‘Cutting the Mona Lisa in half’ is how Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis described the Elgin Marbles being housed in the British Museum (away from the Parthenon from which they were taken). His comment was made towards the end of November 2023 during Mitsotakis’ trip to the UK. Soon after, a dispute broke out between Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Mitsotakis as a result of the comment. Sunak subsequently refused to attend a planned meeting for the two, leading to much confusion over why he was taking such a hard stance on the matter.
Earlier that month, a cabinet reshuffle had led to right wing members leaving and more centrist members entering. Could it have been that this dispute was therefore Sunak’s first chance to solidify his right-wing position by engaging in the ‘culture war’? Was he potentially trying to regain any trust he had lost in right-wing voters? Whatever his reasons, they were almost certainly larger than cancelling simply because Mitsotakis broke the supposed promise he had made to not talk about the Marbles – a collection of Greek sculptures that are known in Greece as the Parthenon Marbles – during his trip to the UK. Sunak appeared to be using the dispute to his political advantage when, during Prime Minister’s Questions, he accused the Greek Prime Minister of ‘grandstanding’ perhaps not even thinking about moral obligations Britain may have to return stolen artefacts that remain a lasting symbol of the brutality of the British Empire. The Greek government accused him of having ‘domestic reasons’ for cancelling the meeting. The Greeks have been fighting to have the Elgin Marbles repatriated (the return of cultural property to its former owner) for decades; in 1983, Greek Minister for Culture Melina Mercouri called for the Marbles to be returned, stating it was a ‘moral issue more than a legal issue’. Since then, the Greeks have frequently submitted requests for the Marbles to be repatriated.
However, it would be wrong to completely blame the government and museums for refusing to return these artefacts. They are prevented by laws like The British Museum Act of 1963 and the National Heritage Act of 1983 which state any artefact in the British Museum, Victoria & Albert Museum and Science Museum, amongst others, cannot be returned unless under very specific circumstances. These acts protect artefacts from being removed from collections due to short-term political decisions.
On the other hand, exceptions can be made, and have been, when it has been in the government’s interests, of course. In 2009, the government passed the Holocaust Act and as a result the V&A, usually prevented from returning artefacts due to the National Heritage Act, was able to return three figurines which had been forcibly taken by the Nazis from the German-Jewish art collector Emma Budge in 1937 and had made their way into the museum’s collection. However, the British government have been far more reticent when it comes to repatriating works like the Rosetta Stone (stolen from Egypt by the British in 1802), the Magdala Crown (looted by the British from Ethiopia in 1868) or indeed the Elgin Marbles.
Many argue that it’s necessary we keep these artefacts in our museums because they teach us about our history. This is exactly what Oliver Dowden, Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in September 2020, did, writing that whilst these artefacts ‘represent figures who have said or done things which we may find deeply offensive and would not defend today’, they ‘play an important role in teaching us about our past, with all its faults’. And it’s true, they do teach us about our colonial history, but at the expense of teaching others about their own history. The Benin Bronzes (a group of bronze sculptures depicting figures and animals), looted from Nigeria by the British in 1897, are housed in the British Museum. There have been ongoing discussions about returning the objects, but it’s still not certain that they will ever return to Nigeria. This means that, for the 125 years they’ve
been in the UK, generations of Nigerians have been denied the opportunity to view artefacts that are so central to their own history. Very few Nigerians have the disposable income to take a round trip to the British Museum. Knowing about and experiencing your country’s cultural history should not be a luxury.
If the British Government was truly serious about confronting its colonial legacy, it would reform its laws preventing museums from returning stolen artefacts. For now, museums can only compromises including long-term loans, some of which have been recently been agreed by the V&A Museum and the British Museum, or give full transparency in their exhibitions about the origin of their artefacts.
