From:
Spectator

John A K Huntley
July 21st, 2008 1:08am

In this article, the word ‘ownership’ appears prominently only in the title - yet how can a rational discussion about artifacts develop other than on the very issue of ownership?

The illogicality of Professor Cuno’s (and, by association much of Tiffany Jenkins’s) omission is borne out by the inclusion of the Parthenon Marbles in a long list of ‘antiquities’. The Marbles are not merely ‘antiquities’; they, unlike the other ‘antiquities’ listed were fixtures on a building.

Lord Elgin was a domiciled Scot, acting in a personal capacity when he removed the Parthenon sculptures. There have always been serious doubts about the legality of the removal and about the extent and nature of that illegality. Lord Elgin removed not merely “artwork,” but fixtures attached to structures that had stood for two thousand years. They were ‘attached to the land’ and no more lawfully removed than if the vendor of a house were to remove the doors and windows along with his personal effects.

Lord Elgin’s right to take away these fixtures is what has always been in dispute. If he had no such right, he acquired no ownership of the marbles, regardless of his motives. He could therefore pass no ownership to their ‘purchaser,’ the United Kingdom and the Trustees of the British Museum - again, regardless of their motives. Whoever else owns them now, it is not Lord Elgin or his ’successors in title,’ but the successors to the Ottoman authorities - the present Hellenic Republic.

New theories about cultural artifacts as some kind of ‘res communis’ as espoused by Professor Cuno and others cannot compromise fundamental principles of property law, as forcefully adhered to in the legal systems of the United States, the United Kingdom or indeed any other state that respects property ownership.

There may be merits - surely there must be some merit? - in Professor Cuno’s notion of the ‘encyclopaedic’ museum in relation to artifacts lawfully acquired; but his own words suggest otherwise. Telling today’s Hellenes that there is ‘no continuity’ between their ‘Greek’ culture (only non-Hellenes describe it as ‘Greek’) and ‘Hellenic’ might be seen by them as arrogant and offensive, if not incomprehensible; but it also displays a lack of historical accuracy (vide Arnold J Toynbee, ‘The Greeks and their Heritages,’ OUP 1981). They might understandably balk at entrusting ‘national’ artifacts to ‘encyclopaedic’ would-be guardians of ‘culture’.