Another response to the previous letter [1] in The Times.
If anything, this contains a proposal for an alternative solution even more ridiculous than that put forward in the previous letter. I cannot quite understand how the author believes that a rotating shared ownership of one third of the sculptures exchanged with replicas would help anything – or indeed do anything other than lead to considerable confusion.
From:
The Times [2]
Letters to the Editor
The Times
January 28, 2006Elgin Marbles
Sir, The British Museum needs to adopt a more constructive approach to the future of the Elgin Marbles (letters, Jan 21 and 25).Let the New Acropolis Museum commission replicas of the Marbles, and there then be a formal arrangement with the British Museum for perhaps a third of the original main fragments to be exchanged on a revolving basis for their replicas.
There need be no change of “ownership” by the BM, nor would the majority of visitors be concerned that a minority of the Marbles on display were replicas. But for the Greeks there would be the joy of seeing, over a period of time, all the major fragments of their Parthenon Frieze in their own museum in the shadow of the Parthenon itself.ANTHONY EASTWOOD
Much Hadham, Herts