ไม่สามารถเล่นวิดีโอนี้
ขออภัยในความไม่สะดวก
Historian David Starkey gives his view on the Elgin Marbles debate
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ส.ค. 2024
- Watch on TV: Virgin 604, Freesat 216, Sky 512, Freeview 236, YouView 236
Listen on DAB+ Radio
Download the GB News App to watch live wherever you are, catch up with all our shows and get the latest news from the GBN family. www.gbnews.uk/...
Don't forget to follow us on social media too!
Twitter: / gbnews
Facebook: / gbnewsonline
Instagram: / gbnewsonline
LinkedIn: / gb-news
TikTok: / gbnews
On a visit to the Parthenon in the 1960's, our Greek guide praised Lord Elgin for saving the marbles for posterity by taking them to Britain.
Yes, that's great that he saved them. But they are part of the patrimony of Greece which can now probably safely retain them.
I dare say you are correct, but it's a thorny question world wide - do we all return all exhibits to their original country or area? If we all do that, then people generally will never be able to look at, admire and understand artifacts from countries other than their own.
@@malcolmmeddings8502 It likely is a case by case matter; but in the case of the Marbles it seems to me Greece can now properly care for them. Get ready for this first world view: people can travel, we have the internet-these permit exposure to many things. I understand that the entire globe is not so fortunate. From an English perspective think about if the USA had the Lindesfarne Gospels?
I'm not advocating for or against - just raising the question. I would like to see museums sharing their artifacts, as happened with the Tutankhamen show. Again, that's not an easy route, but would allow the objects to be seen by the maximum number of diverse people. Please don't forget - we can't all travel the world. As for the Marbles, it would be good to see them back on the Parthenon. We need a compromise solution.
Well the Ottomans were going to dynamite them
the danger is that if the marbles are returned you could end up with a version of supermarket sweep and the antiques roadshow where the museum gets emptied.
The "stolen" needs to be qualified. The Pitt ri ers museum in Oxford details how pieces were acquired if you want to know. The majority were gifts.
@@charlytaylor1748 the problem is on the definition of the word gift. its a gift today but tomorrow you do not have the right to that will be argued. don't forget stuff is worth millions. any king/ leader and give something but 50 years later its people could want it back.
@@piershartley8676 how many gifts do you usually return?
Once you send all the artifacts back the next stage is to send the people back.
Britain was given permission to remove them by the government of Greece at the time. It's an open and shut case to me.
@Charles White And none of it needed to be hacked off and brought here. Those marbles belong there, because they were an integral part of the building.
@Charles White And, equally likely, Ottomans could have ruled England got rid of the statues. These belong to the site, they were meant to be there. And Greece is a free nation with no imminent threats.
British was given permission to remove them as they was concerned it would get damaged by the ottomans. So no it’s not an open and shut case at all.
@Charles White Yeah. Great logic. These were meant to be there and suit the place. Why would returning hem be a bad thing and not a good thing?
So which treasure n the national gallery was meant to be there is integral/intrinsic to the place?
[[You lost me totally on why "equally likely, Ottomans could have ruled England" ??]]
Because Elgin saving them is a nonsensical excuse. 1001 could have happened to them in England.
@@AminTheMystic 'And none of it needed to be hacked off.' Perhaps you are simply unaware of the circumstances of the time. Greece was a province of the Ottoman Empire, which cared little about the Parthenon or the sculptures on it, which were being broken up fro use as hard core.
Had Elgin not acted as he did, the problem, would not have existed. Neither would the Marbles.
Any chance we get credit for saving Greece from becoming a property of the Third Reich?
The Marbles would have been destroyed LONG AGO if they had not been taken by Lord Elgin. Greece should be thrilled that they still exist. They shall remain in the UK for safekeeping.
Yet, they weren't. As weren't many other things.
When's that "LONG AGO" exactly, cause they stood there for 2250 years and the ones Elgin didn't "safekeep" are still in Athens and are treated better than the British Museum did when it tried to "clean" them with primitive chisels and wire-brushes in the 1930s damaging them significantly.
Its rediculous to claim that works of art only belong within the country that create them. When Lord Elgin saved these treasures the Parthenon was being used for target practise by the Ottoman turks. Elgin also paid the authorities handsomely for these pieces and in doing so saved them from destruction. Also, ancient Greece is a fundamental part of European civilisation, and in the British museum it is on free display to the whole world.
No they had been there for 2250 years(including over 340 years under the Ottomans by that point) before Elgin "saved" them. He also did not pay anything to the authorities, they let him access for free, but only to draw sketches and make moulds to create copies. They Ottomans granted the request because Britain had earlier helped them against Napoleon, but in 1809 when the new British ambassador arrived they denied having ever authorised Elgin to remove any statues and ship them to Scotland.
@@ntonisa6636
These accusations were fully investigated by a House of Commons select committee in 1816 and after studying all the evidence it was judged he obtained them legally. This evidence including the official Firmin which states that Elgin had full permission to sketch and take casts and any stones inscription or figures he wanted and was not to be impeded in his task. Elgin then removed them with all the Ottoman officials and Military watching and no one stopped him because he had full permission and they had been told not to. Therefore, after seeing all this evidence It was judged that Elgin had removed them legally. Which then allowed Elgin to sell them to the British Museum for £35,000 which was less than half the £74,240 that they had originally cost him. This is the equivalent to nearly £5million in today's money. So its rediculous to claim he stole them, in fact it would be impossible under the eyes of the Ottomans unless they did give their permission, and no thief pays to steal goods.
@@johnbrereton5229 well I don't think I used the word steal this time and yes this passion project cost him a lot of money but that was paid to his own people for the "excavation" that took years and the later two year rescue operation to retrieve the treasures from the bottom of the sea after one of his ships sank on the way back. And yes all things considered he end up selling it to the British Museum rather cheap but the authenticity of the supposed "firman" or rather a certain translated version of it since he wasn't able to produce the original and none was ever found in the ottoman achives is still disputed by modern scholars both in with regards to its authenticity as among other problems it lacks the Sultan's seal as well as in terms of how its wording should be interpreted and by extension the degree to which it was correctly observed.
MATERIAL CULTURE... exactly right David. And the theft of Jewish-owned (but not Jewish-made) art by the Nazis has no bearing on the Marbles.
Ridiculous that anyone would consider returning the marbles if they do the UK should have the return of the Danegeld
and so on and so forth
The Danegeld didn't go to Scandiavia. It would be the South West of England trying to get reparations from the North East. Good luck with that one. Or how about re-invading Normandy to get revenge for the Harrowing of the North by William?
I have no education,but even I realize," where would the Marbel's be now had they been left in Greece ?"
@@laurielovett8849 they would be in Greece right next to the ones Elgin didn't steal.
If, as the liberal-left claims, there are no coherant countries, peoples or cultures then why exactly does it matter where the Elgin marbles are? As an English nationalist I perfectly understand why the Greeks want them back. But it is a genuine question and it applies to the Ko-hi-noor diamond as well. If concepts of national identity & ancestral right are fundamentally illegitimate then what is the moral basis by which these ownership claims are asserted?
I think the British Museum should only agree to ancient artefacts being taken out of England and returned to wherever they came from if the people from a bunch of other lands who've got no connection to Britain other than their love of our 4 star hotels go with them. Deal?
Deal 🇬🇷🤝🇬🇧
P.S. I believe we have no legal obligation to return the Elgin Marbles.
Why don’t they play with their own marbles
If the Elgin Marbles were bought from Greece, then they should buy them back from the UK. End of.
They were purchased from the ottoman empire as the Turks had control of Greece at the time, that's one of the arguments they put forward that the Turks didn't have a right to sell them, but in reality buying them saved them
@@anthonyphillips2874 yes true! Weren't the Turks using them for target practice, and Lord Elgin bought them in order to save them......
So the British have done some good in the world then. Nice to hear some positive news.
Saying "end of" does not validate an argument.
@@carolinejohnson22 yes something like that, I remember that they were storing ammunitions that exploded causing a lot of damage, they may have had a different concept of history then, it was the Americans and British that created our current way of viewing ancient Greece
Elgin didn't take the marbles for any reason other than as decorations for his house, WTF is this guy talking about? He got a divorce and was forced for financial reasons to sell them in 1816 to the museum. The high minded argument being presented here is just rubbish.
STILL SAVING THE SAVAGES FROM THEMSELVES
The savage... Greeks?
@@Jim63071 everybody is a savage to the english especially if youve got some nice resources
The hazard of succumbing to self-serving rationalisation was not avoided.
"God is a human invention" says the man "invented" by God. You'd think he'd have a little more respect talking to a man of the cloth. Starkey is a remarkably erudite and fluent intellectual but he is also pompously opinionated at times and blinded by an arrogant assumption that he is right on everything.
What do you expect him to say? If he doesn't believe in the existence of the Christian God, then OF COURSE he believes that human beings created this god and all other gods. You want him to pretend to be a believer just because he's talking to a "man of the cloth"?
"...arrogant assumption that he is right on everything" - as, indeed, is the Church!
Is there any thing you don't know? Dr.Starkey you truly are a valuable treasure
Give them copies.
Give them the real ones. Thy are all broke.
We already have
So if I erect a plaque on my house, and some tourist decides they want to take it and exhibit it in the US that's OK is it? Starkey is almost saying we are British so we can do what we like, and historical culpability is irrelevant because we are British. Nobody brought them to Europe, they were already there. Scholars do travel as far as I am aware.
No way could Elgin have moved them without local officials knowing about it. They should be returned, but the "stolen" rhetoric should be dropped.
Taking a diamond out of the crown jewels, cutting bits off iconic buildings etc etc that would be theft and vandalism but cutting marble pieces from the Parthenon is all good. Make copies and give them back so they can be displayed where they're meant to be.
They have had a far greater cultural and intellectual impact being in London than in Athens. They were created by an empire in the first place, the weak suffer what they must.
Are we going to go all the way through English gentlemen ? We did more good for the world than any of the woke joke blacks have ever done.
Tim
T& J
Reparations for the Irish.
Good luck to the Greeks in their efforts to restore these national treasures to their rightful home.
Wonderful video and please have more of your discussions in future - very interesting as always. I think Professor Mary Beard would be a wonderful addition also.
PDS is again entirely correct that the idea a moral compass is in some way borne out of the Judeo-Christian traditions is i think absurd.
The host evidently has other beliefs and that is of course absolutely fine inside a pluralistic society that has room for open minded free thinkers as opposed to those who believe in scripture of a book.
The ability to determine right from wrong is a process human beings encounter and i resent the hosts view that in some way human beings in this country are almost conditioned (favourably so) to be better people having been subjected to Sunday school lectures or whatever songs ate sung from a book in assembly.
I think Peter Hitchens is also pretty much of the view give or take ad the host and i disagree with him also - as a human being i am capable (or not) of developing a moral compass without a sermon every week - thanks.
Finally, i think it is a shame (having said that) the former Sabbath has been lost to consumerism and whether you are religious or not i think Sunday’s were a time for public houses to have ‘lock in’s’ and kids basically roam and burn calories legally and from memory - safely, as opposed to having two Saturday’s as we have now in replacement of the old Sabbath.
On the other hand - we are extremely broke and i think that ship has sailed and so perhaps it is necessary to have a busier Sunday - it is a shame that is the case though.
Your segments are extremely enjoyable to
me - thank you.
Perhaps Mary Beard should be asked for her current opinion about 'Beachy Head Woman?' That would be an interesting interview.
What a load of rot.
@@aacmove What is?
the unrelated religious rant.
@@aacmove What religious rant?
They brought it to Europe 🙈🙈🙈🙈
Yea, I noticed that. This whole "debate" is a bit incoherent. He obviously believes the marbles should be kept in London, but gives no real reasons why. He just gives a personal opinion that they belong to the world. He's a globalist when it comes to marbles!
I spotted that gafffe also. Somewhat telling, in my opinion.
If its about keeping the loot then britain is europe, if its about brexit then britain is "essentialy different"...
Greece after centuries of Turkish rule isn't Europe anymore. Australia is next to Indonesia, it doesn't mean they have have a related culture.
I heard they were salvaged off a rubbish dump in Greece. Hence they were saved.
If the buildings of the Parthenon, the Erechtheum, the Temple of Apteros Nike and the Propylaea from which they were hacked by Elgin's minions are rubbish dumbs to you then yes.
Well we didn't blow the arms off them! Been a pretty unstable region for hundreds of years and would be for decades more after Elgin saved those pieces
160 million fraud
"I think after all this time, and the fact Greece is a stable country. It is time to try and fix this rape of European history" Christopher Hitchens.
I'm so glad everyone pronounced Elgin correctly. He kept them in his house so he could view them. I say give them back and try and restore the Parthenon
Hitchens is lucky he didn't live to see Greece in hock to China.
@@lumpyfishgravy Imagine if he looked around now 😔
A pity that Hitchens' actual knowledge of European history was either so incomplete or so skewed by prejudice.
@@lumpyfishgravy fair point.
@@dovetonsturdee7033 you must be thinking of Peter.
I am happy to discover this man's story and that his surname is marbles.
OK when are African countries going to give back all the stuff they nicked from each other don't worry I will wait
Stuff they nicked from each other, such as?
I'm unsure it's Anglo america.
Go David "God is man made" yes its true. It must be or why hasn't he spoke to me in 48 years? Englishness dosent have to be religious. Football, fish and chips, saying sorry, queing without complant. Moaning about the weather. Kings Queen medieval we have plenty of culture!
Have you ever sat down in silence and allowed Him to speak to you?
Just send them back
the affro and the dog collar is such a weird look😦😦
Whilst this man praises Elgins character and the theft of the marbles he fails to say Elgin traded in slaves .
Britain's colonial history has become a stain on modern Britain's future.
We should give back everything we stole from other countries , even lands .
That is quite some omelette you’re trying to unmake - how about instead of flagellating over the past we focus on the here and now? And I fail to see any relevance of slavery with the discussion of the marbles, is there some?
If you really cared about slavery you be in praise of the country that outlawed it first! And I think you'll find Britain helped Greece get it's independence from occupation twice. While also saving antiques that would be dust now. All in all, a great legacy for modern Britain's future.