How the Parthenon Lost Its Marbles

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How the Parthenon Lost Its Marbles
帕特农神庙是怎样失去大理石雕的
In 1801 a British nobleman stripped the Parthenon of many of its sculptures and took them to England. Controversy over their acquisition by the British Museum continues to this day. Was it preservation, or pillage?
1801年，一个英国贵族掠夺了帕特农神庙的许多雕塑，并将他们带回英国.他们被大英博物馆收购至今任有争议。这算是保护，还是掠夺？

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pillage:^{if soldiers pillage a place in a war, they steal a lot of things and do a lot of damage}
stripped ^{strip somebody of something : to take away something important from someone as a punishment, for example their title, property, or power}
Controversy
acquisition^{1.the process by which you gain knowledge or learn a skill}the acquisition of language; ^{2.the act of getting land, power, money etc //acquisition of}the acquisition of new sites for development.

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STILL STANDING The Parthenon had withstood centuries of abuse from outsiders when Lord Elgin removed its remaining sculptures in the early 1800s. An act of preservation or pillage?

During the 1700s, a European Grand Tour was a rite of passage for the sons of wealthy families. Lasting for up to three years, and taking in Switzerland Paris, and Rome, the high point of this secular pilgrimage for most travelers was Greece. On arriving in Athens, the first sight these young tourists would look for was the Acropolis and its crowning glory: the pillared Parthenon, dedicated to the warrior goddess Athena.
在1700 年代，欧洲豪华之旅是富人家庭儿子的通过仪式。要持续三年，一般去瑞士，巴黎和罗马，对大多数的旅行者而言，这场世俗之旅的高潮就是到达希腊。在到达雅典时，这些年轻的旅行者首先会看到卫城和它无上的光荣：有柱子的帕特农神庙，献给武士拱卫的女神雅典娜。

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rite ^{ritual ceremony}
secular^{not religious or spiritual in nature}
dedicated to^{1.Devoted to a task or purpose} a team of dedicated doctors ^{2.Exclusively allocated to or intended for a particular purpose} a dedicated high-speed rail link from the Channel Tunnel

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Yet even as the Grand Tour became increasingly popular, laying the foundations for modern tourism, this great monument, studded with the work of the great Athenian sculptor Phidias, was at risk of disappearing entirely. Since the 15th century, Greece had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire, whose troops had converted the Acropolis into a garrison, and whose sultan, Mehmed II, had turned the Parthenon itself into a mosque, complete with a minaret.

Detail from the western frieze of the Parthenon. British1 Museum, London


PARTHENON IN PERIL
By the middle of the 18th century yet more of the ruined Parthenon’s decoration had been plundered. The site’s precariousness only encouraged travelers to carry off items, as many believed it would be razed to the ground before long anyway. “It is to be regretted that so much admirable sculpture as is still extant about this fabric should be all likely to perish … from ignorant contempt and brutal violence” warned Richard Chandler, an English antiquarian, in 1770. A few years later, the Irish painter Edward Dodwell reported that huge quantities of marble from the Parthenon had been broken up in order to build cabins for a garrison. On hearing about the situation, many western travelers and collectors sought to acquire treasures pillaged from the Parthenon on the local black market in an attempt to “save” them from destruction.

Some collectors claimed this was perfectly legal, as they removed items with the connivance of the Ottoman authorities. Many collections of Parthenon statuary housed in the world’s museums today were acquired in this way. The most famous and significant was brought to London beginning in 1803 by the former British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, the nobleman Thomas Bruce—more commonly known as Lord Elgin.
TAKING THE MARBLES
Picture showing a portrait of Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin
VIEW IMAGES
Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin. Portrait by Anton Graff, 1788
PHOTOGRAPH BY AKG/ALBUM
Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine, was an aristocrat with a promising political career. During the first years of the war with revolutionary France, he held various diplomatic posts in Vienna, Brussels, and Berlin. He returned to his native Scotland in 1796, where he built a splendid country mansion at Broomhall. The architect behind the project was Thomas Harrison, who shared his client’s passion for Greek sculpture and architecture. In 1799 Lord Elgin’s diplomatic services were again required—this time as ambassador to the Ottoman sultan Selim III, who was keen to foster allies from Europe who would help him boost his defenses against Napoleon’s campaign in Egypt, then under indirect Ottoman rule. Having married hastily in September 1799, Elgin set sail from Portsmouth with his new wife, the heiress Mary Nisbet, bound for Constantinople (now Istanbul). Before Elgin left, Harrison urged him to use his privileged position to get hold of drawings and copies of Greece’s great monuments. Lord Elgin agreed and enlisted a team of artists directed by the painter Giovanni Battista Lusieri.

On their arrival, Lord and Lady Elgin were lavishly received by the sultan. While his wife organized sumptuous parties, Lord Elgin sent Lusieri and his team to Athens to sketch ancient works of art, as requested by Harrison. Lusieri was given free rein to carry out his work—except when it came to the Acropolis. In order to gain access to the monument, the Ottomans demanded large daily payments, and they refused to let the painter set up a single piece of scaffolding. Lusieri then asked Lord Elgin to request a firman, a special permission from the sultan himself.
On July 6, 1801, Lord Elgin received authorization, not only to survey and take casts of the sculptures but also to remove whatever pieces were of interest to him—or at least that’s how Elgin interpreted this now controversial passage from the sultan: “When they wish to take away some pieces of stone with old inscriptions and figures, no opposition be made.” Having won the favor of the governor of Athens, Lusieri and his men dismantled a large part of the frieze from the Parthenon as well as numerous capitals and metopes. Finally in 1803, the huge collection of marbles was packed up into about two hundred boxes, which were then loaded onto wagons and transported to the port of Piraeus to await their passage to England.

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