Last week, on my way to a trial to decide what the British should do with the Parthenon Marbles they stole—er, took—from Greece, I made a short detour for a look at some treasures they stole from Benin.
The trial—a mock event about an actual, raging cultural dispute—was produced by the National Hellenic Museum, which, yes, has some skin in the game.
Over time, though, the Marbles had been damaged, especially during the four centuries, beginning in 1453, when Greece was ruled by the Ottoman Empire—and particularly during a 17th-century Turkish war with Venice, when the Parthenon was the target of a massive cannonball attack.
And each side produced an expert witness. Antiquities expert Molly Morse Limmer, testifying for the British Museum, said 40 percent of the Marbles had already been removed when Elgin got there. She noted that the Greeks refused a British offer to loan them the Marbles, and warned of a “domino effect” if they were returned that would spread to other museums.
That opposition could have come directly from Cuno, who wrote that culture belongs to all of humankind, and antiquities should not be used for the political purposes of nations, but should be “distributed around the world to better ensure their preservation, broaden our knowledge . . . and increase the world’s access to them.” (Recent monument destruction in war zones has bolstered the “preservation” part of that argument; this week Aliph, a global fund dedicated to protecting endangered cultural heritage, was launched at the Louvre—one of six other museums in the world that Greece says wrongfully possess sections of the Parthenon Marbles.)
Meanwhile, the Marbles remain in the British Museum, and the Benin tusk, looted in the 19th century by British forces on a “punitive expedition,” remains in the collection of the Art Institute.
