[MSN] Dalya Alberge's judgment that the Greeks have failed to reclaim the Elgin Marbles, from the British Museum must be viewed as strictly interlocutory.

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

December 16, 2006 


The Elgin Marbles dilemma 
 
 
Sir, Dalya Alberge's judgment that the Greeks have failed to reclaim the
Elgin Marbles, from the British Museum must be viewed as strictly
interlocutory (report, Dec 13). The Greek claim, dating from 1842, has been
renewed by Britons and Greeks of every subsequent generation, and will not
be over until it's over. 
The Getty Museum's decision to return two more ancient artefacts to Greece,
together with the return earlier this year of pieces from the Parthenon and
the Erechtheion formerly in German and Swedish ownership, adds to the
mounting pressure on the trustees of the British Museum to abandon their
dismissive attitude to Greek proposals for the relocation of the Elgin
Marbles to the magnificent new Acropolis Museum, which will open in Athens
in a few months' time. 
 
Agreeing to reunite the British and Greek marbles in one gallery could bring
enormous benefits to the British Museum in terms of reputation, prestige,
scholarship and new loans from Greece. If the marbles are not returned the
obvious gaps in the full-scale display will be an eloquent indictment of the
British Museum, and of its trustees' failure to appreciate that insularity,
indifference to provenance and cultural trophyism are no longer practised by
the world's best museums. 

GEOFFREY WHITE
Marbles Reunited
Sandy, Beds
 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/