0:17:50 > 0:17:57At each end of the building, full-scale, 3-D figures stood on the triangular pediments.
0:17:57 > 0:18:04The sculptures of the pediments are two stories to do with Athena and Athens, patriotic myths -
0:18:04 > 0:18:09the birth of Athena, and the contest between Athena and the sea god Poseidon
0:18:09 > 0:18:13as to which of them will be the presiding deity over Athens.
0:18:13 > 0:18:18On each side of the building ran a set of sculpted panels
0:18:18 > 0:18:24called "met-opes", or "metop-es", depicting four mythic Greek victories.
0:18:24 > 0:18:31All the metopes show all kinds of conflicts between, for example, centaurs, the half-man, half-horse,
0:18:31 > 0:18:35barbarous creatures who often stood for barbarity,
0:18:35 > 0:18:39a symbol of Athens's defeat of the Persians.
0:18:40 > 0:18:45And there was a magnificent frieze around the top of the inner wall,
0:18:45 > 0:18:48where it must've been rather hard to see.
0:18:48 > 0:18:55It would seem almost like an act of madness to have put such a detailed piece of sculpture in that position.
0:18:55 > 0:18:59If people from the ground can't see it properly, who can?
0:18:59 > 0:19:06I don't think it's ridiculous to think that the deity for whom this has been created has got eyes,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09she can see everything.
0:19:09 > 0:19:13It's terribly unclear what it actually represents.
0:19:13 > 0:19:18We can see that it's representing a procession of some sort,
0:19:18 > 0:19:22which culminates over the main door of the Parthenon
0:19:22 > 0:19:28with a rather unprepossessing piece of cloth apparently being handed from one person to another.
0:19:29 > 0:19:36But what actually this was, in terms of ritual or festival or myth, has been intensely debated.
0:19:36 > 0:19:43Some believe it shows the annual festival celebrating the city of Athens and the goddess Athena.
0:19:43 > 0:19:47Others favour a mythic sacrifice from Athens's early history,
0:19:47 > 0:19:52or it could be a commemoration of the defeat of the Persians.
0:19:52 > 0:19:58Whichever of the various interpretations is being given of the Parthenon frieze,
0:19:58 > 0:20:05they all say something about the legendary genealogy of Athens as a city.
0:20:05 > 0:20:08The events are special to this city.
0:20:08 > 0:20:14Why do the Elgin Marbles matter, what makes them so great and so compelling?
0:20:14 > 0:20:20Well, I think it's partly the way in which they miraculously plunge you back 2,500 years
0:20:20 > 0:20:27into this thrilling, alien, extraordinary culture which is, above all, the culture of the hero.
0:20:27 > 0:20:31These are figures in a procession, but they collectively embody
0:20:31 > 0:20:35the military might of Athens in a very romantic way.
0:20:35 > 0:20:42The artist responsible, Thiddeas, and his team have conjured up this fantastic surging cavalcade,
0:20:42 > 0:20:47this multitude of men and horses, using the most minimal of technical means.
0:20:47 > 0:20:54Sometimes the horses are carved six deep and yet the artists have done this
0:20:54 > 0:21:00within no more than two inches of marble, so it's a great act of carving.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04But the reason why these battered blocks of stone
0:21:04 > 0:21:09occupy the central place in the history of civilisation that they do,
0:21:09 > 0:21:15is because they represent the alpha, the beginning of the entire Western art tradition.
0:21:15 > 0:21:21The Greeks in the time of Pericles were the first to create believable realistic images of the human body.
0:21:21 > 0:21:28And more than that, they endowed that figure with a consciousness, with an emotional life.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31This is a great frieze of emotions.
0:21:31 > 0:21:37You have diffidence, determination, melancholy, fear.
0:21:37 > 0:21:42And that sense of a story being told through figures that express emotions,
0:21:42 > 0:21:45that is the basis of Western art.
0:21:45 > 0:21:51The Romans took it from the Greeks, the Renaissance rediscovered it, we've inherited it.
0:21:51 > 0:21:58It's the basis for our dominant language of visual culture - the cinema, television.
0:21:58 > 0:22:02So this procession might have begun in the 5th century BC,
0:22:02 > 0:22:06but it's marched all the way forward into the 21st century.
0:22:09 > 0:22:15It is, in fact, a miracle that these wonderful pieces of sculpture still survive at all.
0:22:15 > 0:22:21Long before Elgin's artists arrived in Athens, a series of invading empires captured the city
0:22:21 > 0:22:24and made the Parthenon their own.
0:22:24 > 0:22:30With the arrival of Christianity in the 5th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a church
0:22:30 > 0:22:35with some structural alteration and the defacement of many sculptures.
0:22:35 > 0:22:39And in the 15th century, with the occupation of the Ottoman Turks,
0:22:39 > 0:22:44it was turned into a Muslim mosque, complete with minaret.
0:22:44 > 0:22:47Then, in 1687, disaster struck.
0:22:47 > 0:22:54A fleet of Venetian ships had landed on the Aegean coast to the west of the city.
0:22:54 > 0:22:58A Venetian army was laying siege to Athens from Philipappou Hill.
0:22:58 > 0:23:05The Turks had placed all of their gunpowder stores in the Parthenon, along with 300 women and children,
0:23:05 > 0:23:12believing the Venetians would never dare to attack such a venerated monument. But the Turks were wrong.
0:23:12 > 0:23:18The Venetians set up their cannon on this spot and aimed directly at the Parthenon.
0:23:20 > 0:23:25The gunpowder store took a direct hit and the whole building exploded,
0:23:25 > 0:23:32bringing down the roof, tearing a huge gap in the long colonnades and destroying half of the sculpture.
0:23:33 > 0:23:38From this moment, the Parthenon was a standing ruin.
0:23:44 > 0:23:48This was the building that greeted Elgin's artists in 1800,
0:23:48 > 0:23:54a new mosque had been built in the middle of the ruin, and a shanty town had sprung up around it.
0:23:54 > 0:23:59The artists climbed the Acropolis to start work, but immediately met with difficulty.
0:23:59 > 0:24:04The problem about working on the Acropolis was that it was the garrison
0:24:04 > 0:24:09and, so, getting permission to work, draw or do anything there
0:24:09 > 0:24:14would be a bit akin to investigate antiquities inside a modern British Army base.
0:24:14 > 0:24:17You can't just walk in, you have to be allowed in.
0:24:17 > 0:24:22There were two Turkish officials in control of the Acropolis.
0:24:22 > 0:24:29The Voivode was the governor of Athens. The Dizdar was the military commander of the garrison.
0:24:29 > 0:24:33They immediately blocked the progress of Elgin's men.
0:24:33 > 0:24:39For several months my artists had no access to the Acropolis, well, except for the purpose of drawing,
0:24:39 > 0:24:43and that at an expense of five guineas a day.
0:24:43 > 0:24:51- That lasted from August 1800 until the month of April 1801.- That limited access lasted about nine months?
0:24:51 > 0:24:57- Yes.- What was the nature of the objections on the part of the Turks?
0:24:57 > 0:25:03Their general jealousy and enmity to every Christian of every denomination.
0:25:03 > 0:25:07They rested it upon that general objection?
0:25:07 > 0:25:12Upon the general enmity to what they called Christian dogs.
0:25:12 > 0:25:16That was not the manner in which they stated their objection?
0:25:16 > 0:25:21No, but that is the fact. It was always refused.
0:25:21 > 0:25:28- Without reasons?- Without reasons assigned. Everyone on the spot knew what those reasons were.
0:25:28 > 0:25:33They would not give any facility to anything that was not Turkish.
0:25:36 > 0:25:43Yet within a year, scaffolding had been erected and workmen were removing the Parthenon sculptures.
0:25:43 > 0:25:48How on earth had Elgin managed to overcome Turkish objections so quickly?
0:25:51 > 0:25:56The answer is a combination of war, diplomacy and sheer luck.
0:25:56 > 0:26:01While his artists were attempting to gain entry to the Acropolis,
0:26:01 > 0:26:05Elgin had arrived in Constantinople where he was settling into his role
0:26:05 > 0:26:10as Ambassador Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty
0:26:10 > 0:26:17to the Sublime Porte of Selim III, Sultan of Turkey. They don't make job descriptions like that any more.
0:26:20 > 0:26:24Elgin had been sent to Constantinople
0:26:24 > 0:26:27on an important political mission.
0:26:27 > 0:26:32Britain had been at war with France since 1793
0:26:32 > 0:26:39and the British Government was keen to usurp France's position as the Ottoman Empire's main European ally.
0:26:39 > 0:26:44Elgin could not have arrived at a more propitious moment.
0:26:44 > 0:26:46When Elgin arrived,
0:26:46 > 0:26:50the French had just invaded Egypt, under General Bonaparte,
0:26:50 > 0:26:54which was still a province of the Ottoman Empire.
0:26:54 > 0:26:59Nelson quite shortly afterwards at the Battle of The Nile defeated the French.
0:26:59 > 0:27:06So Elgin, as the representative of the country which had restored one of her main provinces,
0:27:06 > 0:27:11was in tremendously high esteem. He could've asked for all sorts of things and been given them.
0:27:11 > 0:27:19- The objections disappeared from the moment of the decided success of our arms in Egypt?- Yes.
0:27:19 > 0:27:23The whole system of Turkish feeling met with a...revolution.
0:27:23 > 0:27:27The Turkish government, in return for our services in Egypt,
0:27:27 > 0:27:30did offer the British Government every public concession.
0:27:30 > 0:27:38They were in a disposition that... I conceive they would've granted anything that could've been asked.
0:27:41 > 0:27:45It was at this fortuitous moment that Elgin's chaplain and secretary,
0:27:45 > 0:27:49the Reverend Philip Hunt, arrived in Constantinople
0:27:49 > 0:27:52fresh from a visit to Athens.
0:27:52 > 0:27:56Hunt was the key agent in the whole affair.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00Elgin was reliant on reports from Athens. Hunt had been there
0:28:00 > 0:28:06and said, "You have to get permission that will allow your artistic objectives to be achieved."
0:28:06 > 0:28:10What was needed was a document called a firman.
0:28:10 > 0:28:15This was an official permission granted by the Turkish government.
0:28:15 > 0:28:19Hunt dictated exactly what the firman should authorise.
0:28:19 > 0:28:23I recommended that the firman should give to His Excellency,
0:28:23 > 0:28:27and the artists employed by him, the most extensive permission
0:28:27 > 0:28:33to view, draw and model the ancient temples and the sculptures upon them...
0:28:33 > 0:28:39and to make excavations and to take away any stones that might appear interesting to them.
0:28:39 > 0:28:44The request to excavate and remove anything that Elgin's men might find
0:28:44 > 0:28:51was a decisive moment. It marked a real escalation of Elgin's original ambition,
0:28:51 > 0:28:56which had simply been to record and measure the remains on the Acropolis.
0:28:56 > 0:29:03But there was still no mention of removing anything from the building itself, only from the excavations.
0:29:03 > 0:29:09The Turks, eager to please Elgin and England, issued the firman immediately,
0:29:09 > 0:29:15granting everything that Hunt had asked. For them, the firman was one more gift among many,
0:29:15 > 0:29:19another gesture in the elaborate courtship dance of diplomacy.
0:29:22 > 0:29:26Hunt left Constantinople and took the firman to Athens,
0:29:26 > 0:29:31where he immediately presented it to the Voivode, the governor of the town.
0:29:31 > 0:29:34When it was read out to the Voivode of Athens,
0:29:34 > 0:29:39he seemed disposed to gratify any wish of mine with respect to the pursuit of Lord Elgin's artists.
0:29:42 > 0:29:45Work started immediately.
0:29:45 > 0:29:52Excavations began and scaffolding was built so plaster casts could be taken of the Parthenon sculptures.
0:29:52 > 0:29:59Then, on 31st July 1801, the plan changed.
0:29:59 > 0:30:03Hunt made a radical request that would mark a major turning point
0:30:03 > 0:30:07in the acquisition of the Elgin Marbles.
0:30:07 > 0:30:13I asked the Voivode permission to detach from the Parthenon
0:30:13 > 0:30:17the most perfect and, as it appeared to me, the most beautiful metope.
0:30:17 > 0:30:21I obtained that permission and acted upon it immediately.
0:30:24 > 0:30:31Workmen climbed the scaffolding, detached and slowly lowered the best-preserved metope.
0:30:31 > 0:30:35When I saw those beautiful statues hanging in the air,
0:30:35 > 0:30:43I was seized with a trembling and palpitation which only ceased when they arrived safe to the ground.
0:30:43 > 0:30:46The collection of the Elgin Marbles had begun.
0:30:57 > 0:31:02In Constantinople, Elgin was delighted with the news
0:31:02 > 0:31:06and immediately sent orders not only to copy, mould and dig,
0:31:06 > 0:31:09but to take as much as possible.
0:31:09 > 0:31:15The first on the list are the figures on the pediment of the Parthenon,
0:31:15 > 0:31:22as many metopes as you can obtain, some further fragments of frieze and some ornaments.
0:31:22 > 0:31:27To sum up, the slightest object from the Acropolis is a jewel.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36Elgin got what he wanted.
0:31:36 > 0:31:38Gangs of local Greeks were hired.
0:31:38 > 0:31:45Many of the coveted marbles scattered by the explosion of 1687 were excavated,
0:31:45 > 0:31:49but others were physically removed from the Parthenon itself.
0:31:49 > 0:31:56When it came to the east pediment, there were figures in place, and those Elgin's men removed.
0:31:56 > 0:32:02He also removed stretches of the north frieze and the south frieze
0:32:02 > 0:32:06and 14 metopes from the south side of the building.
0:32:06 > 0:32:11In the case of the frieze, they had to lower the blocks themselves
0:32:11 > 0:32:14to the ground
0:32:14 > 0:32:19and saw the back part of this very heavy block
0:32:19 > 0:32:23and remove the sculpture which was on the outside surface.
0:32:23 > 0:32:28So, of course, the destruction to the monument itself was huge.
0:32:31 > 0:32:38When they found that the metopes were covered by architectural pieces in which they were embedded,
0:32:38 > 0:32:43the architectural pieces were simply thrown to the ground and smashed.
0:32:44 > 0:32:49What Elgin did was an outrage of vandalism.
0:33:07 > 0:33:12Within ten months, more than half of the Parthenon sculptures
0:33:12 > 0:33:17that were to form the Elgin Marbles had been collected and packed up.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23These were riches beyond Elgin's wildest dreams.
0:33:27 > 0:33:33All this amounted to a truly radical change of approach on the part of Elgin.
0:33:33 > 0:33:38What had begun as an artistic endeavour - drawing, measuring, taking casts,
0:33:38 > 0:33:45had turned into wholesale plunder, the removal of some of the greatest sculptures of Ancient Greece.
0:33:45 > 0:33:49What lay behind Elgin's extraordinary change of plan?
0:33:49 > 0:33:55Before the select committee 14 years later, Elgin gave his side of the story.
0:33:55 > 0:34:00The Turkish government attached no importance to the sculptures.
0:34:00 > 0:34:04Indeed, the Turks had been continually defacing the heads.
0:34:04 > 0:34:08And in some instances, they had actually acknowledged to me
0:34:08 > 0:34:13that they had powdered down the sculptures to convert them into mortar.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16A very great destruction was taking place.
0:34:16 > 0:34:21It was upon these suggestions and with these feelings that I proceeded to remove
0:34:21 > 0:34:25as many of the sculptures as I conveniently could.
0:34:25 > 0:34:31It was no part of my original plan to take away anything but models.
0:34:31 > 0:34:35Elgin was very keen on stressing that the sculpture was being saved.
0:34:35 > 0:34:41Now, there is no doubt that that's true, whatever his motive was.
0:34:41 > 0:34:47There's no question that Elgin performed one of the greatest acts
0:34:47 > 0:34:50of conservation rescue in history.
0:34:52 > 0:34:56If you look in the British Museum at the west pediment sculptures,
0:34:56 > 0:35:00essentially four sculptures that Elgin took,
0:35:00 > 0:35:0550 years earlier, there had been 12 sculptures on that pediment.
0:35:05 > 0:35:09And 125 years earlier, there'd been 20.
0:35:10 > 0:35:15It was said at the time that the Turks broke off pieces for mortar,
0:35:15 > 0:35:18but that may not have been fully accurate.
0:35:18 > 0:35:23The main destruction that was occurring was from Western tourists
0:35:23 > 0:35:27who bribed the soldiers to break pieces off.
0:35:27 > 0:35:33The Parthenon suffered very, very badly during the last quarter of the 18th century before Elgin.
0:35:33 > 0:35:40But should we take Elgin entirely at his word? He later claimed that the idea of rescue occurred to him
0:35:40 > 0:35:45when he visited Athens for the first time in 1802 and saw the damage that was being done.
0:35:45 > 0:35:51"Then and only then did I employ means to rescue what remained from a similar fate."
0:35:51 > 0:35:55But the removals had actually started a year earlier in 1801,
0:35:55 > 0:36:01so his justification begins to sound like something concocted with the benefit of hindsight.
0:36:01 > 0:36:06Is it possible that Lord Elgin could've had other, less noble motives?
0:36:08 > 0:36:15I think there's no doubt that when Elgin originally commenced his removal of the Marbles
0:36:15 > 0:36:19that the seed idea in his mind had been
0:36:19 > 0:36:24that these would go not to a museum, but to decorate his home.
0:36:26 > 0:36:30Broom Hall is a subject that occupies me greatly
0:36:30 > 0:36:36and offers me the means of placing in a useful, distinguished and agreeable way
0:36:36 > 0:36:41the various things that you may perhaps be able to procure for me.
0:36:41 > 0:36:46There is of course a lot of talk about marble being removed
0:36:46 > 0:36:54and how he did want to engulf it in the actual design of his ballroom or this room or that room,
0:36:54 > 0:37:01but it is not quite clear whether this would have been the sculptures themselves.
0:37:01 > 0:37:05On the other hand, we do have all of this mention of "my acquisitions,
0:37:05 > 0:37:12"my property, my marbles, please send them to my address", so it was very personal.
0:37:15 > 0:37:20Elgin had never intended to house the Parthenon sculptures in Broom Hall.
0:37:20 > 0:37:24He brought the Parthenon sculptures back
0:37:24 > 0:37:27to revitalise the arts in England.
0:37:27 > 0:37:32This was an entirely unselfish act of a generous Georgian gentleman.
0:37:35 > 0:37:41It would be very essential that the artist should be able to take away exact models
0:37:41 > 0:37:49of little ornaments or detached pieces, if any are found, which would be interesting for the arts.
0:37:49 > 0:37:56The very great variety in our manufactures in objects either of elegance or luxury
0:37:56 > 0:38:00offers a thousand applications for such details.
0:38:03 > 0:38:05I have one problem
0:38:05 > 0:38:11in having to believe that he was a lover of the arts.
0:38:11 > 0:38:15I simply cannot imagine a lover of the arts
0:38:15 > 0:38:21allowing saws to attack some of the greatest works ever made.
0:38:21 > 0:38:24That's... I couldn't do that.
0:38:24 > 0:38:29I don't think anybody could do it... to actually do that.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32I think the most likely thing is that Elgin,
0:38:32 > 0:38:37like any of us, was motivated by a number of different impulses.
0:38:37 > 0:38:41The truth is, we'll never know for sure exactly what drove him.
0:38:41 > 0:38:46While there'd be uproar if anyone today tried to do the same thing,
0:38:46 > 0:38:50it's important not to judge Elgin by the standards of the present.
0:38:50 > 0:38:54You have to see the man in the context of his own time.
0:38:54 > 0:38:58If we look at what was happening in Lord Elgin's time,
0:38:58 > 0:39:02everyone was a Lara Croft, everyone was an Indiana Jones -
0:39:02 > 0:39:09individual English, French, German people going around the world, collecting up any nice material
0:39:09 > 0:39:15and bringing it home to their stately piles or national museums.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17This was the norm.
0:39:17 > 0:39:22Many people took home pots, many people took home bits of rock.
0:39:22 > 0:39:25Elgin went for the whole hog.
0:39:26 > 0:39:33He was an ambitious man, he was a man who saw the chance to take something of extraordinary power and did so.
0:39:33 > 0:39:38Elgin became gripped by the rage of possession.
0:39:38 > 0:39:45He even wrote, in slightly chilling words, "I shall regret nothing that assists my acquisitions in Greece."
0:39:45 > 0:39:49At one point, he even considered the scheme
0:39:49 > 0:39:53of taking the entire Erechtheion down and transporting it to England.
0:39:53 > 0:39:59He was only put off the idea when he couldn't find a boat big enough to carry it,
0:39:59 > 0:40:06so he just removed one of the female figures. His collection was fast becoming an obsession.
0:40:09 > 0:40:14Elgin finally made the trip to Athens in spring 1802
0:40:14 > 0:40:18to see the site for himself. He was delighted with the progress.
0:40:20 > 0:40:25Elgin decided that his work in the Ottoman Empire was done.
0:40:25 > 0:40:32He'd succeeded in his diplomatic mission of bringing Britain and the Ottoman Turks into alliance
0:40:32 > 0:40:39and he'd more than fulfilled his ambition of returning to Britain with casts of the Athenian remains.
0:40:39 > 0:40:41It was time to return home.
0:40:44 > 0:40:47Elgin and his family set sail for Britain,
0:40:47 > 0:40:52leaving instructions for the transport of the Marbles from Athens to London,
0:40:52 > 0:40:58an operation that was to prove far more difficult than he'd anticipated.
0:40:58 > 0:41:03It was easy to get the Marbles to the nearby port of Piraeus,
0:41:03 > 0:41:10but it was very difficult to find ships' captains willing to take such heavy cargo across dangerous seas.
0:41:10 > 0:41:15Elgin did manage to load some of his Marbles onto ships bound for England,
0:41:15 > 0:41:20but for some of the most precious pieces he had to use his own ship, the Mentor,
0:41:20 > 0:41:23a decision that resulted in disaster.
0:41:27 > 0:41:32On the 17th September 1802, the Mentor hit a rock in a storm and sank.
0:41:32 > 0:41:38She was carrying 17 cases of Marbles, including 14 pieces of the frieze.
0:41:38 > 0:41:43They lay at the bottom of the sea for over two years while Elgin spent £5,000,
0:41:43 > 0:41:49a small fortune in modern money, on the lengthy and hazardous salvage operation.
0:41:51 > 0:41:54That was just the start of Elgin's problems.
0:41:54 > 0:41:58His homecoming was to prove more or less totally catastrophic.
0:41:58 > 0:42:04He was hit by a series of extraordinary calamities which, between them, conspired to ruin him.
0:42:08 > 0:42:14For a start, Elgin's health was destroyed by his embassy to Constantinople.
0:42:14 > 0:42:20He was afflicted by plagues, fevers and rheumatism while in the East.
0:42:22 > 0:42:26He got what nowadays we call a melanoma, a cancer,
0:42:26 > 0:42:33and because it was on his nose he couldn't not keep touching it and it developed very much more severely
0:42:33 > 0:42:37until he had to have part of the nose cut away,
0:42:37 > 0:42:40so he must have been quite disfigured.
0:42:40 > 0:42:43Elgin's finances also lay in ruins.
0:42:43 > 0:42:50He was paying for the removals in Athens with money that wasn't actually his own.
0:42:51 > 0:42:57Elgin was a bit out of the picture and so his agents had to borrow the money at high interest rates
0:42:57 > 0:43:02against Elgin's estates and the credibility of the British Government,
0:43:02 > 0:43:06and so the agents could raise almost unlimited credit.
0:43:06 > 0:43:14The original estimated cost of the artists' work in Athens was roughly £1,200 a year
0:43:14 > 0:43:19but, after only 18 months, Elgin had spent nearly £40,000,
0:43:19 > 0:43:22just over a million today.
0:43:24 > 0:43:30Then, on the way home from Constantinople, Elgin made a big mistake.
0:43:30 > 0:43:33He decided to make a detour via Paris,
0:43:33 > 0:43:38not knowing that war had just broken out again between Britain and France.
0:43:38 > 0:43:42Elgin was detained as a prisoner of war
0:43:42 > 0:43:47and was kept under house arrest in France for three years.
0:43:47 > 0:43:54This confinement was to have disastrous consequences for both his career and his marriage.
0:43:54 > 0:44:02When he'd negotiated his release, he'd done a very specific deal with the French authorities,
0:44:02 > 0:44:06which is that he would be prepared to come back to France if ever summoned.
0:44:06 > 0:44:11Now, this put paid to his chances of a further ambassadorial job.
0:44:11 > 0:44:18So, although he gets out, he gets out to become unemployable in terms of governmental employment.
0:44:20 > 0:44:26Then, when Elgin did return home in 1806, he discovered that his wife Mary was having an affair
0:44:26 > 0:44:30with their neighbour in Scotland, Robert Ferguson.
0:44:30 > 0:44:37Elgin had secured Mary's release from France a year earlier when their fourth child had died.
0:44:37 > 0:44:41Back in London, Mary had turned to Ferguson for comfort.
0:44:43 > 0:44:47Whether that's the whole story one may doubt,
0:44:47 > 0:44:50because Elgin was suffering from syphilis.
0:44:50 > 0:44:57It is a symptom of syphilis that it enters the bone and part of the nose just withers away.
0:44:57 > 0:45:02The remedies which he was taking, mercury, are those for syphilis.
0:45:06 > 0:45:11Elgin divorced Mary in a highly publicised court case
0:45:11 > 0:45:17and her considerable fortune reverted to her - another blow to his finances.
0:45:17 > 0:45:22Elgin must've wondered how it had all gone so badly wrong - in debt,
0:45:22 > 0:45:27career over, publicly shamed and facially disfigured.
0:45:27 > 0:45:30He suffered from the curse of the Parthenon.
0:45:30 > 0:45:36Because of his obsession with the Marbles, he ended up ruining himself financially.
0:45:36 > 0:45:41He had that classic archaeological curse that destroyed him, destroyed the man.
0:45:55 > 0:46:01Elgin had just one trump card left to play - the Marbles themselves. Having carted them across Europe,
0:46:01 > 0:46:06Elgin seems to have been unsure about what to do with the Marbles.
0:46:06 > 0:46:10He seems to have abandoned the idea of installing them at Broom Hall
0:46:10 > 0:46:17and he toyed with the notion of donating them to the British Government as a gift to the nation.
0:46:17 > 0:46:24In the end, he borrowed even more money and had them installed in a purpose-built museum
0:46:24 > 0:46:30which he had constructed in the garden of a house at the corner of Old Park Lane and Piccadilly.
0:46:30 > 0:46:37The place where Londoners first gathered to see the greatest stone carvings of Ancient Greece
0:46:37 > 0:46:39is now, aptly, The Hard Rock Cafe.
0:46:50 > 0:46:55The collection of Marbles was opened to an invited public in June 1807.
0:46:59 > 0:47:02The reaction was electric.
0:47:03 > 0:47:05It was at that moment
0:47:05 > 0:47:12that they ceased to be decoration of a temple and became works of art.
0:47:12 > 0:47:19These artists came and they suddenly realised that they were face to face with superb things
0:47:19 > 0:47:24which had never been so fully appreciated before.
0:47:24 > 0:47:26For the first time,
0:47:26 > 0:47:33it was possible to see real Greek sculpture on a massive scale.
0:47:33 > 0:47:38It was the event of the season and it had the effect that Elgin wanted -
0:47:38 > 0:47:41it changed the view of art in the West.
0:47:41 > 0:47:45Before the arrival of the Elgin Marbles,
0:47:45 > 0:47:52the models of Classical perfection were elegant Roman copies of Greek originals like the Apollo Belvedere.
0:47:52 > 0:47:56These had been restored and were in pristine condition.
0:47:56 > 0:48:02The battered, weathered Greek originals were, by contrast, shockingly direct.
0:48:02 > 0:48:08The difference of the Parthenon sculptures from the Roman copies that people were used to seeing
0:48:08 > 0:48:15was, instead of this rather bland, academic, idealised form, they saw people in action,
0:48:15 > 0:48:22there was so much more action and energy and sense of reality in these figures.
0:48:27 > 0:48:35Elgin's invited audience was astonished and delighted by the sculptures' vitality and naturalism.
0:48:35 > 0:48:38The Marbles became the talk of London.
0:48:40 > 0:48:43Artists flocked to study and draw them.
0:48:43 > 0:48:46A boxer was paid to pose beside them for two hours,
0:48:46 > 0:48:52his anatomy proving just how lifelike their muscular realism was.
0:48:52 > 0:48:56And the leading actress of the day, Sarah Siddons, was so moved
0:48:56 > 0:49:00that she burst into a storm of theatrical tears.
0:49:02 > 0:49:05The Elgin Marbles were a hit.
0:49:08 > 0:49:15But there was one group in society who weren't at all impressed - the art connoisseurs.
0:49:16 > 0:49:23Their chief spokesman was Richard Payne-Knight, an art historian whose first printed work,
0:49:23 > 0:49:27an essay on phallus worship, had been withdrawn from publication.
0:49:27 > 0:49:30He and his fellow connoisseurs
0:49:30 > 0:49:36were deeply disappointed by the Marbles' dirty, chipped and fragmentary condition.
0:49:36 > 0:49:40Payne-Knight condemned the Marbles out of hand.
0:49:40 > 0:49:46You have lost your labour, my Lord Elgin. Your Marbles are over-rated.
0:49:47 > 0:49:52They are not Greek, they are Roman, of the time of Hadrian.
0:49:52 > 0:49:56Payne-Knight's announcement that the Marbles were Roman not Greek
0:49:56 > 0:50:02spread through London, casting some doubt on the legitimacy of Elgin's collection.
0:50:02 > 0:50:09But criticism of Elgin was about to turn far nastier and far more personal thanks to one man -
0:50:09 > 0:50:14mad, bad and dangerous to know, the poet Lord Byron.
0:50:18 > 0:50:21In 1809, Byron aged 22,
0:50:21 > 0:50:26visited Athens and was appalled by the damage done to the Parthenon.
0:50:26 > 0:50:30To Byron, Elgin was a despoiler of Greece's proud heritage,
0:50:30 > 0:50:34robbing modern Greeks of their glorious past.
0:50:34 > 0:50:38He launched a blistering attack in verse.
0:50:38 > 0:50:42Cold as the crags upon his native coast
0:50:42 > 0:50:46His mind as barren His heart as hard is he
0:50:46 > 0:50:52Whose head conceived Whose hand prepared ought To displace Athena's poor remains.
0:50:54 > 0:51:00The important thing for us about Byron is that it's his poetry, really,
0:51:00 > 0:51:04that has set the tone for our understanding of Elgin
0:51:04 > 0:51:09as a plunderer, a villain, a Scottish desperado and all the rest.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14Elgin's situation was desperate.
0:51:14 > 0:51:20He was forced to contemplate the only option open to him - selling his collection.
0:51:20 > 0:51:25Elgin proposed the government buy the Marbles for the nation,
0:51:25 > 0:51:30asking just enough to cover the cost of bringing them back to Britain.
0:51:30 > 0:51:34The British Government was extremely uneasy about Elgin's proposal.
0:51:34 > 0:51:39For one thing, he was asking for £70,000, around £3 million today.
0:51:39 > 0:51:43To us, it might seem like the art bargain of all time,
0:51:43 > 0:51:50but, in the early 19th century, people just didn't pay stratospheric amounts for works of art.
0:51:50 > 0:51:54You could buy a Michelangelo or Raphael for a fraction of the price.
0:51:54 > 0:52:00Secondly, there was the question of Elgin's timing, which was truly abysmal.
0:52:00 > 0:52:06He made his proposal on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, as the Napoleonic wars reached a climax.
0:52:06 > 0:52:10To make matters worse, ever since Byron's smear campaign,
0:52:10 > 0:52:15questions had been asked about Elgin's right to take the Marbles.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19Were they legally his? Or was he just a fence peddling stolen goods?
0:52:20 > 0:52:27In 1816, the parliamentary select committee set out to get to the heart of the matter.
0:52:30 > 0:52:36Did the permission specifically refer to removing the statues, or was that left at discretion?
0:52:36 > 0:52:41No, it was executed by means of those general permissions granted.
0:52:41 > 0:52:45The permission was to draw, model and remove.
0:52:45 > 0:52:49There was a specific permission to excavate.
0:52:49 > 0:52:55There is a considerable difference between to excavate and remove and to remove and to excavate.
0:52:55 > 0:53:01The question was not whether Your Lordship was permitted to remove what you should find on excavation,
0:53:01 > 0:53:05but whether Your Lordship was permitted to remove from the wall.
0:53:05 > 0:53:11I WAS at liberty to remove from the wall. The permission was to remove, generally.
0:53:11 > 0:53:16Was there a specific permission alluding to the statues particularly?
0:53:18 > 0:53:25I do not know whether it specified the statues or whether it was a general power to remove.
0:53:26 > 0:53:30Elgin's answers were deeply ambiguous,
0:53:30 > 0:53:36as though he wasn't too sure about the exact terms of the firman. But that's hardly surprising
0:53:36 > 0:53:42since there's still significant disagreement about what the firman did or didn't allow
0:53:42 > 0:53:45and about whether Elgin acted legally or not.
0:53:45 > 0:53:51Elgin behaved entirely legally within the terms of the firman.
0:53:51 > 0:53:56The Sultan said he could take any old bits of old stone he liked,
0:53:56 > 0:54:03and by old stone the Sultan meant ancient sculpture, that was the term the Ottomans used for them.
0:54:03 > 0:54:08There is a specific sentence in the middle of the document,
0:54:08 > 0:54:14saying that under no occasion is there going to be any harm to the monuments themselves.
0:54:14 > 0:54:19So that's quite different than what really happened,
0:54:19 > 0:54:25which was the removal of a large amount of sculpture from the monument itself.
0:54:25 > 0:54:31The problem is that there is a great deal of ambiguity in the wording of the firman.
0:54:31 > 0:54:37In some places, it's relatively clear, specifying, for example, that artists be allowed to...
0:54:37 > 0:54:41"dig the foundations to find inscribed blocks among the rubbish,
0:54:41 > 0:54:48"particularly as there is no harm in the said buildings being examined, contemplated and drawn."
0:54:48 > 0:54:52Now, that's clear enough. But then it finishes by ordering that,
0:54:52 > 0:54:59"No opposition be made to the taking away of some pieces of stone with inscriptions and figures."
0:54:59 > 0:55:05Which pieces of stone? The whole lot? It's just not clear.
0:55:05 > 0:55:09But there was one important witness to the select committee
0:55:09 > 0:55:15who suggested that the terms of the firman had indeed been exceeded -
0:55:15 > 0:55:17the Reverend Philip Hunt.
0:55:17 > 0:55:23Hunt had never been paid by Elgin for his work in the East and the two men were no longer close.
0:55:23 > 0:55:27The man who had instigated the removals from the Parthenon
0:55:27 > 0:55:30was about to contradict his former employer.
0:55:30 > 0:55:37Was the tenor of the firman so full and explicit as to convey upon the face of it
0:55:37 > 0:55:43the right to displace and take away whatever the artists might have a fancy to?
0:55:43 > 0:55:46Not "whatever" the artists might have a fancy to.
0:55:46 > 0:55:50Do you imagine the firman gave a direct permission
0:55:50 > 0:55:54to remove figures and pieces of sculpture from the walls of temples?
0:55:54 > 0:55:59That was the interpretation that the Voivode of Athens was...
0:55:59 > 0:56:02induced to allow it to bear.
0:56:02 > 0:56:09Was there any difficulty in persuading the Voivode to give this interpretation to the firman?
0:56:09 > 0:56:13Not a great deal of difficulty.
0:56:14 > 0:56:17Hunt threatened the local authorities -
0:56:17 > 0:56:21the governor and the military governor.
0:56:21 > 0:56:27He said, "You'll lose your job." In fact, "You'll go to the galleys," he said to one person.
0:56:27 > 0:56:30He also paid them a lot of money.
0:56:30 > 0:56:36Was there any sum of money given to the Voivode anterior to his interpretation of the firman?
0:56:36 > 0:56:43Presents were given to him at the time of presenting the firman but I'm not aware of more being given.
0:56:43 > 0:56:47Can you form any idea of the value of the presents you gave?
0:56:47 > 0:56:51I cannot now. They consisted of brilliant cut-glass lustres,
0:56:51 > 0:56:55firearms and other articles of English manufacture.
0:56:55 > 0:57:00He paid the military governor of the Acropolis, in the first year alone,
0:57:00 > 0:57:05sums equivalent to 35 times his annual salary.
0:57:05 > 0:57:12Now, very few systems can withstand that weight of money and pressure.
0:57:14 > 0:57:21But regardless of whether Hunt used bribery or whether the terms of the firman were exceeded,
0:57:21 > 0:57:26the Turkish authorities knew exactly what was happening on the Acropolis
0:57:26 > 0:57:31and could have intervened at any time if they had objected.
0:57:31 > 0:57:38Did the Turkish government know Your Lordship was removing these statues under the permission you obtained?
0:57:38 > 0:57:43No doubt was ever expressed to me of their knowledge of it.
0:57:43 > 0:57:47The thing was done publicly before the whole world.
0:57:47 > 0:57:50I employed 300 or 400 people a day.
0:57:50 > 0:57:57All the local authorities were concerned in it as well as the Turkish government.
0:57:57 > 0:58:03I conclude that they must have been in intimate knowledge of everything that was doing.
0:58:03 > 0:58:08But the question of legality was not the only concern of the select committee.
0:58:08 > 0:58:13They also wanted to know if Elgin had abused his office as Ambassador.
0:58:13 > 0:58:19Had he secured the Marbles as a British Government representative or as a private individual?
0:58:19 > 0:58:25Were the Marbles Elgin's to sell? Or did they, in fact, already belong to Britain?
0:58:25 > 0:58:30Does Your Lordship believe, to the best of your judgement,
0:58:30 > 0:58:36that you obtained in your character as Ambassador any authority for removing these Marbles
0:58:36 > 0:58:40which Your Lordship would not have obtained in your private capacity?
0:58:40 > 0:58:46I certainly consider that I obtained no authority as given to me in my official capacity.
0:58:46 > 0:58:51This was a personal favour, granted quite extra-officially to me.
0:58:51 > 0:58:53And asked as such?
0:58:53 > 0:58:57Asked as such, and granted as such.
0:58:59 > 0:59:05Was the same permission to erect scaffolding and make excavations given to other persons at Athens?
0:59:05 > 0:59:13I believe the permission granted to me was the same in substance and in purport as granted to other persons,
0:59:13 > 0:59:18with the difference of the extent of means and an unlimited use of money.
0:59:18 > 0:59:24I did not receive more as Ambassador than anyone else received.
0:59:25 > 0:59:28Other witnesses begged to differ.
0:59:28 > 0:59:34Do you think that ANY British subject, not in the situation of Ambassador,
0:59:34 > 0:59:41- would have been able to obtain from the Turkish government a firman of such extensive powers?- Certainly not.
0:59:41 > 0:59:45In your opinion, was this permission given to Lord Elgin
0:59:45 > 0:59:50entirely in consequence of the situation he held as British Ambassador?
0:59:50 > 0:59:57I'm inclined to think such a permission would not have been asked for
0:59:57 > 1:00:04by any person NOT an ambassador of a highly favoured ally. Nor granted to any other individual.
1:00:04 > 1:00:07Thank you.
1:00:07 > 1:00:13Next, the committee turned their attention to the artistic worth and monetary value of the Marbles.
1:00:13 > 1:00:17They wanted to be sure they weren't buying duff goods.
1:00:17 > 1:00:21A selection of artists and sculptors appeared before the committee.
1:00:21 > 1:00:26What is your opinion of those Marbles as to the excellency of the work?
1:00:26 > 1:00:30They are the finest things that ever came to this country.
1:00:30 > 1:00:37Works of such prime importance could not remain in the country without improving the public taste.
1:00:37 > 1:00:42In what class of art do you place the finest works in this collection?
1:00:42 > 1:00:47I rate them of the first class of art.
1:00:47 > 1:00:49The artists all gave glowing praise.
1:00:51 > 1:00:58Then Richard Payne-Knight was called to give the opinion of the detractors.
1:00:58 > 1:01:01It proved to be an uncomfortable encounter.
1:01:01 > 1:01:06In what class of art do you place the finest works in this collection?
1:01:06 > 1:01:10I should put them in the second rank.
1:01:10 > 1:01:15I think some were added in the time of Hadrian, from the style of them.
1:01:15 > 1:01:21Upon what authority do you state that a great part of these Marbles belong to the time of Hadrian?
1:01:21 > 1:01:26From no other authority but the writings of Spon and Wheeler.
1:01:26 > 1:01:34Do you not recollect that Spon and Wheeler's observations were exceedingly loose
1:01:34 > 1:01:41- and in some cases wholly inaccurate?- Very loose, certainly. - And in some cases wholly inaccurate.
1:01:42 > 1:01:46It is a long while since I read them.
1:01:46 > 1:01:51After two weeks, the select committee retired to make its deliberations.
1:01:51 > 1:01:54Its conclusions were good news for Elgin.
1:01:54 > 1:01:59The committee's report affirmed the artistic worth of the Marbles
1:01:59 > 1:02:03but, more importantly, it cleared Elgin himself of any wrongdoing.
1:02:03 > 1:02:08It stated that, since the Turks had known exactly what was going on,
1:02:08 > 1:02:14Elgin had had every right to remove the Marbles and it stated that he'd acted as a private individual.
1:02:14 > 1:02:21Given the somewhat conflicting nature of the evidence, that now seems, perhaps, a little surprising.
1:02:21 > 1:02:27But then again, it's in the great tradition of the British parliamentary report.
1:02:28 > 1:02:32However, there was one disappointment for Elgin.
1:02:32 > 1:02:36The report recommended a price of £35,000,
1:02:36 > 1:02:40only half of what he'd spent and asked for.
1:02:40 > 1:02:44But Elgin had no choice but to agree to the sale.
1:02:44 > 1:02:48Finally, he was rid of the Marbles that had obsessed him for 15 years
1:02:48 > 1:02:51and wrecked his life.
1:02:53 > 1:02:59The Marbles, now called the Elgin Marbles, were entrusted to the British Museum in 1816
1:02:59 > 1:03:06where they became the star attraction. More than 1,000 people a day flocked to see them there
1:03:06 > 1:03:11and their influence began to be felt in the arts, much as Elgin had hoped.
1:03:11 > 1:03:16The Marbles had an enormous effect on British, and Western, art.
1:03:16 > 1:03:21You only have to walk round the streets of London now
1:03:21 > 1:03:26to see the varieties of replicas of the Marbles from the Parthenon
1:03:26 > 1:03:33or female formed column, the caryatid, that Elgin brought back from the Erechtheion.
1:03:33 > 1:03:38They really do launch a whole set of British artistic and literary responses.
1:03:38 > 1:03:45Ancient Athens came to be seen as the one true model for any civilised democratic society
1:03:45 > 1:03:52and 19th-century Britons, filled with the self-confidence of Empire, came to see themselves
1:03:52 > 1:03:56as the only true living heirs to the great Classical past.
1:03:56 > 1:04:02When it came to redesigning the building that was to house their treasure, the Elgin Marbles,
1:04:02 > 1:04:07they gave it the form of a modern Parthenon, as if to underline their belief
1:04:07 > 1:04:13that, while London may not have been the place of origin of the Marbles, it had become their spiritual home.
1:04:17 > 1:04:21But Lord Elgin's own fate was not as happy as that of his Marbles.
1:04:21 > 1:04:27Although the report had cleared his name, Elgin never really fully recovered.
1:04:27 > 1:04:30Elgin is a tragic figure, in a way,
1:04:30 > 1:04:37because he devoted his life to this one enterprise and it brought him down and ruined him and his family.
1:04:37 > 1:04:43Towards the end of his life, the house had to be closed up and he lived in a corner of it.
1:04:43 > 1:04:47His sons had to go abroad to try and retrieve the fortune.
1:04:47 > 1:04:54It's very hard to know how to remember Elgin. He was certainly not as bad, nor as good, as he's painted.
1:04:54 > 1:04:58You have to judge him really by the...the effect.
1:04:58 > 1:05:06The effect is, for better or worse, he saved for humanity a lot of sculptures that we value very highly
1:05:06 > 1:05:14and in some ways he was instrumental in changing the course of how Britain engaged with the Classical world.
1:05:14 > 1:05:19It's not bad. Whether he did it for good reasons or not is quite another matter.
1:05:21 > 1:05:26Elgin died in Paris in 1841 owing £150,000 -
1:05:26 > 1:05:29over £6.5m in today's money.
1:05:29 > 1:05:33It would take Elgin's heirs decades to pay off his debts.
1:05:35 > 1:05:39But the story of the Elgin Marbles was far from over.
1:05:39 > 1:05:46The controversy caused by Elgin's actions was just beginning and soon grew to international proportions.
1:05:49 > 1:05:54Should they remain here where they've been ever since 1817,
1:05:54 > 1:05:57or go back where they came from?
1:05:57 > 1:05:59The Greeks ought to be grateful to us
1:05:59 > 1:06:03for having preserved their inheritance, and to Lord Elgin too,
1:06:04 > 1:06:10and it's a base ingratitude that they try to put this absurd argument on its feet, it won't stand.
1:06:10 > 1:06:12They are our ancestry -
1:06:13 > 1:06:15they are our cultural heritage.
1:06:17 > 1:06:20They are our soul.
1:06:20 > 1:06:23I think this is cultural fascism -
1:06:23 > 1:06:29it's nationalism and it's cultural danger, enormous cultural danger,
1:06:29 > 1:06:36if you start to destroy great intellectual institutions, you're culturally fascist.
1:06:36 > 1:06:38The colonial era is over.
1:06:38 > 1:06:41Let's find a new way of building our collections.
1:06:41 > 1:06:47Nobody's saying "send everything back", but if something shouldn't have been taken in the first place,
1:06:47 > 1:06:49if it has to go back, it has to go back.
1:06:49 > 1:06:55In 1835, when the British Museum offered the Greek government a set of casts of the Elgin Marbles,
1:06:55 > 1:06:59the Greeks replied by saying they'd far rather have the originals back.
1:06:59 > 1:07:05There'd been precious few Greek objections when Elgin had taken them 30 years earlier.
1:07:05 > 1:07:07So why this sudden change of heart?
1:07:12 > 1:07:15The answer was revolution.
1:07:15 > 1:07:19While British society had been swooning over the Elgin Marbles,
1:07:19 > 1:07:23Greece had been fighting a bloody battle for independence.
1:07:23 > 1:07:27There'd been no independent Greek state since the Roman occupation,
1:07:27 > 1:07:31and Greece had been part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries.
1:07:31 > 1:07:37Dissatisfaction with Turkish rule was fuelled by the stirrings of Greek national consciousness,
1:07:37 > 1:07:39and revolution erupted in 1821.
1:07:39 > 1:07:46The ensuing war dragged on for six years, when European powers including Britain, France and Russia
1:07:46 > 1:07:50intervened, putting an end to Turkish rule.
1:07:50 > 1:07:57Modern Greece came into being, although on terms very much laid down by the Western powers.
1:07:57 > 1:07:59I think that Greek Classicism
1:07:59 > 1:08:05was what urged the foreign powers, apart from politics, of course,
1:08:05 > 1:08:09to help the Greeks and their revolution,
1:08:09 > 1:08:13and they did help. It wouldn't have been possible otherwise.
1:08:13 > 1:08:17Ironically, the removal of the Marbles from Greece
1:08:17 > 1:08:21may have actually helped the cause of Greek independence.
1:08:21 > 1:08:25There can be no doubt at all that the presence of the Parthenon sculptures in London
1:08:25 > 1:08:28was a major factor
1:08:28 > 1:08:33in Western European consciousness, that there was a Greek inheritance
1:08:33 > 1:08:39which was a European inheritance and which, uniquely, they thought ought not to be under Ottoman control.
1:08:39 > 1:08:44So I think Elgin's role in creating free modern Greece is a very important one.
1:08:53 > 1:08:59The European mania for all things Ancient Greek is most monumentally visible here in Bavaria.
1:08:59 > 1:09:04King Ludwig of Bavaria, who wanted to buy the Marbles from Elgin,
1:09:04 > 1:09:11had to content himself with building his very own Parthenon overlooking the Danube - the Valhalla.
1:09:11 > 1:09:17But Ludwig's love for Ancient Greece was to be felt much further afield than his own country,
1:09:17 > 1:09:19because it was Ludwig's son Otto
1:09:19 > 1:09:25who was chosen by the major European powers to be the very first king of modern Greece.
1:09:25 > 1:09:32His problem is absolutely clear at that point, which is how do you give some sense of nationhood
1:09:32 > 1:09:36to this war-wracked country which had been part of the Ottoman Empire?
1:09:36 > 1:09:41And it seems pretty clear that what he opts for is buying in big time
1:09:41 > 1:09:44to the 5th-century Classical past of Greece.
1:09:44 > 1:09:47One of Otto's first actions as king
1:09:47 > 1:09:51was to declare the Acropolis a Greek national monument
1:09:51 > 1:09:58in an extravagant ceremony, surrounded by Greek girls bearing wreaths of laurel
1:09:58 > 1:10:01and banners emblazoned with the goddess Athena.
1:10:01 > 1:10:05Otto tapped three times on one of the columns of the Parthenon.
1:10:05 > 1:10:10Modern Greece was born with the Parthenon as its symbolic heart.
1:10:11 > 1:10:16The newly-crowned German king of Greece asked the Bavarian architect
1:10:16 > 1:10:19who designed the Valhalla to devise a plan for the real Acropolis.
1:10:19 > 1:10:26He advised the site should be cleared of any building that didn't date from the Classical period.
1:10:26 > 1:10:31This was a vast undertaking, but carried out with typical German efficiency.
1:10:31 > 1:10:37When Otto cleared the space of the Acropolis, he was typical of his period.
1:10:37 > 1:10:44For him, the only thing that counted was the glorious days of the 5th-century Athens.
1:10:44 > 1:10:45So he cleared away everything else.
1:10:45 > 1:10:49He took away the Roman buildings, the Byzantine buildings...
1:10:49 > 1:10:51It was an act of archaeological vandalism,
1:10:51 > 1:10:56but it allowed the national symbol of Greece to arise.
1:10:56 > 1:11:02During the early 19th century, the Greeks had begun to rediscover their Classical heritage for themselves,
1:11:02 > 1:11:06but there's no denying the whole process was vastly accelerated
1:11:06 > 1:11:11by the enthusiasm of Western Europeans, especially the Bavarians.
1:11:11 > 1:11:15The Bavarian approach to antiquity was extremely exclusive -
1:11:15 > 1:11:21a stripping away that promoted a purified view of the ancient past,
1:11:21 > 1:11:28according to which anything that lay outside the golden period of the 5th century BC was classed as barbarous,
1:11:28 > 1:11:35degenerate, and the result was a kind of ethnically cleansed view of cultural history.
1:11:35 > 1:11:42Now, of course, every new nation needs an identity to hold on to, needs its symbols,
1:11:42 > 1:11:46but I also think there's a danger in plucking this one moment,
1:11:46 > 1:11:49this 5th-century BC moment,
1:11:49 > 1:11:53out of the vast multicultural continuum
1:11:53 > 1:11:58of the history of the Greek lands, and elevating it to canonical status.
1:11:58 > 1:12:02By wiping out the intervening 2,000 years of history,
1:12:02 > 1:12:07there's a risk of disenfranchising all sorts of modern Greek citizens -
1:12:07 > 1:12:13Jews, Muslims, whose cultures have also made a contribution to the history of modern Greece.
1:12:15 > 1:12:21I think it's very dangerous when culture becomes politicised in this way.
1:12:21 > 1:12:27It's a recent development to invest these sculptures with national identity,
1:12:27 > 1:12:32as is now done, and I think it's always problematic
1:12:32 > 1:12:36when governments attempt to impose on objects
1:12:36 > 1:12:40meanings that are essentially political rather than cultural.
1:12:40 > 1:12:44Actually, I feel that in their hearts,
1:12:44 > 1:12:47and in their genes,
1:12:47 > 1:12:52the Greeks always felt a connection to their antiquities and symbols.
1:12:52 > 1:12:58It was probably a matter of knowledge. They probably did not know their history,
1:12:58 > 1:13:01but they felt very close to it.
1:13:04 > 1:13:06Whichever side you take,
1:13:06 > 1:13:12there's no denying the current depth of Greek feeling about the Parthenon and about the Marbles.
1:13:12 > 1:13:16There's even a set of casts of the Elgin Marbles in the Athens Metro,
1:13:16 > 1:13:19a poignant reminder to modern Greeks of all that they've lost.
1:13:19 > 1:13:23In recent years, nobody did more to campaign for the Marbles' return
1:13:23 > 1:13:27and to link them to the very idea of Greek nationhood
1:13:27 > 1:13:31than the actress and Greek culture minister Melina Mercouri.
1:13:31 > 1:13:36'I want the Marbles back to the Greeks
1:13:36 > 1:13:39'because we have created them,
1:13:39 > 1:13:43'because is our identity,'
1:13:43 > 1:13:48and because, after all, they belong where they were made.
1:13:48 > 1:13:51I think Melina said it very well.
1:13:51 > 1:13:56They are our pride, they are a noble symbol of excellence
1:13:56 > 1:14:01and they are a thankful tribute to democracy.
1:14:01 > 1:14:04That's what all the Greeks feel.
1:14:06 > 1:14:09You don't take away a country's pride.
1:14:14 > 1:14:18Mercouri's campaign in the 1980s took the issue of the Marbles' return
1:14:18 > 1:14:23to an international level, with the result that the debate became even more heated.
1:14:23 > 1:14:28Accusations of neglect and maltreatment were thrown by both sides.
1:14:31 > 1:14:35In the early 20th century, well-intentioned restoration
1:14:35 > 1:14:40of the much-battered Parthenon had caused a good deal of damage.
1:14:40 > 1:14:45- Under Nikolaos Balanos, the temple was partially rebuilt. - It was a disaster.
1:14:45 > 1:14:49Instead of using iron clamps - which the Ancient Greeks had used -
1:14:50 > 1:14:52that were seated in lead,
1:14:52 > 1:14:56they just used iron clamps, and when water gets onto iron it rusts,
1:14:56 > 1:15:01it corrodes, it expands, it split the marble, it stained the marble.
1:15:01 > 1:15:05Balanos also put the columns up
1:15:05 > 1:15:09wherever he thought they looked nice. He didn't worry about original positions.
1:15:09 > 1:15:12I mean, he was an over-enthusiastic child
1:15:13 > 1:15:17playing with a sort of Lego set of Parthenon blocks.
1:15:17 > 1:15:22In order to rectify the damage that Balanos did to the Parthenon,
1:15:22 > 1:15:29the Greek authorities have, since 1986, been carrying out extensive painstaking restoration
1:15:29 > 1:15:32on the Acropolis.
1:15:32 > 1:15:35A lot of our work has to do with the Balanos restoration, of course,
1:15:35 > 1:15:41so we have to replace any of these iron connectable elements with the titanium one.
1:15:41 > 1:15:46The purpose is to put the original pieces back to the original position,
1:15:46 > 1:15:50to increase the stability of the members,
1:15:50 > 1:15:56so in that way, we are giving some more years to this famous monument.
1:15:56 > 1:16:04The Acropolis restoration project is one of the most respected of its kind in the world.
1:16:04 > 1:16:09But they can't solve the greatest danger that now faces the Parthenon -
1:16:09 > 1:16:13Athens's extremely high and damaging pollution levels.
1:16:13 > 1:16:20Whatever view one takes of the original decision to bring the sculptures to London,
1:16:20 > 1:16:24there can be no doubt that those that remained on the Parthenon
1:16:24 > 1:16:28have suffered dramatically and seriously from pollution effects,
1:16:28 > 1:16:35which is why the Greek authorities have continued Elgin's work and removed most remaining sculptures.
1:16:35 > 1:16:40It would be nice to say that the Greeks had removed all the sculptures from the Parthenon
1:16:40 > 1:16:46and are caring for it in a museum but they're not. The west frieze is still awaiting restoration
1:16:46 > 1:16:52and quite a few of the original 5th-century metopes are still on the building.
1:16:52 > 1:16:57One can't even think about returning the Elgin Marbles to Athens
1:16:57 > 1:17:00until the Greeks start caring for what they already have.
1:17:00 > 1:17:05I'm sure they'd take great care of the Parthenon sculptures if they were returned,
1:17:05 > 1:17:11but if you knew a woman was abusing her child, you wouldn't let her adopt another. That's what the Greeks want.
1:17:11 > 1:17:18For years, the British could safely say that the Marbles wouldn't have been safe back in Greece,
1:17:18 > 1:17:22but as it turned out, they weren't that safe in London either.
1:17:25 > 1:17:28On Sunday 25th September 1938,
1:17:28 > 1:17:33the director of the British Museum, John Forsdyke, was walking through the basement
1:17:33 > 1:17:39when he was surprised to find some of the Marbles in the process of being cleaned. On the bench,
1:17:39 > 1:17:43he saw a number of copper tools and a piece of carborundum.
1:17:43 > 1:17:50Using metal to clean ancient marble went against every rule of responsible conservation.
1:17:50 > 1:17:56Forsdyke called a halt to the cleaning and instituted an inquiry.
1:17:56 > 1:18:02The British Museum had accepted an offer from Sir Joseph Du Vine, art dealer and millionaire,
1:18:02 > 1:18:07to finance the construction of new exhibition galleries to house the Elgin Marbles.
1:18:07 > 1:18:09It was one of those cases
1:18:09 > 1:18:14where the will of a multi-millionaire donor and the needs of the museum
1:18:14 > 1:18:17didn't entirely coincide,
1:18:17 > 1:18:22and it's absolutely clear that Du Vine wanted his marbles to be very nice and white and Classical.
1:18:24 > 1:18:30What happened was they were cleaned much too aggressively, as we would now think.
1:18:30 > 1:18:35This should never have happened, as the British Museum was the first to recognise.
1:18:35 > 1:18:38A great deal of damage was done.
1:18:38 > 1:18:41There are quite a number of pieces that were not scraped,
1:18:41 > 1:18:46but the trouble is it was the best surviving pieces that were scraped.
1:18:46 > 1:18:50You sometimes hear people say, "Oh, just a millimetre here or there",
1:18:50 > 1:18:53but if you also say
1:18:53 > 1:18:59these are the greatest works of sculpture ever created, your millimetre is quite a lot.
1:18:59 > 1:19:05The resulting inquiry discovered that the cleaning had gone on for a year-and-a-half,
1:19:05 > 1:19:11and that "the damage which has been caused is obvious and cannot be exaggerated".
1:19:11 > 1:19:19There was a failure of trusteeship and a failure of curatorship, but the main scandal, I think,
1:19:19 > 1:19:23is that the story which had been traditionally told,
1:19:23 > 1:19:28the one of rescue and stewardship, just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
1:19:28 > 1:19:34I think it's perhaps better to understand that a lot of this cleaning
1:19:34 > 1:19:40was done of backgrounds rather than of the figures themselves,
1:19:40 > 1:19:44and that it was a cleaning technique that was used some 20 years later
1:19:44 > 1:19:49in Athens itself on the sister building of the Parthenon, the Hephaisteion,
1:19:49 > 1:19:55by Greek technicians with the permission of the Greek authorities.
1:19:55 > 1:19:59Maybe passions always will run high as far as the Elgin Marbles are concerned,
1:19:59 > 1:20:05but I still have the sense that in recent years the terms of the debate have begun to shift,
1:20:05 > 1:20:11and arguments on both sides have become a little bit more civilised and a bit less narrowly jingoistic.
1:20:11 > 1:20:16People, I think, are now really looking to the future with a degree of objectivity
1:20:16 > 1:20:21and the question they're asking themselves is how best to show and to appreciate the Marbles in London
1:20:21 > 1:20:24AND in Athens as one of the world's great works of art.
1:20:25 > 1:20:31The most important reason for having the Marbles come back to Athens
1:20:31 > 1:20:35is to be reunited with the remaining pieces
1:20:35 > 1:20:43and create the totality of the remaining sculptural decoration of the Parthenon
1:20:43 > 1:20:47to which they belong, of course, conceptually, architecturally,
1:20:47 > 1:20:50aesthetically, historically,
1:20:50 > 1:20:53in any possible way, their context is here.
1:20:53 > 1:20:58But the sad truth is that the Parthenon can never be put together again
1:20:58 > 1:21:03and roughly half the sculptures have got lost, destroyed, so it's completely impossible
1:21:03 > 1:21:07to recover one aesthetic unit - that is a fantasy.
1:21:07 > 1:21:12Even those that remain can't go back on the building,
1:21:12 > 1:21:17and those that remain are never going to give a proper indication
1:21:17 > 1:21:19of the original aesthetic achievement.
1:21:24 > 1:21:28When you have two equal halves of a monument
1:21:28 > 1:21:33which would join together in hundreds of places,
1:21:34 > 1:21:41which even includes individual figures and individual slabs that are split between Athens and London,
1:21:41 > 1:21:44then it does seem pretty crazy
1:21:44 > 1:21:49not to allow these to be brought even temporarily together.
1:21:49 > 1:21:52As part of their push to reunite the Marbles,
1:21:52 > 1:21:58the Greek authorities are building a new state of the art museum at the foot of the Acropolis
1:21:58 > 1:22:03to house the sculptures left behind by Elgin's agents, along with other antiquities.
1:22:03 > 1:22:09When digging the foundations, workmen discovered an important Byzantine archaeological site.
1:22:09 > 1:22:13Now excavated, it'll form part of the museum's display.
1:22:13 > 1:22:19You start with an excavation that you can see at the bottom of the museum through a glass floor -
1:22:19 > 1:22:24an extant excavation that's been taking place recently.
1:22:24 > 1:22:28You move up through sculptures from the archaic and Classic periods
1:22:28 > 1:22:33as you would've done on the slopes of the Acropolis itself, up to the gallery at the top,
1:22:33 > 1:22:38which is the alignment of the Parthenon and the size of the Parthenon.
1:22:38 > 1:22:42The big friezes are displayed facing outwards as they were originally
1:22:42 > 1:22:46and the pediments and so on are placed around them as originally.
1:22:46 > 1:22:53And it offers the nearest, I think, to an opportunity to display them in a recreation of the Parthenon.
1:22:53 > 1:22:57Gaping holes will deliberately be left for the Elgin Marbles,
1:22:57 > 1:23:01a vivid plea to the British Museum for their return.
1:23:01 > 1:23:09The museum is next to Acropolis, and it is a visual connection between the museum and the Acropolis.
1:23:09 > 1:23:13Because the Parthenon hall is on the top of the museum,
1:23:13 > 1:23:19the visitors can see both the Parthenon and the sculptures.
1:23:19 > 1:23:24I think it's the best we can wish for this monument and these sculptures.
1:23:24 > 1:23:28But even the new Acropolis museum has faced a barrage of criticism,
1:23:28 > 1:23:34- again centring on the issue of care and neglect.- In order to build this new museum,
1:23:34 > 1:23:39the Greeks are now effectively destroying one of the most important archaeological sites in the world,
1:23:39 > 1:23:45the ancient centre of Athens, and this museum is being planted on top of it on stilts
1:23:45 > 1:23:51which have been driven down into the ground. It's just a great crime against art and history.
1:23:51 > 1:23:56Wherever you build a museum near the Acropolis, you'd come across an archaeological site,
1:23:56 > 1:24:01so you were damned if you did and damned if you didn't. If there wasn't a new museum, people say,
1:24:01 > 1:24:07"Isn't it appalling? You go to the Acropolis and the Parthenon and there's no decent museum."
1:24:07 > 1:24:12As soon as you build one, people say you're destroying archaeological remains. Everything I've seen of it,
1:24:12 > 1:24:19and the feedback I've had is this is about as good as you could get for a museum on an archaeological site.
1:24:19 > 1:24:27With the new museum in sight, it was suggested by the Greeks that the Marbles return on indefinite loan,
1:24:27 > 1:24:31with the British Museum retaining stewardship.
1:24:31 > 1:24:36The British Museum continues to beware Greeks requesting gifts.
1:24:36 > 1:24:40- Its answer is still...no. - In the British Museum,
1:24:40 > 1:24:46the Elgin Marbles are a part of the story of the cultural achievement of humanity,
1:24:46 > 1:24:50and if you want to look at what the greatest points in civilisation
1:24:50 > 1:24:53of Egypt, Syria, Greece, Rome,
1:24:53 > 1:24:59India, China, Africa achieved, you can do that in the British Museum.
1:24:59 > 1:25:06The Elgin Marbles are a part of that narrative, and it's important for the world that it be told somewhere.
1:25:11 > 1:25:17Some claim that the return of the Marbles would have dire consequences for world museums.
1:25:17 > 1:25:22That would undoubtedly unleash forces all over the world.
1:25:22 > 1:25:29There would be demands for similar returns of sculptures to every great museum,
1:25:29 > 1:25:32to the Louvre, to the Metropolitan Museum in New York,
1:25:32 > 1:25:40and there would be all the attendant campaigns and agitation and politics would get very much uglier.
1:25:40 > 1:25:46There's a very important distinction between the Marbles and any other objects that might be under dispute.
1:25:46 > 1:25:50I'm not aware of any other collection of objects
1:25:50 > 1:25:54that belongs to an existing famous building like the Parthenon.
1:25:54 > 1:25:59It's the equivalent of a couple of the stones from Stonehenge being in a museum somewhere,
1:25:59 > 1:26:04where you've the rest of Stonehenge is still there. That's a different argument from other objects,
1:26:04 > 1:26:09taken from their original homes, but where the homes have been destroyed.
1:26:09 > 1:26:12It's unique in its scale,
1:26:12 > 1:26:17it's unique in the precise bisection of what we have,
1:26:17 > 1:26:24it's unique in the fact that the building is an icon of a modern nation,
1:26:24 > 1:26:32located at the heart of its capital, appearing on every banknote, coin and stamp.
1:26:34 > 1:26:42All of which raises the question of whether the Marbles are specifically part of Greek culture,
1:26:42 > 1:26:49- or of world culture. - Ultimately, what is being fought out is - where does the Parthenon belong?
1:26:49 > 1:26:52And there two good answers to that, at least.
1:26:52 > 1:26:58One good answer is that it belongs in Athens, another good answer is that it belongs where it's ended up,
1:26:58 > 1:27:03or at least the sculptures do, in London, and both of those, in some ways,
1:27:03 > 1:27:08are negotiating the difficult fact that it's now a monument that belongs to everybody.
1:27:08 > 1:27:12Great civilisations belong to the whole world.
1:27:12 > 1:27:17Greek civilisation is the inheritance of the whole world.
1:27:17 > 1:27:22In the art galleries of Europe, we take it completely for granted
1:27:22 > 1:27:29that great masterpieces of one country, great heritage pieces, hang in the galleries of other countries
1:27:29 > 1:27:34because they're all part of the European shared inheritance.
1:27:34 > 1:27:39The message is - the Greeks are not really our equals.
1:27:39 > 1:27:46They may be equal partners in the EU, they may be a country which has been our ally for nearly 200 years,
1:27:46 > 1:27:54but we can't really treat them the way we would treat them if, say, it were the French.
1:27:54 > 1:27:59Suppose the British Museum had half of the sculpture from Chartres Cathedral,
1:27:59 > 1:28:05does anybody believe that 200 years later it would still be in London?
1:28:05 > 1:28:10Do we believe that culture is something that unites humanity,
1:28:10 > 1:28:15and that we should see humanity as somehow one through its culture?
1:28:15 > 1:28:22Or do we want to see culture as what defines and differentiates and separates nations and peoples?
1:28:22 > 1:28:27- That is the choice that the world has to make.- So what should happen to the Elgin Marbles?
1:28:27 > 1:28:34Well, I don't think it's my place to pronounce on the matter one way or the other, and the fact is,
1:28:34 > 1:28:40that if the arguments weren't strong on both sides, then this debate couldn't have gone on for 200 years.
1:28:40 > 1:28:44The British Museum would certainly be a poorer place without the Marbles,
1:28:44 > 1:28:51take them away and, in a sense, you rip the heart out of the museum, and that would be a great loss.
1:28:51 > 1:28:56But on the other side, there's no denying the strength of the Greek claim
1:28:56 > 1:28:59that the Marbles would be best seen reunited in Athens,
1:28:59 > 1:29:04and I think that argument's gonna seem all the stronger when the new museum's been built,
1:29:04 > 1:29:09and you'll be able to see the gaps in the jigsaw puzzle of the Marbles.
1:29:09 > 1:29:16I don't think Lord Elgin can have ever imagined that his actions would lead to such a huge controversy,
1:29:16 > 1:29:22and whatever happens, I get the feeling this one is not going to be sorted out in a hurry.
1:29:44 > 1:29:48Subtitles by Dermot Fitzsimons and Mary Easton BBC Broadcast 2004
1:29:48 > 1:29:51E-mail us at subtitling@bbc.co.uk