December 7, 2010

Lord Elgin speaks about the reasons for returning artefacts to their country of origin

Posted at 1:56 pm in Elgin Marbles, Similar cases

In a very interesting followup to the amusing story of Lord Elgin’s rocks, on display in the Canadian Museum of Civilization, the current Lord Elgin has given an interview about why he made the decision to return the rocks, along with various other items to Canada.

Most telling is the quote near the end of the video:

It was a pity I felt, that people in Canada were not able to see them & touch them & so on & only hear about them.
There came a moment that there was a place that they could go to, where they would become, as they were in our house a part of our family, they were going to go back to be part of the family that was Canada.

Surely the same now applies to Greece since the building of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens?

As I’ve said before, one wonders whether the Elgin Marbles would already be back in Greece if the Seventh Earl of Elgin hadn’t been forced to sell them when faced with bankruptcy?

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