{"id":996,"date":"2014-10-28T13:52:14","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T13:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karenessex.com\/?p=996"},"modified":"2014-12-04T04:58:54","modified_gmt":"2014-12-04T04:58:54","slug":"mrs-george-clooney-takes-on-the-battle-for-the-elgin-marbles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/?p=996","title":{"rendered":"Mrs. George Clooney takes on the battle for the Elgin Marbles"},"content":{"rendered":"

STEALING ATHENA, my novel about the 2300 year journey of the contrversial \u00a0Elgin Marbles, is written from the perspectives of two of history’s most fascinating women. Now, another fascinating women, \u00a0Amal Alamuddin Clooney, has joined the legal team arguing for restoration of \u00a0the marbles (aka The Parthenon Sculptures) to Greece. \u00a0It’s a complex issue with a long history, and \u00a0I hope Mrs. Clooney can help move it forward in a constructive way. \u00a0\u00a0Please read on…<\/p>\n

WHO OWNS ART?\u00a0 WHO OWNS DEMOCRACY?<\/b><\/p>\n

By Karen Essex<\/p>\n

After years of announcements and embarrassing delays, the New Acropolis Museum\u2014a $190 million spectacular building designed by Bernard Tschumi\u2014has opened to rave reviews \u00a0\u00a0Yet the dramatic glass gallery on the top floor overlooking the Acropolis and facing the Parthenon still awaits its treasures.<\/p>\n

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Built specifically as a catalyst for the return of the Elgin Marbles or Parthenon Sculptures, those controversial treasures that were\u2014 depending upon your point of view\u2014either rescued or stolen by Lord Elgin during the Napoleonic Wars, the gallery is a physical embodiment of the passionate argument that the Greek government and its many allies in the archeological, artistic, and legal circles have waged for two hundred years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"stealingathenacover\"<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s easy to side with the Greeks and decry the British as post-imperial pigs, it\u2019s important to examine the complexity of the issue.\u00a0 In my novel Stealing Athena<\/i>, I chronicle the journey of these sculptures from their inception in the Age of Perikles through their placement 2300 years later in the British Museum.\u00a0 Being intimately acquainted with the story and having taken up residency recently in London\u2014and with apologies to all my Greek friends and readers\u2014I have had a difficult time deciding which argument to support.<\/p>\n

In the early 1800s when Napoleon was pillaging the treasures of Italy and Egypt for the Louvre, Lord Elgin, British ambassador to Constantinople, appealed\u2014through his wife\u2019s notorious female allure\u2014to the Ottoman Sultan, occupier of Athens, to remove about half of the Parthenon\u2019s sculptural decorations.\u00a0 Yes, Elgin was acting with the arrogance of empire and trying to beat Napoleon at his own game, but he and Lady Elgin were also deeply disturbed by the horrific condition of the Parthenon.\u00a0 The Turkish occupiers were grinding up its priceless columns and statues to construct rude huts, as well as selling chunks of the building to tourists and collectors eager to own a piece of it.\u00a0 The Elgins believed that if they did not act quickly, the Parthenon\u2019s remaining sculptural wonders would soon be gone.<\/span><\/p>\n

With permission in the form of a still-controversial firman, Elgin used his wife\u2019s money to remove the marbles and transport them back to England.\u00a0 After a series of disasters, including retrieving them from the bottom of the sea after a shipwreck, and following an exhaustive Parliamentary investigation to determine if Elgin had acted outside of the law, he sold the collection to the government.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the most part, the English have been excellent stewards of the marbles.\u00a0 The British \"SAM_0309\"<\/a>Museum is free of charge and open every day, which enables both the average person as well as those with artistic or scholarly interest to have easy access to these treasures.\u00a0\u00a0 True, they put the marbles through a cleaning process in the 1930s that may have done some damage, but that was the standard care of the day, hardly an intentional attempt at destruction.\u00a0 I, along with every single museum in the world\u2014with the possible exception of the New Acropolis Museum\u2014am also concerned that returning the marbles will open a world-wide Pandora\u2019s box of demands upon museums \u00a0to send back all artifacts to their countries of origin.\u00a0 As Americans, we must especially ask if we would welcome this.\u00a0 How would we feel if, say, the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art were reduced to\u2014what?\u00a0 Some Navajo blankets and a few Edward Hopper paintings?<\/p>\n

And yet, one must keep in mind the singular meaning and relevancy of the Parthenon Sculptures to the Greek people.\u00a0 Perikles convinced the Athenians to fund construction of the Parthenon to commemorate Athens\u2019 victory over the Persian invaders at the Battle of Marathon.\u00a0 Despite being hugely outnumbered, the Athenian army lost a mere 192 soldiers to the Persian casualties of 6400and gave credit for their unlikely victory to the goddess Athena.\u00a0 Had Athens lost that battle in 490 B.C., the entire story of Western civilization might have taken a different turn.\u00a0 Democracy, then in its infancy, may have been crushed once and for all and remembered as an historical footnote similar to other failed utopian experiments.<\/p>\n

In his famous Funeral Oration, Perikles laid out the tenants of democratic thinking and culture, stating that the Athenians did not need a Homer to tell their story; rather, \u201cthese imperishable monuments\u201d would speak for the greatness of their civilization, culture, and way of life.<\/p>\n

In deciding the case of the Parthenon Sculptures we must ask not only the question of who owns art, but who owns democracy and freedom?\u00a0 It might be argued that the British have carried on these traditions through time with more efficacy and dedication than the Greeks.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, the British people\u2014as opposed to the British Museum\u2014seem determined to see justice for the Greeks.\u00a0\u00a0 A recent opinion poll revealed that out of 99,340 people polled, a massive 91,822 voted in favor of returning the marbles.\u00a0 Cambridge University has hosted a debate on the issue, and the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures won with overwhelming numbers.<\/p>\n

If the marbles are returned to Greece\u2014and it seems to me that eventually, this will happen\u2014it should not be done on the basis of returning \u201ccolonial booty,\u201d as Elgin\u2019s present-day detractors have labeled it.\u00a0 Nor should the return open the doors of museums worldwide and empty the galleries of non-native art.\u00a0 These sculptures are a unique and special case, symbols to the world of the greatness that may rise out of a society that values both art and freedom.\u00a0 The return should happen simply because it would be thrilling to see a now-divided architectural wonder made whole again.<\/p>\n

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STEALING ATHENA, my novel about the 2300 year journey of the contrversial \u00a0Elgin Marbles, is written from the perspectives of two of history’s most fascinating women. Now, another fascinating women, \u00a0Amal Alamuddin Clooney, has joined the legal team arguing for restoration of \u00a0the marbles (aka The Parthenon Sculptures) to Greece. \u00a0It’s a complex issue with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,9,7,12,11,4],"tags":[115,117,122,112,86,121,120,116,118,113,114,119],"class_list":["post-996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-books","category-history","category-power","category-stealing-athena","category-women","tag-amal-alamuddin-clooney","tag-amal-clooney","tag-aspasia","tag-elgin-marbles","tag-karen-essex","tag-lady-elgin","tag-lord-elgin","tag-mrs-george-clooney","tag-new-acropolis-museum","tag-parthenon-sculptures","tag-stealing-athena-2","tag-the-acropolis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=996"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1015,"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/996\/revisions\/1015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karenessex.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}