please empty your brain below
Has Sunak lost his marbles over stolen marbles? Maybe to restore his sanity he should send them back.

TW | 29.11.23 - 7:11 a.m. | #

If the Marbles are here illegally, maybe we should send them to Rwanda.

Solar Penguin | 29.11.23 - 8:11 a.m. | #

Somehow I have only spent an hour of my life in the British Museum. For someone who is not completely culturally bereft, and who has lived in easy visiting distance for three quarters of my life, this does feel somewhat remiss.

When I went I did the big hitters - or rather the only two things I could tell you were in the British Museum without looking it up: The Marbles and the Rosetta Stone.

Maybe one day I will head back again and see what I missed. I certainly hope if I do that the Marbles are no longer there. In the meantime I will visit museums that are more relevant to my cultural interests, or that are less overwhelmingly large.

Kirk | 29.11.23 - 8:14 a.m. | #

If we clear out the gallery, there would be space to display the Bayeaux Tapestry - or to use a more neutral name, the Norman Conquest Tapestry - which is an essential record of British history from almost a millenium ago, made in England, but for some reason it is still in France.

Andrew | 29.11.23 - 8:22 a.m. | #

Chop them up to the proper size for marbles, then put them in a side room for the kids to play, leaving the interesting stuff for adults to enjoy.

scrumpy | 29.11.23 - 9:12 a.m. | #

I remember joining a group campaigning for their return after I first went to Greece in 1985. The argument used to be that the Greeks couldn't look after them. Ridiculous to begin with. Now they have a climatically controlled museum, they're much better placed to do so than we are. I cannot believe we are still even discussing it TBH. IMHO The British Museum Act 1963 shouldn't apply to them anyway as we would be returning them to their rightful owners, not flogging them off.

Pamela | Homepage | 29.11.23 - 9:18 a.m. | #

I have sympathy with the arguments for returning them to Greece.

Museums and their foreign possessions are an interesting wider argument though, seeing that most major museums in the West are stuffed with treasures from the world.

Mikey C | 29.11.23 - 9:30 a.m. | #

I used to walk in one end, out the other without really stopping, just glancing around as I carried on through. Sadly all those queues have put pay to that.

ap | 29.11.23 - 9:32 a.m. | #

Trade them for olive oil .

Robert | 29.11.23 - 9:34 a.m. | #

The basic problem here is Greece having its independence in the first place. That in itself was largely down to British do-gooders, some of them the "woke" poets of the day, inspired by misguided notions of the ancient world. Greece basically would not have its independence had it not been for the British, and it's about time that was recognised. Greek independence also set off a whole unravelling of the Ottoman Empire, leading to untold problems in its former territories - continuing to this very day. So undoubtedly the best thing would be to re-instate the Ottoman Empire to its fullest extent - it's simple common sense!

cau1khead | 29.11.23 - 9:43 a.m. | #

Give back all the stuff that was 'collected' without permission - particularly artifacts that still have a religious significance to indigenous peoples.

Sunak is clearly not reading the room here...

steve | 29.11.23 - 9:43 a.m. | #

Exact copies could be made for the BM and the real marbles could be sent back to Greece and restored to their rightful place. The whole cancellation rubbish with Sunak is yet another thinly disguised appeal to populism. Put Johnny Foreigner is his place.

Johnny Topaz | 29.11.23 - 9:57 a.m. | #

I am disappointed that you have been duped into contributing to this dead cat scheme. Yes of course the stolen marbles should be returned, and visiting prime ministers should be treated civilly, but none of this should be allowed to take headlines away from the awful things happening in the Middle East, Ukraine and the Covid Enquiry.

Malcolm of Kent | 29.11.23 - 10:23 a.m. | #

The problem with sending everything back is that you would have a museum that plays right into the hands of the "only the English do stuff you could stick in a museum" mob.

Simon | Homepage | 29.11.23 - 10:31 a.m. | #

Metopes are the square plaques on the wall like in the last photo, of the story of centaurs and lapiths, with these squares originally displayed on the Parthenon between triglyphs below the pediment statues. The statues on the two ends of the room are the pediment statues rather than metopes.

dg writes: tweaked, thanks.

Suffolker | Homepage | 29.11.23 - 11:19 a.m. | #

Send them to North Macedonia to make up for the Greek's pettiness about their name. That would really stir things up in the region.

James | 29.11.23 - 12:50 p.m. | #

Just saying "We won't change now because it was OK then" isn't a valid argument. There are lots of things that were OK at the time but aren't now. And lots of things *have* changed.

Jon Jones | 29.11.23 - 1:45 p.m. | #

Offering "cultural" asylum to artefacts that are in danger in their countries of origin is a laudable aim (and a gap felt in recent times, with significant losses of important artefacts).

When the situation is safe, the items that were in "asylum" should be returned.

MilesT | 29.11.23 - 2:57 p.m. | #

For anyone that can access Australia’s ABC television iview player, watch Stuff The British Stole. Rather interesting and sad. These belongings mean more to where they came from than where they are now

Sinners | 29.11.23 - 4:03 p.m. | #

You're being a little hard in saying the 17th century incident was entirely the Greeks' fault. I don't suppose they asked the Ottomans to invade or the Venetians to fire. But I agree with your conclusion - send them back.

Peter | 29.11.23 - 5:15 p.m. | #

"The British Museum should be a repository of Britishness, the things that made Britain great."

What's greater than the Empire On Which The Sun Never Set? Which brought centuries of enlightenment to those teeming millions who were unfortunate enough not to be born British?

Pointing out the fact that that we 'borrowed' a few things off them that we later forgot to return, or that things were 'sold' to us when the sellers didn't have the right to sell them or didn't understand what they were signing, is just the sort of socialist flummery that is Doing Britain Down ((c) Daily Heil). And it is not the sort of thing that a responsible blogger should be promoting.

Yours sincerely,
Herbert Gussett, Maj (Retd.)

Graham | 29.11.23 - 8:28 p.m. | #

The British Museum it itself is a bit overwhelming. Far too many things (stolen or not) in a single building -- not helped by the crowds on busy days.

There also seems to be a bit of quantity over quality regarding the information on exhibits. Small provincial museums in the south of France have better information explaining what you're actually seeing and their historical importance whereas the British Museum just feels like a big trophy collection. I don't quite know why that's the case. Perhaps because it isn't the UK's history for the most part, there isn't really much care in the world to properly give it the information it deserves when displayed in a museum.

matthieu1221 | 29.11.23 - 10:03 p.m. | #

Give them back, but let’s be nice and give them a good scrub and a lick of emulsion to brighten them up to show our goodwill.

Herbof | 29.11.23 - 10:13 p.m. | #

If this is what you take for witty prose and social comment, it's no wonder your wife left you.

Herbog | 29.11.23 - 10:39 p.m. | #

I get the feeling Herbog is not a regular visitor to the blog!

Paul | 29.11.23 - 10:55 p.m. | #

I know Graham is being sarcastic but unfortunately his words has described at least half of my genuine thoughts.

Patrickov | 30.11.23 - 1:12 a.m. | #

Since we took them from the Ottomans we should send them back... to Turkey

TomH | 30.11.23 - 6:46 a.m. | #

You must have been in a bad mood,

rich | 30.11.23 - 9:56 a.m. | #

History tend to leave out the women. It this case Mary Nesbit the Countess of Elgin. Her biography says that whilst accompanying her husband on diplomatic duty she struck the deal with Napoleon, and arranged the removal of the friezes from the Parthenon. It was her fabulous wealth that helped acquire marbles. Lord Elgin was forced to sell the collection to the British Museum (at a loss) to pay for the divorce that followed Mary's affair with Lord Elgin's best friend. The public scandal of its day.

Rod | 30.11.23 - 10:06 a.m. | #

Absolutely Diamond! They ARE rubbish. If the Greeks will pay to take them away then that's a win win scenario.

Tim | 30.11.23 - 8:40 p.m. | #

Sounds very much like a Harry Potter Goblin issue

Martin | 03.12.23 - 3:04 p.m. | #











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