This story reads almost like a peculiar parody of the Parthenon Marbles… The Eighth Earl of Elgin (son of the Seventh Earl who removed the sculptures from the Parthenon) was at one time governor of Canada (when he wasn’t ransacking the Summer Palace in Beijing). During his time there, rocks got thrown at him during a riot, that he later brought back to his family home in Scotland as a souvenir of the experience. A few years ago, the Elgin family then decided to return Elgin’s rocks(as they became known), so that they could go on display in Canada as they were a part of Canada’s history.

One wonders, if Elgin had not faced financial insolvency & been forced to sell the Parthenon Sculptures, would his family have taken a more enlightened approach to the British Museum & returned the sculptures to Greece already?

From:
Edmonton Journal

History museum offers new narrative of Confederation
By Randy Boswell, Postmedia News October 28, 2010

Canada’s main history museum has unveiled a new exhibit casting the country’s Confederation story in a fresh light emphasizing the tensions that threatened to pull British North America apart in the years leading up to 1867’s unification project.

It’s a rewriting of the narrative of the country’s birth, says Canadian Museum of Civilization president Victor Rabinovitch, that doesn’t follow “the usual line about how peaceful everything was up here.”
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