The fight over the Parthenon Marbles
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Greece hopes to regain the ancient sculptures from the British Museum, which were taken from Athens two centuries ago by the Earl of Elgin.
Tamasin Ford is given a personal tour of the marbles by the museum. But Dr Elena Korka of the Greek Ministry of Culture expresses the outrage felt by her country at the loss of these national treasures, including statues that were physically dismembered in order for sections to be carted away.
Both sides assert a legal right to the marbles, although the matter has yet to be definitively settled. We hear the claims and counter-claims from barrister Geoffrey Robertson, as well as from Dr Tatiana Flessas, associate professor of law and the London School of Economics.
(Picture: A marble sculpture from the Parthenon in Athens depicting a battle between a centaur and a lapith, on display at the British Museum; Credit: Leon Neal/AFP via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Tamison Ford. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. They're more than 2,000 years old and at the heart of a fierce battle between Britain and Greece. We're talking about the section of the Parthenon Marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles, sitting at the British Museum. |
| 0:22.6 | After 200 years of being displayed in London, Athens is unrelenting in wanting them back. |
| 0:29.3 | It's definitely time. It has been time since 2009 when the museum opened its door, and this was the open invitation for the |
| 0:41.5 | Parthenon Marbles to return. But the British Museum is not budging. There's an incredible benefit |
| 0:48.9 | to seeing them here in the context of other ancient cultures that influenced them were influenced |
| 0:53.3 | by Greece. |
| 0:57.4 | And you see them in a very different light when you see them in Athens. |
| 0:58.5 | And I think both are valid. |
| 1:04.6 | The Parthenon may have lost their marbles, but today we're asking, should they get them back? |
| 1:07.6 | That's all in Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 1:15.4 | So they're all displayed at sort of head height so you can walk along and really get a good view of each of them. |
| 1:19.3 | Yes, exactly. |
| 1:20.1 | So we're standing here in front of part of the frieze, |
| 1:24.2 | and I think this is a nice example |
| 1:26.0 | where you get the sense of what the sculptor |
| 1:28.7 | of Fidias achieved in the mid-fifth century BC that hadn't been done before. |
| 1:33.4 | That's Neil Spencer from the British Museum, showing me around the Parthenon Gallery. |
| 1:39.0 | More than 200 years ago, Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, |
| 1:44.9 | stripped the intricately ornate marble from the Parthenon in Athens. |
| 1:50.3 | Nearly 250 feet of it, that's around 80 metres. |
| 1:55.1 | It included parts of the frieze that ran along the top of the temple, |
| 1:59.1 | as well as sculptures from the pediment. |
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