Britannia Works

I would entrust my life with him, why not some silly rocks?

The Parthenon marbles should not be returned to Greece

(extract)

Pergamon in Turkey is the site of an ancient city whose fortified citadel or Acropolis is as impressive in its way as that of Athens. Here too the greatest sculptures have been removed: if you want to see the spectacular Pergamon Altar, you have to go to the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Yet there's no tear-stained campaign to send the Pergamon Altar back to Turkey. Why not? Because modern Turkey - although as rich in ruins as Greece - claims no ideological inheritance from ancient Hellas. In other words, although Turkey preserves its Greek treasures, it does not claim to be the modern embodiment of ancient Greek values. Why not? That might seem obvious - but it's not "obvious". Any more than it's obvious why modern Greece should feel an identity with city states whose way of life - slavery and all - has nothing to do with modern Greek society.

Scratch at this for long - ask for a real, serious explanation for the reason the Parthenon is a different case from Pergamon - and you will hit a bedrock of racism. Greeks are Greeks and Turks are ... well they're the bad guys, aren't they? Hookah-smoking tyrants? That's what Byron thought.

To give the Parthenon marbles back to Greece would be to endorse an insidiously racist view of the classical legacy. The British Museum must hold its ground.