Greece has found an unlikely ally in its campaign to recover the Parthenon sculptures from the British Museum: Turkey has publicly denied claims that Lord Elgin had permission from Ottoman authorities to remove antiquities from the Acropolis.
Zeynep Boz, Turkey’s Culture Ministry’s top anti-smuggling official, said this week there was no evidence to prove the nobles had permission to strip the sculptures from the 5th century B.C. monument, amid what Athens authorities hailed as a “highly significant” confession.
“Turkey is where the documents are kept about the legal sale and purchase of goods at that time. Historians have been looking through Ottoman archives for years but have not found a ‘farman’ to prove that the sale was legal as claimed,” Boz told The Associated Press.
Speaking to Greek state broadcaster ERT, Boz said the only evidence found was a decree written in Italian, but that it bore no emperor’s signature or seal and therefore no proof that it had come from the imperial court.
An Athens official told the Guardian that Boz’s confession was key to dispelling claims that the ancient sculptures were acquired with the connivance of Ottoman authorities.
“It is crucial that this Turkish official, who has all the archives and services at his disposal, is saying that nothing has been found, that there are no documents. They looked, they didn’t find anything, because it didn’t exist,” said Elena Korka, honorary director of antiquities and cultural heritage at the Greek Ministry of Culture.
In 1801, workers under Elgin’s orders began using marble saws and other machinery to remove the statues from the monumental frieze that had once adorned the Parthenon, a process that took more than ten years to complete, and was controversial even at the time, forcing his contemporary Lord Byron to denounce it in poetry.
But the British Museum, which bought the marbles from a then-bankrupt Scottish diplomat in 1816, continues to insist that the marbles were acquired legally.
Boz acknowledged he felt obliged to intervene after British representatives at a recent meeting of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee to Facilitate the Restitution of Cultural Property in Paris repeatedly said the sculptures had been purchased legally during the Ottoman period.
Korca wrote his doctoral thesis on Firmin and spent nearly a decade scouring archives in Britain and Istanbul, but the only documents relating to the marbles he could find were those relating to Elgin’s transport of antiquities from the port of Piraeus to Britain.
“There are two documents written in Ottoman, the language of the time, that explain the shipment contained pottery and stone fragments, some of which had paintings, but which were not important to the Ottoman Empire,” she said. “Both documents say that Elgin bought the items in Athens. There is no mention of the Parthenon marbles, because Elgin never had permission to take anything from the site.”
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Greece has been growing its support since it began a campaign 40 years ago to reunite the treasure, considered a masterpiece of classical art, with other antiquities in Athens, and a series of opinion polls have shown that a majority of Britons are in favour of returning the antiquities to the country where they were carved.
“The British Museum has always maintained that these treasures were purchased legally. That has been the museum’s central argument,” said Irene Stamatoudi, a professor of cultural heritage law who is advising the Greek government on the issue. “It’s important that the country that owned the original archive and may have the documentation to prove it is now saying that it doesn’t exist. For us, this is a very positive development.”
Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni described restoring art to the site of 5,000-year-old carvings as a “national goal” and said Turkish intervention was essentially a bolster of Athens’ claims.
“There was never an Ottoman farman that authorized Elgin to treat the Parthenon sculptures in that brutal way,” she said. “Turkey has conceded a long-standing Greek argument that there was no farman.”
In a statement, the British Museum said it recognised the depth of emotion that this cultural debate evokes, more than two centuries later.
“The British Museum is aware of Greece’s strong desire to return the Parthenon sculptures to Athens,” a museum spokesman told Sky TV. “We understand and respect the deep feelings involved.”
