The Most Controversial Objects at the British Museum - Stolen Goods or Finders Keepers?

maybe you've heard this joke before why are the great pyramids in Egypt because they wouldn't fit in the British museum is everything in the British museum stolen well I'm Jessica the museum guide and today I'm going to be talking about one of the most interesting topics in museums controversy theft and repatriation at the British museum every time I talk about the British museum I usually get two main types of comments some people chime in to say that everything in the institution is stolen and other people say Finders Keepers we took it fair and square the truth of course is not so cut and dry while the vast majority of the Museum's collection is Scandal free I mean sixty percent of it is British some of its most famous objects are highly contested and that's why today we're going to focus on five specific objects let me be clear that these are not the only contested objects in the museum for instance I left out the sacred Ethiopian magdala collection and the indigenous Jamaican Birdman and borniel because they are not on display remember some people consider every single item collected under colonial rule to be stolen but today we are going to talk about HOA hakananaya from Rapa Nui The guiegel Shield from Australia the Rosetta Stone from Egypt the Benin bronzes from Nigeria and the Parthenon sculptures sometimes called the Elgin marbles from Greece if you'd like to learn more about these objects from an aesthetic anthropological and historical nature you should watch my video on the top 10 Treasures of the British museum but today we're just going to be talking about the controversies and how the objects got to the museum in the first place interspersed with talking about these objects I'm going to discuss some of the laws around repatriation contemporary British attitudes towards the topic and the origins of this Museum and how it continues to affect us to this day after we talk about the Rosetta Stone I'm going to explain the process an item has to go through here at the British museum to be repatriated back to its native country let's all remember that museums are not neutral they are deeply political places where only certain groups get to decide the story that is told on behalf of other cultures that's why it's always important to push back a little bit and question the narratives that are being presented in the museum now I'm not talking about baselessly disputing a field that you haven't studied because we all know where that gets us but I am talking about critically examining the ways that things are presented and curated and thinking about who that benefits and why I also want to acknowledge that I am not neutral as someone who has studied museums at a PhD level I have researched these cases extensively and put a lot of measured thought into each item I overarchingly believe in repatriation which is the academic term for returning objects to their ancestral homes but that doesn't mean that the stories aren't complex now let me be clear despite headlines and sound bites the majority of the objects at the British museum are uncontested many were acquired ethically they were purchased from willing sellers or given as gifts by people who had the right to sell or gift them but the ones that are controversial I mean they're some of the big ones and they are cut and dry in that they were stolen they were then sold to the museum and the museum didn't steal them themselves but they knowingly accepted objects that they knew had unethical Origins and that is the Crux of the controversy and you can use the word plundered or taken or decided to bring back to England but that doesn't change the fact that they were stolen and today we need in the 21st century to reckon with this colonial past this brings me to another point in an overzealous attempt to repatriate items we need to be careful that we don't saddle countries or communities with items that they are not asking for communities will let the museum know loud and clear if they want an object back and it's not up to you or me or anyone else to tell them how they should feel now with all of those caveats let's start with our first item one of the most beloved statues in the museum is this Rapa Nui moai Hawaii he's a four ton Basalt statue from the Polynesian island of Rapa Nui named Easter Island by Spanish explorers and it's now a political territory of Chile these imposing statues are believed to embody the spirit of specific ancestors that's important they don't represent the ancestors like a painting or a statue they are the ancestors and this moai was carved around the year 1200. first the Spanish arrived in the 1760s then the Dutch and finally the British who carted this moai and one other called Moi Hava away according to this signage the captain of the HMS topaz Commodore Richard Powell quote decided to take them to give them as gifts to Queen Victoria in 1869 he and his crew dug them out of a Hut where they had been repurposed for a relatively new spiritual practice but they were very much in use contemporary sources describe rapanuian people running down the beach after him and sobbing the ship brought the moai back here to England and Queen Victoria soon donated them to the British Museum and they've been here more than 8 500 miles that's nearly 14 000 kilometers from their ancestral homes ever since with moyhava not even on display according to anakena manutu matoma who serves on Rapa nui's development commission the British taking them away from our island is like me going to your house and taking your grandfather to display in my living room for us the repatriation of Hawa hakananaya is an absolute priority in recent years Rapa Nui natives have begun questioning the presence of their ancestral moai in museums around the world in addition to the two that are here the British museum there are also moai in the U.S France Mainland Chile and New Zealand five months after a delegation from the British museum visited the island to advise on more than one thousand statues in situ in November 2019 a delegation from Rapa Nui visited the British museum to formally State their request for repatriation with the delegation with sculptor benedicto tukey who offered to make the museum an exact replica of the moai in exchange for this one according to Tuki perhaps it won't possess the same ancestral Spirit but it will look identical my only wish for him is to return home for me this is worth far more than any amount of money as long as I live I will fight to see our ancestors returned to the island according to minuto matoma who is also in the delegation we are not demanding anything as yet just asking to be heard we believe that when this happens the museum and its authorities will understand the importance of the moai as the soul of the island the delegation brought these offerings for Hawaii and they remain here more than four years later there have been no more public talks although this information plaque did change in the months after the visit that set the disingenuous language quote decided to take Still Remains the British museum has publicly floated the idea of a loan but they've declined to commit to anything now that we have covered one item let's go through the most common arguments I hear against repatriation when I'm guiding here at the Museum and that I also get on YouTube at first I often hear well it was a different time and we followed the laws and rules of that time I call this one the Finders Keepers argument which is often espoused by people who look back on the British Empire with a certain amount of fondness they often want to keep a hold of these items as evidence of British greatness or even as part of a bizarre argument that they are now somehow part of our British identity next a common argument is we can take care of them better here at the British museum this statement's layered with some pretty big assumptions especially when you consider the damage some of these items have endured while in this building which I'll talk about at the very end of this video it also supposes that people in other countries cannot possibly care for their own items with dignity and skill despite the fact that the new Egyptian museum in Giza and the Acropolis Museum in Athens are actually more state-of-the-art than the British museum we have a word for this argument and you may not like it but it's called paternalism it's only a hop skip and a jump from the idea of the quote White Man's Burden listen there are undoubtedly some pieces here at the British museum that would have been lost if they were repatriated or remained in situ I'm thinking about something like the Assyrian Lama Sue all of these that remained in Syria were destroyed by ISIS but some would argue that it's really none of our business what happens to the objects when they are back in their ancestral homes and I guess that depends on whether you believe in the concept of a global culture and who gets to govern it finally we have the classic argument that more people can see the objects here at the British museum than would be able to see them in Rapa Nui Egypt or Nigeria for this you've got to ask yourself a question that Heritage Scholars ask themselves all the time do you believe in the concept of world culture and if so who gets to benefit for that world culture and where should it be held I always use the example of my grandmother's ashes here even if they did have a great value to World culture I wouldn't necessarily care if you got to see them I mean if someone determined that they should be in a museum halfway across the world and I didn't have any say in that I'd be really angry and of course that's how the people of Rapa Nui must feel remember the concept of world culture originates in the 19th and early 20th centuries and it was very much for the benefit of white Europeans and not for the people who originally created the items as for attitudes towards repatriation a 2021 gov.uk poll shows that more than six in ten britons would support returning historical artifacts to their country of origin on a permanent basis of course we just have to get past the legalities and Museum policies that I will talk about shortly which brings us to our next object The guigal Shield this is a curious case that is lesser known contested object here at the British Museum and it introduces all kinds of questions and a certain amount of muddiness into the topic according to Rodney Kelly his Aboriginal ancestor cumin attempted to use this bark shield to protect himself from Captain James Cook yes that Captain Cook and his HMS Endeavor crewman as they landed on the East Coast of Australia after wounding him in the leg with a musket ball they stole his shield and Spear and took them back to England as trophies of Conquest The Shield ended up here in the British museum in the enlightenment Gallery the former library of George III is meant to show us what a gentleman collector's collection would have looked like in the 18th century and we'll talk about the Museum's origin and founder right after this object now according to Kelly the details of the Google Shield are established fact within his family he says it was not just a story but a true history that I grew up with and what happened is also in the Diaries of cook and others including Joseph Banks the botanist aboard the ship it's true The Shield has an obvious hole and botanist Joseph Banks did indeed write in his journal that the whole came from a quote single-pointed Lance but indigenous Australians have long insisted that the perfectly round hole is from musket shot some people suggest long-term loans and in some cases a long-term loan can be very similar to repatriation but Kelly doesn't want the shield to be loaned to an Australian Museum he wants full repatriation he says what I'm pushing for is not alone not a permanent loan The Shield has got to stay in a museum in Sydney that's the only place for it then it's up to the Elders of the guigal people what goes on with it how the history relating to it is used for our people and other Australians for indigenous Australians and other activists The Shield is a potent symbol of Imperial aggression while also demonstrating that indigenous people protected themselves and resisted colonization that they weren't passive in addition to the shield the guigo people want a large number of Spears and artifacts returned to Australia and placed in the care of the Australian Museum in Sydney the British museum by the way is the largest holder of Aboriginal objects outside of Australia there is some contestation about the origins of the shield and I should mention those a contemporary account says that the guigal people were camped in Huts around kame when the Endeavor sailed in and dropped anchor after two Warriors shouted at the ship and waved their Spears Cooks shot at the Warriors forcing them to retreat the British men then landed on the shore and continued to shoot at the crowd allowing them to walk down the beach freely and take the shield which Kelly and his family claim is this one here however a team of experts from the British museum Australian Museum Cambridge University Australian National University the Royal armories and two Aboriginal representatives from the LA perus Community examine the shield in great detail and determined that it is unlikely to be the same one as used by cumin it does not closely match 1771 detailed drawings and ballistics experts determined that the hole was not made by a firearm instead it is likely a kugu yimeter shield but required by cook during his stay in North Queensland according to gay skullthorpe an indigenous Tasmanian curator at the British museum until very recently she wants the shield to remain she is of the belief that I mentioned above the concept of a world culture and she argues that the shield tells a story of the relationship between the British and Aboriginal Australia and it's therefore important to remain here that said Kelly and the guigal people continue to talk to the British museum regarding their claim on the shield according to an official Museum spokesperson the British museum acknowledges that some objects such as the bark Shield are of high cultural significance for contemporary indigenous Australians and we are always Keen to engage in dialogue to see where we can collaborate as of now it's impossible to predict what will happen to the guigal shield but it is well suited to this Gallery which is all about Conquest collecting and categorization now it's time to talk more about the history of the Enlightenment gallery and Sirhan Sloan the origins of the British museum are intertwined with the life of Han Sloan he was an Irish physician who also worked as the private doctor of three monarchs and the governor of Jamaica while there he collected many objects including plants and flowers which was very much the trend of the day after all in the 17th and 18th century in order to show off the fact you were a learned gentleman you needed to have a vast collection of objects from around the world ideally you would collect these yourself so you could show off your Savvy and sophistication Sloan soon married Elizabeth Langley Rose a wealthy arrest of sugar plantations in Jamaica worked by enslaved people with the money he earned from slave labor Sloan collected more than 71 000 objects amongst them books manuscripts coins and medals drawings and plant specimens now upon planning for his death he couldn't bear the idea of his precious collection being split apart he placed conditions in his will that Parliament would be allowed to buy his collection outright for the bargain sum of twenty thousand pounds still a fortune in those days but much less than what it was worth now a few years ago this bust of Sloan was positioned here literally on a pedestal however during the summer of 2020 and in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd the museum made the choice to place the bust in this case and surrounded it by more context it is the culture and mindset of men like Sloan who continue to inform modern museum culture we don't need to throw the baby out with the bathwater I mean there's still some valid and useful elements of this culture the idea of learning about societies and educating adults and children those are Concepts that are still at the heart of the modern museum but this obsession with collecting at all costs and its eventual connection to categorization and even Eugenics is very evident in a room like this one we can enjoy the enlightenment Gallery as a historical Relic but we should continue critiquing it which brings me to our next object the Rosetta Stone now the Rosetta Stone is the single most visited object in the British museum if you want to learn more about who made it and what it says click the link above and watch my video on the topic but to understand the contestation around it all you need to know is that this was the first stilet or stone tablet to help Scholars translate and understand Egyptian hieroglyphs as you can see here on this replica of the Rosetta Stone here in the enlightenment Gallery the Stile features three languages ancient Greek demotic and hieroglyphs which by the late 18th and early 19th centuries had not yet been deciphered it's important to note that though scholars in the west had not yet deciphered hieroglyphics there had been Arabic Scholars studying and making progress deciphering them for centuries at this point in 1799 a group of Napoleon soldiers who were accompanied by engineer Pierre Francois Bouchard were in the Egyptian Village of al-rasheed known to the French as Rosetta where they Unearthed the Stile while digging the foundations of an addition to a fort the stone tablet had been built into a very old wall they immediately recognized that the presence of the three languages meant that it could potentially be used as a way to translate hieroglyphs in 1801 British forces defeated the French in Egypt this mysterious Stone and more than a dozen other Antiquities were seized by the British under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria and it has been here at the British museum ever since now the museum argues that the 1801 treaty includes the signature of an ottoman Admiral and he represented Egypt as the ottoman Sultan nominally ruled Egypt at the time we're gonna come back to the Ottomans later on with the Parthenon sculptures now in the years that followed Scholars from around the world studied etchings of the stone to try to decipher the hieroglyphs two decades later in 1822 the curator of the louvre's Egyptian collection Jean Francois champollion who I talk about in the video I've linked above finally had his Eureka moment and realized that the stone dates to 196 BCE during the reign of Ptolemy V but what you need to know right now is that this discovery sparked a wave of egyptomania around the world and led to the ability to translate previously in decipherable documents Stile pyramids and more in the 200 years since 28 known copies of this exact decree were very similar have been excavated in Egypt of course none are as famous as this and none have the gravitas and importance of being the first and so it should come as no surprise that many Egyptian people and members of the government want it back outspoken Egyptians including archaeologist sahihawas claimed that the ottoman Admiral had no right to sign something away on behalf of Egypt remember that for later and that the object was plundered during a foreign war on their soil that had nothing to do with them but according to Antiquities lawyers the treatment and the time frame make the Rosetta Stone a hard legal battle to win a petition is currently circulating amongst Egyptian people demanding its return of course we regularly hear the argument that I mentioned earlier that more people can see the Rosetta Stone here at the British museum than if it were in Egypt but of course how many Egyptians can travel to London and we also hear the argument that it is better cared for here and yes after the 2011 Uprising the toppled former leader Jose Mubarak Egypt did suffer from a period of unregulated artifact smuggling however president Abdel fatahl sisi's government has since invested heavily in the protection of its Antiquities their new grand Egyptian museum in Giza just outside of Cairo is set to finally open its doors in 2023 and it will be one of the most technologically advanced museums in the world the Rosetta Stone shouldn't return to Egypt would be safe and protected perhaps more so than here at the British museum after all in a move that infuriates many Egyptians the British did alter the stone irrevocably they wrote on either side of it regardless for many people the Rosetta Stone is an icon of Egyptian identity and sadly that does include the plunder of the country's Rich history this is all about who has access to knowledge and who gets to own the history of a people today people travel to London just to visit the Rosetta Stone it's a part of the Museum's brand and the British brand in general but I can't imagine how I would feel if the Sutton who helmet were in Cairo now let's talk a bit about the laws surrounding the British Museum and repatriation what has gone back I mean there are a few notable exceptions to the British Museum's policies against repatriation that is human remains the most recent example of which were bone fragments from New Zealand returned in 2008 and objects where the provenance shows clear theft for instance in 2019 a horde of nine fourth Century Buddhist terracotta heads were returned to Afghanistan the stunning heads and a torso which were probably hacked off by the Taliban came into the possession of the British museum in 2002 after being found stuffed in poorly made wooden crates at Heathrow but alas I have chosen a complicated example because remember the Taliban the same group who destroyed the bamian Buddhas in 2001 came back into power just a few years ago and while the quote new Taliban regime has made much noise about protecting the country's cultural heritage in late 2022 NPR found that Buddhist objects were no longer on display at the national museum while Museum staff say the prices objects are in storerooms their fate is uncertain but things are always complicated and no government or museum is completely stable it all comes back to that idea of global culture and if you believe in a shared Global Heritage that the British alone get to arbitrate on and decide for the rest of the world and don't trick yourself into thinking that things are always safe here in London it was only 80 years ago that we had to cart the most important objects into the tube stations to protect them from Nazi bombs I mean these people who are Sheltering from bombs at aldwich station are unknowingly sleeping just on the other side of a partition wall from the Parthenon sculptures terrorist attacks are still a constant threat in London so too are soup attacks but that's more the national galleries worry let me know if you'd like a video on the history of vandalism and paintings in Britain but let's get back to the laws for now so the British museum Act of 1963 is the governing instrument of the trustees of the British museum while there are individual acts for human tissue less than 100 years old the human tissue act and for objects stolen during the Holocaust the 1963 act governs all of the objects in the museum and it dictates if how and when they can be the accession basically the ACT states that the Board of Trustees isn't allowed to just sell exchange or wantonly give away objects in the museum there are exceptions if the object is an exact duplicate of others held in the collection or and here's the kicker in the opinion of the trustees the object is unfit to be retained in the collection and can can be disposed of without detriment to the interests of the public or Scholars remember the trustees are not all subject matter experts curators or archaeologists some are business people and CEOs who are undoubtedly experts when it comes to making sure that the museum stays afloat as a business however I'm dubious that they're always qualified to make complex decisions about archeology and repatriation now in an Ideal World this strict de-accessioning policy is a good thing because it prevents curators and directors from making backroom deals and selling objects for clout or personal gain any discussion of removing an object from the museum should be public and out in the open however in practice this often takes the fate of objects out of the hands of the subject matter experts and of course their original owners and puts them into the hands of non-expert Trustees who may even have political or business motives about the decisions that they make especially for world famous items and while any legal de-accessioning does technically have to go through the trustees they do usually vote in favor of what the subject matter experts have already decided to do but do I think that they would still go along with these wishes if the laws were to change and curators advise that they repatriate a truly controversial object like the Parthenon sculptures I mean we'll have to wait and see and we could find out sooner than you think I'll talk about that shortly now recently changes were proposed to the Charities act that would allow other public museums and galleries much more freedom to de-accession and repatriate objects if there is a quote compelling moral obligation interestingly moral obligation is not defined which means that an object being unfit for display is no longer the only criteria under which it can be de-accessioned and repatriated in a debate in the House of Lords on October 13 2022 Lord Kamal stated that the government will now be deferring the commencements of sections 15 and 16 until we quote fully understand the implications for National museums and other charities that is they haven't come into force and we don't know if they ever will however in response to these Rumblings a number of UK museums have repatriated objects including some of the controversial Benin bronzes that we will talk about next the Victorian Albert Museum repatriated the Eros head as part of a long-term loan back to Turkey in 2022 it was reattached to the sarcophagus in the Istanbul National Museum and while this is technically a loan for all intents and purposes it has been repatriated which as I mentioned before is not good enough for some parties it is important to note that the British museum has not returned any artifact to its country of origin in response to a repatriation request since the start of this last century and is that going to change anytime soon I mean we have to wait and see now it's time to talk about the Benin bronzes while all of the objects on this list are controversial none are quite as egregious as the bedin bronzes as a guide these are the only objects in the museum where I can actually see the word looted on the display panels that in and of itself is remarkable first let's just take a moment to admire how beautiful these bronzes which are actually brass are dating from the 16th century in the West African Kingdom of benin's Royal City of Benin which is in modern Nigeria they are Exquisite and we have a lot of them here in the British Museum and the way that they got here is brutal violent and quite frankly abhorrent some of the other objects on this tour in this video have some kind of quote diplomacy attached to them like the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon sculptures however with these bronzes there's just no excuse this is the ugliest aspect of colonialism and Conquest and surprisingly museums around Britain and Europe are giving the Benin bronzes that they hold in their collections back but more on that shortly in the meantime how did they get here in the late 19th century European powers bolstered by new technology most notably Britain and France began dividing up the African continent in what is called the Scramble for Africa West African societies had been weakened and heavily impacted by the transatlantic slave trade though it was quite diminished at this point though Britain sought to control the highly desirable West African Coast they began clashing with the kingdom of Benin who preferred obviously self-governance the British refused to accept benin's trading conditions and quickly encroached on neighboring territories and animosity was brewing it all came to a head in January 1897. a British trade mission who wanted to negotiate with the Oba or King was told to just wait to enter the Royal City of Benin until important rituals were complete however the delegation plowed forward despite being asked to wait which led to the deaths of seven British delegates and 230 of the mission's African carriers in retaliation the British launched a large-scale military Expedition and Benin city was captured by British forces in February 1897. during that time thousands of these plaques and sculptures were looted from the palace grounds mostly from safe storage shrines were destroyed and the objects were considered Spoils of War by many they still are 200 of them are held here by the British museum this was only the beginning of a bloody and devastating occupation and before I get any comments on this yes the dwindling Benin slave trade during which the wealthy City captured and sold people from neighboring territories was greatly reduced under British rule but this certainly wasn't the result of an altruistic and humanitarian effort on behalf of the British they instead imposed their own system of forced labor on local people in 1897 the British museum displayed 304 benine plaques on loan from the Secretary of State for foreign affairs and they received most of what they now hold and they were bequeathed others over time the rest were sold to private dealers and German museums and they have ended up around the world in 1950 and 51 the British museum de-accession to 25 of them and it can happen see and they were sold exchanged or donated to the Colony and protectorate of Nigeria and the government of the Gold Coast of course until very recently people fought to get African art into European museums and galleries as it was considered an inferior Style by many however African artists and Heritage Scholars are now focusing Less on showcasing their art around the world and more on using it to attract tourism at home right now the Nigerian government is proposing a grand Cultural District in the area of the former Palace of Benin including Studios and workshops world-class schools for artists and a museum to house these Treasures preliminary plans have already been drawn up by David adaje the Ghanaian British architect who designed the national museum of African American history and culture in Washington DC also important to note that in October 2022 an American group called The restitution study group filed action to stop the Smithsonian from repatriating 29 bronzes back to Nigeria as they were produced with materials and resources only made possible by the Benin slave trade the restitution study group claims that The Heirs of American slaves have as much right to the Benin bronzes today as the Nigerian government and the current Oba or King have according to the group's executive director diadra farmer palman African Americans are quote The Heirs of the people who paid for the 16th to 19th century relics with their lives we study the bronzes as Scholars students and the descendants of the people who made them we need access to them to study them this action is ongoing since November 21 things have been ramping up about these objects the Nigerian Federal Ministry of information and culture sent the museum a written request for the return of its Nigerian Antiquities the museum insists it has positive relationships with the Royal Palace in Benin City and with the Nigerian National commission for museums and monuments however many Nigerian people do not feel positive about this situation the British Museum's official statement says the museum is committed to active engagement with Nigerian institutions concerning the Benin bronzes including pursuing and supporting new initiatives developed in collaboration with Nigerian partners and colleagues one thing they have committed to doing is highlighting the colonial violence that brought the bronzes here in the first place and that is why it is so unique to see words like this on the display panels and there is some news from around the world London's hornyman museum is in the process of returning 72 Benin items after a unanimous decision by their Board of Trustees as their chief executive says the overwhelming consensus was that the objects had been looted and as such they should be returned on the grounds that they were acquired with force and under duress earlier this year Germany handed 21 over and Cambridge University returned more than 100. your move British museum now for the final of the five items we're talking about today the Parthenon sculptures now for my own mental health I vowed never to talk about the Elgin marbles controversy on my YouTube channel yet here we are I must be crazy because yes it's a deeply uncomfortable subject that brings out the very worst in the comment sections but what the hell we're here let's dive in so for a more in-depth history of the Parthenon sculptures and what they represent click the video above and let me know if you'd like to see an even more in-depth video in the future you just need to know that they were originally attached to the Grand Temple of Athena parthenos the Parthenon which sits Atop The Acropolis in Athens they were completed in 437 BCE by architect phidius and have long been considered one of the greatest artistic achievements of the ancient world and then Along Came Scottish nobleman Thomas Bruce seventh Earl of Elgin henceforth known as simply Lord Elgin he was very much a product of his time and just based on all the things I've read about him I think of him as a greasy character who had an eye on his pocketbook while claiming to care about the greater good and preserving World culture I just want you to know right off the bat that his removal of the marbles from the Acropolis was just as controversial in 1807 as it is today now when Lord Elgin was an ambassador to ottoman controlled Greece he encountered this Majestic Temple as it appeared in the late 18th century extensively damaged by past earthquakes and badly harmed when it was used as a gunpowder stored during the sixth the ottoman Venetian war in 1667. after a Venetian artillery round ignited the Gunpowder the roof of the temple was blown off the statues fell to the ground and the walls began to crumble hundreds of locals were killed as marble shards rained down from the hill it's horrible to think about now in the 17th and 18th centuries marble sculptures in Athens were being burned to extract Lyme and Elgin had seen what had remained of the temple in the past and so before he departed for his new role he asked the British government if they wanted him to take casts and drawings of sculptures so they could be removed and brought to England remember this is just a few Generations after Sloan and we are still very much in collecting Mania the British government said no but Lord Elgin realized he could do the removal himself for profit he began by hiring artists to take casts and drawings but soon began removing pieces from the Parthenon and other nearby temples a process that eventually cost him around 5 million pounds in today's currency he claimed to have full permission from the sultan which would have been presented in a legally binding document called a Furman the sculptures were taken to Malta a British protectorate and then brought to England a few years later Lord Elgin wanted to sell the sculptures to museums and private collectors for heaps of money but his costly divorce prompted him to sell them quickly and cheaply to the British government for less than half of what he spent so that he could settle his debts now contrary to popular belief the British government did try to make sure they were legal or at least have a public face of legality in 1816 the House of Commons held public hearings into elgin's claims and were satisfied that a Furman had been issued and Elgin testified that all removals were completed with the approval of the voy vote this civil governor of Athens and the disdar the military commander of the Acropolis Citadel Elgin even claimed that his second Furman was issued in 1810 to authorize a second removal of statues for Greece according to Elgin quote the thing was done publicly before the whole world and all the local authorities were concerned in it as well as the Turkish government do keep in mind that no hard evidence of either Furman has ever been found despite the fact that the Ottomans were prodigious record Keepers an Italian translation of the first sermon is held by the museum some Greek academics argue that it wasn't a Furman at all but instead a mechtub a letter from the Sultan's acting grand vizier and that it wasn't legally binding and even those who agree that a Furman did exist often argue that it did not authorize Elgin to take the sculptures still attached to the east pediment which were these ones here some of the eyewitnesses present during the removal including elgin's own men later stated that he gave expensive bribes and gifts to local officials but this could be down to the customs of the time regardless of permissions by the time Elgin held his first display of marbles in London he was the toast of the town and he held many salons for people to view the sculptures that said some people such as Lord Byron and Percy Shelley those Camp icons strongly objected to what they saw as a sacking of the ancient world for the benefit of the British eventually in 1816 a House of Commons select committee ruled the department sculptures were of high artistic value and they recommended that the government purchased them for 35 000 pounds that's about 4.3 million in today's currency and just to note that Elgin actually lost a lot of money on this process but he was forced to accept this lowball offer because he was in debt from a costly divorce now let's talk damage remember one of the most classic arguments about the British museum is that the objects are always safer here but we know that that simply isn't the case and so do the Greeks after all Untold damage was done to the marbles just in the process of removing and transporting them and yes damage was occurring in situ in Greece from pollution purposeful destruction and vandals but the Damage Done to facilitate elgin's transport was much worse these freeze slabs were hacked off the main structure or sawn and sliced into smaller sections which also damaged the building and here is just the slim width that Elgin sheared off so that his ship's load would be lighter of course that didn't always work one shipload of marbles on board the British Brigg Mentor was caught in a storm in southern Greece and sank on its way to Malta and it took two years for elgin's men to bring them to the surface adding to his already huge sunk pun intended costs and now for the biggie and the one that makes me cringe to prepare the marbles for their new home in this space here the purpose-built duven galleries Museum employees decided that they needed to quote clean the marbles due to the 19th century pollution present in London and Athens the surface of the marbles exhibited severe damage as early as 18 3800 years earlier none other than scientist Michael Faraday was asked to provide a solution to this problem and he recommended the use of caustic chemicals and scrubbing to reveal the seemingly Pure White marble below more cleaning efforts took place in 1858 and then finally in 1937 and 38. however the curators did not realize that the pentalic marble from which the sculptures are made is naturally meant to acquire a honey-colored patina when exposed to the air Lord duvene wanted to see them white and pure for his new gallery he is said to have personally arranged for the team of Masons to scrape and sand away the perceived discoloration removing up to one tenth of an inch from each or about 2.5 millimeters this may not sound like much but especially on the freeze that's a huge amount of lost detail while in the past the British museum has said that the quote damage has been exaggerated for political reasons and that the Greeks were guilty of excessive cleaning of the marbles before they were brought to Britain they now do not deny the severity of this mistake but do keep in mind that this type of cleaning was common in Greek and Italian museums until the 1950s there have been a few other minor incidents including accidents thefts and accidentalism while they've been here at the British museum the most famous occurred in 1961 when two school boys knocked off a part of a centaur's leg okay so now that we have established what has happened with the Parthenon sculptures and we know that the British museum is not infallible what is happening now for the first time the British museum has confirmed that it is in talks with Greece over a landmark agreement that would see some of the Parthenon sculptures returned to Athens this may be on a loan basis or perhaps even permanently they won't be the first museums around the world have given pieces of the Parthenon back recently including the Vatican Museums in January 2023 a spokesperson for the British museum told the guardian we've said publicly we're actively seeking a new Parthenon partnership with our friends in Greece and as we enter a new year constructive discussions are ongoing that said the museum also recently issued a statement that said we're not going to dismantle our great collection as it tells a unique story of our common Humanity we are seeking new positive long-term Partnerships with countries and communities around the world and of course that includes Grace so there you have it we end our tour with another sort of non-committal statement from the British museum I hope that this video has given you a lot to think about I've tried to cover a lot of complex and nuanced topics and I know how much the internet tends to love Nuance the culture wars are definitely alive and well in the museum just like they were back when Lord Elgin was bringing his marbles to England but seriously I want to finish by saying that I truly believe in repatriation and even in the cases where treaties and furmans exist I'd like to think that we've come a long way since the days of Sirhan Sloan and the gentleman collectors but maybe we haven't now this video was a long time in the making and I know that my subscribers have been very patient I'd love to know your thoughts and opinions on this topic and let me know if I gave you some food for thought or if you're more cemented in your feelings than ever before remember to like subscribe and share and leave your thoughts in the comments below and of course I'll see you the next time I'm in the museum

Channel: The Museum Guide

Views: 153,599

Keywords: British Museum, Museums, Museum Tour, Museum Guide, Museum Controversy, British Museum Stolen, Stolen Objects Museum, Museum Education, Museum Learning, Repatriation, Museum Repatriation, Museum Laws, London Museums, Elgin Marbles, Parthenon Sculptures, Benin Bronzes, Easter Island Head, Gweagal Shield, Rosetta Stone, Stolen Antiquities, London Museum Tour, British Museum Tour, Hans Sloane, Enlightenment Gallery, Hoa Hakananai'a, Rapa Nui

Id: M_8HXihcmUk

Length: 48min 32sec (2912 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 19 2023