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1. the Parthenon Marbles
were certainly dark brown when removed by Elgin. In 1928 Sir Joseph
Duveen offered to build a new gallery for the British Museum to
house the Elgin Marbles on condition that they were made more attractive
to the public (and reflected more glory on himself). On his orders,
paid masons attacked the marbles with metal tools and Carborundum,
leaving them whiter than white but -- according to the modern Greeks
-- irreparably harmed. So damaged were the Elgin Marbles that they
were placed behind barriers -- still there today -- so that the
public could not get close enough to see the ravages.
2. The Victorians did not like their sculptures
incomplete: If noses, arms and genitalia had been chipped off due
to mishandling, new modern ones were often stuck on.
3. Serious scholars have always resented
the way Duveen arranged them around the sides of his gallery, when
they were meant to be seen as a continuous narrative as they were
approached and circled.
4. Oddly, for a non-commercial institution,
the British Museum allows champagne and gourmet food parties in
the gallery in return for high rental fees. The marbles have become
a prized setting for hospitality parties. These parties have got
the Museum into more hot water, as guests are even permitted to
be photographed in Ancient Greek fancy dress with the Elgin Marbles
as a decorative background. Sir Kenneth Alexander, a former trustee
of the National Museum of Scotland, describes this as a "crass misuse
of one of the world's greatest antiquities." Andrew Dismore, a Greek-speaking
member of Parliament, says: "I am frankly dismayed at the attitude
of the museum. What are we going to have next? Orgies in the Roman
galleries?"
 5. Ah, but if you let us have them back,
we would conserve all the marbles in a new 30-billion drachma ($109
million) Acropolis Museum, retorts the Greek government. And it
would be very nice if they -- along with the other bits in Paris,
Copenhagen, Palermo, the Vatican, Heidelberg, Munich, Würzburg,
Strasbourg and Vienna -- were returned by 2004, when Athens hosts
the Olympic Games. President Clinton wants Britain to hand them
back, according to Elisabet Papazoe, the Greek government minister.
Clinton promised to bring up the issue with Prime Minister Tony
Blair. But Blair is known to be antagonistic to the demand.
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The British were and still are more prepared to protect the marbles than
the greek.
