Are museums as trusted places on the line?

Many have written about who controls the narrative in the museum, and have also questioned the authenticity of the material evidence on which those narratives are based. Museums are, after all, highly selective repositories of such evidence.

Facts, as one sage observed, are like tesserae, capable of being assembled into any number of patterns. But when the authenticity of the coloured piece of ceramic is itself open to question, it ceases to be a ‘fact’ and any narrative edifice topples.

Can museums move fast enough and with enough assurance, to turn this splintering world of truth relativism to their advantage, by majoring on a USP of authenticity?

Tristram Besterman

"How is it that major institutions do things that are against their own interests, immune from public scrutiny, and damaging to the nation generally?" Asks Robert Tombs. The professor emeritus of French history at the University of Cambridge goes on to answer: "An obvious answer is that “woke” or “radical progressive” shibboleths have become pervasive."

Campaigners for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles including the 32 BCRPM members might wish to disagree. Plus, one does not get rid of an injustice by labelling it with a shibboleth.

"Public institutions should be different. Most people, I imagine, suppose that they have effective checks and balances, and legally or morally binding rules. 

Or so we might think. Yet strange things are happening. Two of our greatest – the British Museum and the Church of England – have been behaving in ways that are indeed against their own interests, immune from public scrutiny, and damaging to the nation.

It is now apparently being claimed that there is a “moral obligation” that overrides the law. I shall not discuss the pros and cons of a transfer. Suffice it to say that there might be an argument on cultural grounds for returning the marbles to the special museum in Athens, just as there is an argument for keeping them in London.

But such arguments are rarely explained or seriously discussed by those in power in Bloomsbury or Athens. Instead, dogmatic assertions are made as if they were self-evidently true. The Greek refrain is that Lord Elgin looted the marbles and therefore the British Museum is a receiver of stolen goods. Such accusations, and hence the idea of a “moral obligation”, have been demolished in a report by the historian Sir Noel Malcolm, published by Policy Exchange.

Every curator and trustee in the museum should have digested this pamphlet. Have they? Their plain duty is to protect both the museum and the national interest. They should not acquiesce in Osborne’s private diplomacy, never publicly justified.

Margaritas Schinas, former European Commission vice-president (1 December 2019, to 30 November 2024 ), suggested that returning the Parthenon Marbles still displayed in the British Museum to Greece would help Sir Keir Starmer reset post-Brexit relations with the European Union.

“Returning the Marbles would be a powerful symbol of Britain’s commitment to strengthening ties and turning the page on recent divisions,” Schinas told The Daily Telegraph. “It’s time to close this chapter and open a new era of mutual respect and collaboration.”

Tom Gould writing for the ipaper adds: "The Elgin Marbles are a collection of ancient Greek sculptures, now largely housed in the British Museum, which were controversially acquired by Lord Elgin in the early 1800s. The Greek government insists that they were stolen.

A 1963 law currently prevents the British Museum from returning the Marbles, but they could be loaned on a long-term basis."

Read the article here.

“The reunification of the Sculptures is a wonderful opportunity for Britain to show magnanimity, demonstrating ingenuity rather than arrogance,” Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, a member of the House of Lords, a member of the ruling Labour Party, and a member of BCRPM, quoted in “TA NEA”. “Every person should be able to see these antiquities in their Athenian home. Lawyers are in a position to devise new international tools to protect these world treasures in perpetuity,” added Baroness Shami Chakrabarti.

The Ta Nea article, written in Greek, can be read in full and outlines the result of the Greek PM, Kyriakos Mitsotakis' London visit and his meeting with Sir Keir Starmer.

PM Mitsotakis has met up with Sir Starmer on several occasions starting a year ago when Mitsotakis was snubbed by the then UK PM, Rishi Sunak. All of PM Mitsotakis' encounters with Sir Starmer have been convivial and despite the fact that the current, Labour UK government is not willing to consider amending of the UK 's Museum Act. 

The impasse continues.

Letter sent to The Times 

AN Wilson's Comment in today's edition (December 7th) is lumbered with a dreadful headline - 'We've lost our marbles over ancient Greece' - and contains several factual errors, but at least the esteemed author's heart is in the right place: the legacy represented by the Athenians of one of their glory ages is indeed worth not forgetting. What would not be apparent from this piece, however, nor from letters published that are hostile to the very notion, is that the paper's own official declared editorial policy is in favour of the repatriation and reunification of the Parthenon Marbles/Sculptures currently housed in the B.M. back in their native place, Athens. Nor that the Parthenon Marbles/Sculptures are but part of the Museum's wider 'Elgin collection'. They are Elgin Marbles, but not 'the' Elgin Marbles. It is only the sculptures from the Parthenon - out of the Museum's estimated 8 million artefacts - for which the Greek Government requests their return to Athens.

Paul Cartledge (Professor) 

Vice-Chair, British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles

To read AN Wilson's comment article in The Times, follow the link here.