Who Owns History? | A Second Look Podcast

The Parthenon Marbles Debate

• The Parthenon galleries in the British Museum house significant artifacts of the ancient world, including the Parthenon marbles, also known as the Elgin marbles, which are at the center of a modern debate (42s).
• The Parthenon marbles are roughly 90 large pieces of sculpted marble taken from the Acropolis in Athens by men working for British Ambassador Lord Elgin in the first decade of the 19th century (59s).
• The marbles are now in the British Museum in London, and the Greeks want them back, a dispute that has become one of the longest custody disputes in cultural history (1m17s).
• In 2002, Greece was preparing to host the Olympics and was trying to reclaim its national treasures, but the British Museum was not willing to return the marbles, citing that they were acquired legally and have been in the museum since 1816 (1m42s).
• The dispute has grown in the 20 plus years since, with museums being called to account for how they acquired items, and the British Museum and the Greek government remain at a standstill (2m6s).
• The debate has led to a reckoning, with museums being forced to reconsider their stewardship of art taken from other countries, and a shift in attitude towards protecting cultural artifacts (2m33s).
• The story of the Parthenon marbles is an international dispute that mixes competing claims of ownership, museums, culture, and controversy (3m17s).
• The marbles are one of the British Museum's greatest attractions, inspiring awe and sometimes other emotions in the 5 million people who visit each year (3m35s).
• The controversy remains heated and is changing shape, with the British Museum and the Greek government still at odds over the return of the marbles (3m59s).
• The Parthenon sculptures are currently fragmented, with some on display at the Acropolis Museum in Athens and others at the British Museum in London, resulting in an incomplete story when viewed separately (4m25s).
• The sculptures have been referred to by different names, including the Parthenon sculptures, Parthenon marbles, and Elgin marbles, with the latter being traditionally used in Britain due to their acquisition by Lord Elgin (4m55s).
• The British Museum refers to them as the Parthenon sculptures, while some people, especially those campaigning for their return, call them the Parthenon marbles to distinguish them from the ones in Athens (5m23s).
• The sculptures were very important to the British Museum, serving as a centerpiece to the collection when they were acquired in 1816 and helping to cement the museum's reputation and authority (5m47s).
• For the Greek people, the marbles are an important part of their cultural heritage, symbolizing their link to classical Athens and the development of democracy, mathematics, science, drama, and literature (6m24s).
• The marbles are considered a source of national pride, and their removal is seen as a loss of cultural identity (7m6s).

Melina Mercouri's Campaign

• Jules Dassin, an American film director, became an honorary Greek citizen and supported the return of the marbles, with his wife, Melina Mercouri, a Greek actress and later Minister of Culture, leading a campaign for their return in the 1980s (7m12s).
• Melina Mercouri emphasized the importance of preserving a nation's culture, citing the influence of American culture worldwide and the need for Greece to reconnect with its roots (8m10s).
• Melina Mercouri, a Greek actress and politician, described the Parthenon marbles as "our pride," "our sacrifices," and "our noblest symbol of Excellence," and she took her fight for their return to the United Nations, hoping to see them back in Athens before she died (8m58s).
• Hundreds of thousands of people attended Mercouri's funeral in Athens in 1994, and local newspapers called her the "last Greek goddess," with Jules Dason starting a foundation in her honor to continue her fight for the marbles (9m25s).

The Ownership Dispute

• Both Greece and the British Museum claim ownership of the Parthenon marbles, with the British Museum arguing that they were lawfully acquired at the time, having obtained permission from the Ottoman authorities and being vested in the trustees of the British Museum by a British act of parliament in 1816 (9m59s).
• The Greek government questions the validity of the contract made with the Ottoman Empire, as Greece did not exist as a country at the time, and they consider the marbles to have been stolen by Lord Elgin (10m45s).
• The British Museum has offered to return the marbles on a long-term loan, but the Greeks have resisted this idea, feeling that it would be like asking for something that already belongs to them (11m14s).
• The British Museum also objects to returning the sculptures, citing concerns that it would encourage similar requests from other countries for the return of objects they consider unique to their national heritage (11m56s).

Description of the Marbles

• The Parthenon marbles include 92 metopes, which are ornate panels that adorned the upper area of the Parthenon, telling a story along the outside of the building, with each metope being a scene from the story (12m26s).
• The Parthenon marbles debate is likened to the mythological battle between centaurs and Lapiths, where two sides are locked in combat, each thinking they have the upper hand, but are actually stuck, reflecting the conflict over the ownership of the marbles (13m7s).

The Removal of the Marbles

• The Greeks may be making advances in the battle of global public opinion, with public pressure forcing collectors, auction houses, and institutions like the British Museum to reconsider where the marbles belong (14m2s).
• Both the British Museum and the Greeks have an attachment to past glory, which is a significant factor in the debate (14m17s).
• The removal of the Parthenon marbles from Athens took over 10 years to complete, with roughly 90 large pieces of sculpted marbles being removed, weighing a significant amount (14m40s).
• The marbles were removed by sawing and chiseling, with visible marks still present on the blocks, which can be seen at the Acropolis Museum (15m9s).
• The Greeks take offense to the fact that Lord Elgin's team left behind the main part of the blocks and only took the sculpted parts, which were then transported to England on a succession of ships, with one ship sinking and the marbles being underwater for about 2 years (15m20s).

Lord Elgin's Role

• The present Earl of Elgin, Andrew Douglas Alexander Thomas Bruce, has a collection at his family estate, Broom Hall, which includes some of the Parthenon marbles, and has been the subject of a 60-minute story (16m6s).
• Lord Elgin had originally planned to decorate Broom Hall with the marbles as part of his private collection but later sold them to the British House of Commons due to financial difficulties, which is how they ended up in the British Museum (16m59s).
• Not all of Lord Elgin's peers agreed that the marbles belonged in the United Kingdom, with some questioning their removal from Greece (17m15s).
• Lord Byron, a great romantic poet and fellow aristocrat of Lord Elgin, wrote scathing verse attacking Elgin for taking pieces from Greece, stating he shouldn't have done so (17m28s).
• The pieces were invested with controversy from around 1812-1815, with over 200 years of debate following, including a debate in Parliament when it was decided to acquire the pieces for the British Museum in 1816 (18m1s).
• During the Parliamentary debates, some MPs called Elgin a crook, saying his actions were equivalent to spoliation, while others saw him as a savior who acquired the pieces to save them from the local population (18m19s).
• Lord Elgin claimed his original plan was to make drawings and plaster casts of the sculptures, but he decided to take what he could when he saw the Turks defacing them, believing he was rescuing the pieces (18m42s).
• Elgin's great-great-grandson stated in a 2002 60-minute story that the Parthenon sculptures or marbles in London were dug up and rescued, not removed from the Parthenon (19m9s).
• There is evidence to support the view that Elgin's men were rescuing the pieces, as some of the sculptures that remained in Athens were badly damaged during the war of independence and by pollution (19m29s).

The British Museum's Perspective

• The British Museum tells its visitors that the removal of the sculptures was a rescue operation that saved the pieces, which is part of a broader debate about who has the right to display antiquities and who is the most responsible caretaker (20m0s).
• The Greeks have taken down most of the remaining sculptures from the Parthenon, some of which were so badly damaged by pollution that they have to be displayed in nitrogen-filled cases (20m17s).
• The Acropolis Museum in Athens, which did not exist at the time, is now a world-class museum that could display all the pieces in their perfect places, leading to a change in the debate about the location of the Parthenon marbles (20m51s).
• The Parthenon marbles are displayed at the Acropolis Museum exactly as they would have appeared on the building when it was constructed in the fifth century BC, creating a perfect reflection of the pieces (21m33s).

Other Disputed Artifacts

• The Benin bronzes were looted by British troops in 1897 from Benin City in West Africa and are now part of the British Museum's collection, with Nigeria making an official claim for their restitution within the last four or five years (21m56s).
• The Rosetta Stone, discovered by Napoleon's egyptologists around 1800, helped the West translate hieroglyphs, but Egypt has never filed a formal claim for it, instead making pleas for its return (22m32s).
• The majority of the British Museum's collection is uncontroversial, with only a few pieces, such as the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon marbles, and the Benin bronzes, being disputed (23m5s).

Post-Imperial Mentality

• Some people in British society believe that the country should keep these artifacts, citing a double standard and comparing it to the US government's treatment of Native American land (23m30s).
• This mentality may be a leftover from the post-imperial period, with the British holding on to certain pieces as a way to maintain their link to the past and show their strength (23m55s).
• Both the British Museum and the Greeks have an important attachment to past glory, with the Greeks looking back to the fifth century BC and the British to the 19th century Victorian era (24m18s).

Shifting Attitudes and Approaches

• The discussion around the ownership of historical artifacts has heated up in recent years, with a new generation of museum directors and staff taking a more open outlook on the world and seeking to build relationships with communities and countries of origin (24m58s).
• The British Museum's ownership dispute over the Parthenon Marbles led to the museum wanting to start a new relationship with Greece and find realistic solutions, as stated months after the British prime minister cancelled a meeting with his Greek counterpart (25m23s).

The Case of Cambodia's Cultural Treasures

• A more recent battle over cultural heritage involves the theft of Cambodia's cultural treasures, with thousands of sacred stone, bronze, and gold artifacts stolen from religious sites across the country, potentially being the greatest art heist in history (25m52s).
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has one of the most important collections of Cambodian Antiquities in the world, but many of the finest pieces on display were stolen, with the looting beginning nearly a century ago when Cambodia was colonized by France (26m26s).
• The looting became a global business in the 1970s, '80s, and '90s amidst genocide, civil war, and political turmoil, with many of the Cambodian Antiquities being removed from their original sites in pieces (26m53s).
• The story of the Parthenon Marbles and the Cambodian Antiquities share a common theme, with people feeling a great sense of pride in their country's cultural history and the return of these pieces being healing for them (27m38s).
• Most people visiting the Met are unaware that the Cambodian Antiquities on display were looted, with no knowledge of the history behind the pieces or the temples they came from (28m2s).
• Brad Gordon, an American lawyer, teamed up with a small group of Cambodian investigators to figure out who looted the temples and how the art ended up in homes, auction houses, and museums overseas (28m16s).
• Gordon took Anderson Cooper and his team deep into Cambodia to the remote temples, showing them the scars of plunder, including hacked-off heads of statues, stolen bodies, and empty pedestals (28m36s).
• The temples in Cambodia are thousands in number, with some being very well-known, and are beautiful, but many have been looted, with the scars of plunder running deep (29m17s).
• A remote temple in Cambodia, PanAm Sandak, was visited, which is difficult to access and requires a helicopter ride and a hike to reach, featuring pedestals with remnants of a great place of worship, with many statues having their feet hacked off by looters for easy removal (29m32s).
• The looters, often gangs of Cambodian men, would spend weeks at remote temples using various tools to find and dig out treasures, with some later feeling they had committed a spiritual crime and wanting to make amends (30m25s).
• Brad Gordon's team tracked down the leader of a gang of looters, who explained their methods and helped lead investigators to western art dealers, including British collector Douglas Latchford (30m25s).
• Latchford portrayed himself as a scholar and protector of Cambodian culture, donating sculptures to prestigious institutions, but many of the artifacts he published in his books were stolen (31m21s).
• The argument has been made that museums, as custodians of artifacts, protect and showcase them, but this attitude is shifting, with the Metropolitan Museum of Art starting to reevaluate its collection and return stolen items (31m46s).
• The Met had a "don't ask, don't tell" policy when building its collection, but is now cooperating with law enforcement and returning stolen artifacts, including 14 sculptures returned to Cambodia (32m21s).
• The Met's deputy director for collections and administration, Andrea Bayer, stated that the museum is committed to responsible collecting and shared stewardship of cultural heritage, but the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts claims the Met still has 49 stolen antiquities in its collection (32m43s).

The Moral Argument and Museum Practices

• There has been a shift in the way museums approach the ownership of historical artifacts, with a growing examination of the moral argument and what the right thing to do is, particularly in regards to items that were acquired through questionable means (33m33s).
• Former museum directors, such as Thomas Hoving, were previously proud of their methods of collecting pieces, even referring to it as "piracy," but this attitude is now being reevaluated (33m51s).
• Museums are facing a public relations problem, with many people viewing them as repositories of stolen goods, and they must take action to address their past mistakes in order to avoid becoming obsolete (34m34s).

Spiritual Significance and Repatriation

• The Cambodian minister of culture believes that the Temple's statues carry a powerful meaning and have a spiritual significance, with the statues being seen as having a "soul" and being able to "watch" and "hear" (35m11s).
• When statues are returned to Cambodia, they are received with great reverence and are met with a ceremony, including monks blessing the artifacts, highlighting the spiritual significance of these objects to the Cambodian culture (35m40s).
• The return of the Parthenon marbles to Greece is uncertain, with it requiring goodwill and a willingness to take risks on both sides, as noted by Alexander Herman, who referenced the words of poet Seamus Heaney, "sometimes you have to walk on air against your better judgment" (36m28s).

Podcast Credits and Closing

• The podcast team would like to express gratitude to the team at CBS News archives for their assistance in making the podcast possible (38m4s).
• The host of the podcast is Seth D (38m12s).
• There will be no new episode of "A Second Look" the following week, but the podcast will return the week after that, on a Tuesday (38m16s).
• Listeners are encouraged to catch up on any missed episodes and explore other CBS News podcasts available at cbsnews.com (38m27s).