The "Elgin Marbles" or "Parthenon Marbles" are a collection of classical Greek sculptures and friezes from the Parthenon and other buildings on the Athens Acropolis, many by Phidias and his pupils, which Lord Elgin had removed and shipped to England between 1801 and 1812.

Byron goes totally Balkan

He claimed to have received permission for his actions from the Ottoman authorites in the form of a firman (decree), although the original document has yet to be discovered. The "acquisition" of the Marbles was controversial, and Elgin's critics in Britain called it "pillage", "loot" and "vandalism". The poet and philhellene Lord Byron objected to such removal of antiquities generally, and to this one particularly, a sentiment reflected in his epic poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" (published 1812-1818):

Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behoved
To guard those relics ne'er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatch'd thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred!

Nevertheless, he appears to have had no qualms about accepting passage from Athens to Malta on one of the Royal Navy ships which carried off part of Elgin's booty to England in April 1811. (See The Cheshire Cat Blog, July 2011.)

Elgin offered to sell the Marbles to the British government, and following debate in Parliament and examination of the offer by a parliamentary committee in 1816, they were purchased for the British Museum (now exhibited in the museum's purpose-built Duveen Gallery). They proved a great sensation and a popular attraction, and have remained so ever since. Their popularity is further enhanced by occasional flair-ups in the press campaigns surrounding the ownership controversy.

Successive Greek governments have requested the return of the Marbles, claiming that their removal by Elgin was illegal and immoral, especially given that Greece was occupied by the Turkish Empire at the time.

The late 18th to mid 19th century was the heyday of private individuals, including Giovanni Battista Belzoni and Heinrich Schliemann, from rich Western countries digging up and carting off antiquities wholesale from around the Mediterranean and Middle East. Their motives, methods and scruples varied considerably.

It could be argued that if Elgin had not removed the Marbles, it is highly likely that somebody else would have. It is reported, for example, that Napoleon had a great interest in them and made Elgin a higher offer than the British Museum. This in itself is not a justification, but perhaps an indication of the inevitability of their removal under contemporary conditions.

Elgin himself made a strong defence for his actions, and subsequent commentators have also agreed that had the Marbles remained in situ they may have been damaged or destroyed by a number of factors, including:

1. The Acropolis was used as a military garrison by the Ottoman Turks and the occupying Germans during World War II, and as a foothold by Britsh paratroops during the attempted left-wing revolution of 1944. It has been damaged severely during sieges, battles and bombardments several times in recent history.

"... the Cyclopean masonry of the Mycenean strong point has been re-erected to protect an Axis gun-site and the mortar batteries of ELAS have left scars on the Acropolis that are already indistinguishable from those caused by Turkish gunners." Osbert Lancaster, Foreign Office press attaché at the British Embassy in Athens, 1944. From Classical Landscape with Figures, John Murray, London 1947.

2. During the Ottoman occupation, marble antiquities, including those on the Acropolis, were broken up or reduced by burning to lime for building materials. It is also reported that during the siege of the Acropolis by Greek independence fighters in 1822, the Turkish defenders melted the lead clamps used to secure marble architectural parts of ancient buildings to make bullets (see Athens Acropolis gallery, page 12).

3. Casual vandalism and theft of artefacts on and around the Acropolis continued from late antiquity into the late 20th century.

4. In more recent years, environmental pollution caused by industry and vehicle emissions has caused irreparable damage to many of Athens' antique monuments.

5. Let's not not forget earthquakes and other "acts of God".