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Comment by asimpleusecase | Hacker News Reader

I was at the Parthenon a few weeks ago. Had a guide who was an archaeologist and art historian. He casually mentioned the “theft” by the UK of parts of the Parthenon. I had no idea how evocative and current this issue was. This solution seems a reasonable one, it was rather odd to think that Greece would need to make replicas to place in their own historical sites. However, I suppose if the British Museum complied with this request the cylinder of Cyrus would be next and then hundreds of other artefacts. “Fake” artefacts are fine for tourists to look at but not very useful for Scholarship, return of artefacts would be a huge shift of power in Scholarship. Perhaps Greece could add envelopes more moral force to their argument by showing how well they support others scholars access to artefacts and that having the originals all together in Greece would enrich and improve access for all.

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> However, I suppose if the British Museum complied with this request the cylinder of Cyrus would be next and then hundreds of other artefacts.

What's wrong with that? Robbed treasure should be returned.

Yeah. I'm British, I have zero problem returning the parthanon marbles. Of all the things in the British Museum it's probably the most obvious one to return: it's unique, it's location specific and it's part of something else that would be immesurably enhanced by it's reconstitution.

It's also not that interesting in the museum context. I don't actually think they would lose anything much by returning it. It's become like the Mona Lisa, totemtic, but not actually that interesting as an exhibit. I was pretty underwhelmed when I saw it in its broken state. I would much rather other people got to see a reconstructed Parthanon then I get to see the broken parts.

Unfortunately it's become such a heated topic I'm not sure I see a time when it gets returned without Greece having some kind of leverage over the UK.

"Unfortunately it's become such a heated topic I'm not sure I see a time when it gets returned without Greece having some kind of leverage over the UK"

I don't understand your point here. Are you suggesting that returning it should be postponed because it would be an admission of bad practice or wrong doing of some kind?

Given the first sentence of their comment, how do you think that they are suggesting that it should not be returned?

I'm not saying it shouldn't be returned, I'm saying it won't be, not in the near future.

The Parthanon marbles are a political touchstone/dog-whistle in the UK, especially for people who view the empire in a largely positive light. Views like that are sufficiently widespread that it would be hard to get the sufficient public support for one of the two major political parties to back their return. Corbyn vowed to, but his wing of the Labour party are out of power at the moment. If they were to come back we might see a change in attitude, but they would be strongly attacked for it. I can't find any indication of the current Labour leadership's position, I would expect them to dodge the issue as the try to appeal to the center.

I guess the level of public knowledge about the British Empire is really very low. I just found out the other day that British gunboats shelled Wanzou district in the 1920s, killing anywhere between a handful to about a thousand people (depending on source). There are just so many 'incidents' like this that are deeply present abroad (imagine if the French had shelled Liverpool in the 20's!) but really obscure at home. (The burning of the summer palace is another Chinese example.

Yup. I try to learn as much history as I can, but I've not heard about that attack. Although from a quick google that particular one doesn't look like it was totally unprovoked, although it does appear to have been totally out of proportion to the provocation. I'll have to read up on that in more detail when I've got the time.

An aspect of the defense of empire that particularly frustrates me is the way people will attempt to obfuscate that all the european empires were about resources. People like to make out that we colonised India because we wanted to teach them about western beauracracy and trains. The initial occupaction was conducted by a literal commercial company for commercial gain. Robert Clive became one of (possibly the?) richest men in Europe as a result.

Similarly people make rebellions sound like they were completely unjustified. At the same time, if you ask them what Britain would have done if the Germans had invaded during WWII, they'd tell you we'd have fought them to the bitter end. It's the nationalistic version of the idea that "no-one is the villain of their own story". Somehow us invading somewhere is different to Germany (or France) invading Britain.

A commercial company founded by pirates!

The incident seems actually pretty typical to me. There's often an element of provocation, a degree of legal ambiguity, often a degree of moral ambiguity about the laws themselves (extraterritoriality etc). My guess would be that the Nationalists would have seen it as fully within their rights to seize a merchant vessel in China for military purposes.

The attack stands out because it comes in just in the tail of the first world war, and it's a naval bombardment of the civilian city of an allied power. It's unlikely (but possible) that a chinese person who had served on the western front alongside the british might have returned home only to be blown up by a british shell! It's also recent enough that it's presumably within living memory for some people who live in the area.

It's also an odd time, because at that point, the british and japanese were close allies, and were mentioned in the same breath by the chinese.

Quite. The Dutch should return the Netherlands to the Hapsburgs, or possibly to the Romans or Belgii.

You seem to enjoy trying to derail conversations, why do you do this?

Obvious analogies are obvious.

Brilliant meta-derail, to bring up obvious analogies when discussing your bizarrely stretched and non-obvious one.

Different people have different bases of knowledge, experience, principles and moral philosophies. It is obvious to the average Serb that Kosovo is rightfully part of Serbia while many others would disagree. The Aztecs find it obvious that industrial scale human sacrifice was morally correct.

Standpoint epistemology, do you dig it?

I guess, if you say so. I'll have to keep in mind that "stealing is OK" is part of the British moral framework, I was unaware of that, thanks for the insight.

The legal owner of the Parthenon gave Elgin the right to take the marbles. The issue is that the modern day owners of the Parthenon dont recognize the legitimatecy of that transaction. It's a bit more muddy than straight up theft.

I think the analogy to other historical issues is apt. Who is the rightful occupant of modern day Iran? If you could trace your lineage to an assyrian who owned a plot of land in Nineveh, and was displaced by the Babylonians, should you be able to kick out the current occupant? What if another person came along, and could prove their family owned the land under Babylonian rule but was displaced by the Persians?

I'm all for false equivalence disco parties but this one is quite a stretch!

The way the British acquired them does look really sketchy. Like, indefensible. Time to send them back.

Those are side issues. The main issue is that the marbles were stolen and we ask that they are returned. Everything else is haggling with our stolen cultural treasures.

And, yes, of course, the British should give back everything else their bandit hordes pillaged and looted from the lands they invaded.

It is also important to note the inept British museum. Water dripping from the ceiling! [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4WEFQMuWn8

Other articles on this matter have pointed out that good scans will enable CNC replicas with sub-millimeter accuracy, in marble from close to the original quarry sites. Good for tourists and scholars?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Digital_Archaeol...

But can they keep it in a polluted Greek environment

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