Arguing the case for the return of the Parthenon Marbles

I was on Ian Payne’s show on LBC on 21st August, arguing the case for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures against Dominic Selwood, Someone that regular readers of this blog may have come across before.

What was interesting was that there was actually agreement between us on a number of points (although of course not on many others).

Unfortunately their archives are no longer free to access unless you listen on their app. Details here of how to do this on Android and iOS

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Regular readers of this blog will know that Thomas Bruce, AKA the Seventh Earl of Elgin, who removed the sculptures from the Parthenon, was not the only one in his family with a reputation for pilfering historic artefacts.

His son, the Eighth Earl of Elgin was responsible for the ransacking of Beijing’s Summer Palace and the fallout from this single event still causes controversy and tension between Britain and China today, whenever one of the artefacts is put up for public auction.

The full documentary is available to listen to on BBC’s iPlayer.

Some Bronze Zodiac heads looted from the Summer Palace have now been recovered and are on display in Chinese Museums

From:
BBC History Magazine

2 February 2015 Last updated at 08:52
The palace of shame that makes China angry
By Chris Bowlby BBC News, Beijing

There is a deep, unhealed historical wound in the UK’s relations with China – a wound that most British people know nothing about, but which causes China great pain. It stems from the destruction in 1860 of the country’s most beautiful palace.

It’s been described as China’s ground zero – a place that tells a story of cultural destruction that everyone in China knows about, but hardly anyone outside.
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An extract from a radio discussion, noted on David Gill’s Looting Matters blog. I am unclear though about what Tom Holland’s reason was for suggesting at the end that the Parthenon Sculptures should not be re-united in a single place.

From:
Looting Matters

Nefertiti and the Parthenon Marbles

I am grateful to my sharp-eared colleague Chris Hall for drawing my attention to this interview.

Salima Ikram, American University in Cairo, and Tom Holland, were in conversation with John Humphrys of BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme earlier today [Monday, February 21, 2011: interview]. They discussed the limited looting in the Cairo Museum and were in agreement that the people of Egypt demonstrated that they cared about the protection of their antiquities.
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Following the Met’s agreement to return nineteen artefacts to Egypt, Egypt hopes that the return of other more significant works may follow.

From:
NPR

Egypt Called; It Wants Its Rosetta Stone Back
by Neda Ulaby
November 14, 2010

This past week, the Metropolitan Museum in New York announced it will return 19 small objects from King Tut’s tomb to Egypt. Now the Egyptians are asking the British to return the Rosetta Stone.

LIANE HANSEN, host: Last week, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced it will return 19 small objects from King Tut’s tomb to Egypt. The museum’s research proved they were stolen.

As NPR’s Neda Ulaby reports, this is part of an increased sensitivity in the museum world towards such objects. Egyptian archeologists hope more significant works may follow.
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The BBC World Service had an interesting program about disputed items of cultural property, prompted by the fiasco surrounding the auction of artefacts from Yves Saint Lauren’s collection & the imminent sale of some personal items that belonged to Mahatma Gandhi. A number of other cases were also discussed during the programme. I appeared on it briefly & this website also got a mention.

You can download a podcast of the programme here.

From:
BBC World Service

02 Mar 09
On air: Should lost national treasures be returned?
By Ros Atkins

A Chinese bidder has refused to pay up over 30 million dollars that he successfully bid for two sculptures taken from Beijing in the 19th century. He’s being hailed as a hero in China, and it’s once again raised the issue of who owns items taken during past wars or colonial rule.

Recent examples….The Cleveland Museum of Art agreed to return 13 antiquities and a late Gothic processional cross to Italy after authorities there proved the works were looted, stolen or handled by traffickers. So does the time elapsed make a difference as to whether something should be returned – or indeed the way in which it was taken? A stolen greek vase was also returned to Italy.
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James Cuno has taken part in a long radio conversation to promote his new book.

Tom Flynn speculates on his site, why Cuno’s book is being treated as credible.

Listen to the radio interview on KCRW here.

Tom Flynn’s response is here.

James Cuno, Director of Chicago’s Art Institute, is a person who’s outlook on archaeology takes the opposite view from that of this website. His new book has just been released & is getting a lot of press coverage – in many cases though, on reading it, it opens people’s minds to the fact that they should be asking more questions rather than accepting his point of view as the only way things should happen.

On the morning of 16th June, he will be one of the guests on Andrew Marr’s Start the Week programe on BBC Radio 4 a 9:00 AM.

The programme’s details are here, but are not updated until nearer the broadcast date.