Name: Why The British Museum Has The Parthenon Marbles
Uploaded: 2026-01-19T17:42:59.000Z
Duration: 9 min 36 s
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If you're lucky enough to travel to London, one of the things that you might want to do there is go to the British Museum.

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And if you go to the British Museum, you might enter this room of stunning ancient Greek sculptures.

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These are the Parthenon marbles, called that because they came from the Parthenon, the famous Temple of Athena built in the 5th century BCE, which is not in London, obviously, but

So how did sculptures that were attached to the Parthenon end up in a museum on the other side of Europe?

It's an interesting story, and it starts with this guy, Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin.

In 1798, Elgin was made British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, a position created to capitalize on the newfound friendship between Britain and the Ottoman.

T see, the Turks had long been allied with France, but

that relationship soured in 1798 when Napoleon invaded Egypt, a territory that the Turks had previously controlled.

And when Britain, in a war of their own with France, destroyed the French naval fleet at the Battle of the Nile.

Well, the enemy of my enemy is my new best friend.

This was the state of things when Elgin left for Constantinople in 1799.

Strengthening his country's relations with the Turks was at an important mission.

But in addition to this, Elgin assigned himself another mission, one he was even more passionate about.

Before he left, Elgin was chatting with his architect in Scotland, Thomas Harrison, who mentioned that this ambassadorship was a perfect opportunity to document classical architecture in Greece, another territory that the Turks controlled.

At this time, the Greek Revival was gaining popularity in Northern Europe, a movement that looked to Ancient Greece as the pinnacle of architecture.

And the pinnacle of ancient Greek architecture is the Parthenon.

Harrison suggested that Elgin bring a team to Greece to draw and make plaster molds of sculpture on the Parthenon for the benefit of artists and architects back home.

At least they didn't want to pay for this side mission, so Elgin paid for it himself.

In Sicily, he hired the Italian painter Giovanni Battista Lucieri to lead his cohort of artists and molders.

Lucieri was a popular landscape artist whose work was almost photorealistic, the perfect man for this job.

While Elgin settled in Constantinople doing diplomatic work, Lucieri and his team arrived in Athens in August 1800 to start work on the Acropolis.

Unfortunately, they were not allowed on the Acropolis without written permission, a contract known as a furman, which they didn't have at that time.

The Acropolis was serving as A military installation for the Turks, and

they were getting protective now that it looked like Napoleon was aiming to send reinforcements to Egypt.

In response to this, the British sent their own force to expel the French once and for all.

And in partnership with the Turks, they were successful driving Napoleon's forces to surrender on June 17, 1801, and

Now, this firman is the source of a lot of controversy, so it's worth looking at a little closer.

It was based on a memo written by Elgin's chaplain, Philip Hunt, that asked for three things.

One, permission to draw and make molds of the ancient architecture on the Acropolis.

Two, permission to erect scaffolding around that architecture, and

three, liberty to take away any sculptures or inscriptions which do not interfere with the works or walls of the Acropolis.

Elgin had not left England with the intention of bringing back parts of the Parthenon.

And in the actual firman, of which only an Italian translation still exists, the Turks echo his language when they say at the very end that no one should hinder them from taking away pieces of stone with inscriptions and figures.

Most likely, it was meant to allow Elgin's team to take pieces that had fallen off the Parthenon, of which there were many.

Back in 1687, Venetian forces trying to capture the Acropolis fired a mortar round into the Parthenon, which the Turks were then using to store gunpowder.

The resulting explosion knocked out the roof and made this ancient Greek temple that stood for so many centuries into a ruin, scattering pieces all over the ground.

Some of these pieces were used to make new Turkish homes.

Others were sold illegally to tourists looking for a souvenir.

But giving Elgin's team permission to take the pieces that remained was unprecedented for the Turks.

Still, Elgin decided to take it one step further.

After the firman was granted, he sent Hunt to Athens, who bribed and threatened local Turkish authorities to let the team remove sculptures that were still attached to the standing structure of the Parthenon.

Over the next decade, Elgin's team removed about half of the surviving sculptures on the Parthenon and shipped them back to Great Britain.

This included 21 figures from the east and West pediments, 15 metope panels and 246ft of the Parthenon frieze, which was originally a continuous narrative sculpture that ran around the outside of the inner wall.

In the process of These removals, Elgin's team did great damage to the Parthenon.

In a letter to Elgin, Lucieri even admitted that he was obliged to be a little barbarous.

More damage was done during the shipping phase.

In 1802, one of the ships carrying a load of marbles sank off the coast of Kythera.

It took two years to salvage them all at Elgin expense.

By the time all the marbles made it back to Great Britain, some stored at Broomhall in Scotland, others in London, Elgin had racked up a crushing amount of debt.

All told, he estimated expenses for this passion project at £74,000 northward of £5 million today.

But upon their return to Great Britain, she cheated on him and he was forced to divorce her, losing access to her family's money in the process.

The only option he had in the end was to sell the collection to the British government.

The matter was hotly debated in the House of Commons, after which they finally agreed to buy the marbles for £35,000, less than half of Elgin's expenses.

In 1816, the Parthenon sculptures finally passed into the hands of the British Museum, where they've been ever since.

A few years after this sale, the Greeks won independence from the Ottoman Empire.

And it wasn't long before they began to publicly lament the loss of the marbles that Elgin took.

The Parthenon is a national symbol of Greece, and

so many of the sculptures that belong to it reside in a faraway land.

For what it's worth, I believe that the British Museum should return the Parthenon marbles to Greece after 200 years.

It's about time that these treasures make the return journey.

If you want to read in greater detail about Elgin's exploits, I highly recommend William St.

Clair's authoritative book on the subject, Lord Elgin and the Marples.

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