A.Word.A.Day -- AWADmail Issue 1247

Dear Mr Lowe,

Thanks for your thoughtful note and for your kind words about Wordsmith.org. I’m delighted to hear it’s a hit with your students.

I don’t think “purchased from the ruling Ottoman Empire” quite describes what happened. Elgin claimed to have permission from Ottoman authorities to remove the sculptures. The British government later purchased the collection from Elgin.

It’s important to note that no such original permission document has been found. The British Museum claims to have an Italian translation of the original. As it happens, I have an English translation of a letter giving me permission to remove the Eiffel Tower to my backyard. I just don’t know where the original French letter went.

The British government’s purchase of the marbles from Elgin doesn’t erase the origin of the goods. Purchasing stolen property doesn’t make one the rightful owner if one has reason to suspect its shady provenance.

Re: “willingness to apply modern moral frameworks on a previous historical culture...” As I mentioned in the NOTES, Elgin’s actions were condemned in his own time as well, most famously by Byron, but also by other contemporaries and Members of Parliament who viewed it as outright vandalism. So this is not simply a case of imposing 21st-century values on people who could not have imagined such objections.

I appreciate your writing, and especially your note that the sculptures should be returned. On that, at least, we are in full agreement.

It is a shame that the persistent historical defense of their acquisition is exactly what gives institutions the cover they need to not return them to Greece.

Last Nov, while in Athens for the marathon, I visited the Acropolis Museum with its haunting, partially empty displays. When I asked a museum employee where the missing pieces were, she stared at me for a beat and said two words: “British Museum.” But the way she said it, it sounded an awful lot like “British F**king Museum.”

Best wishes,

Anu Garg

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
I should dearly love that the world should be ever so little better for my presence. Even on this small stage we have our two sides, and something might be done by throwing all one’s weight on the scale of breadth, tolerance, charity, temperance, peace, and kindliness to man and beast. We can’t all strike very big blows, and even the little ones count for something. -Arthur Conan Doyle, physician and writer (22 May 1859-1930)