Greece angers Germany in gold row

Generali

StevieJ wrote: »

Have we still got the Elgin marbles :eek:

AIUI, the marbles can't be returned.

They were bought by Lord Elgin from the Government at the time (the Turks as Greece was a part of the Ottoman empire) and sold them to the British Government which gave them to the British museum.

This means that the Elgin Marbles are now the responsibility of the British Museum Trustees:

http://www.britishmuseum.org/PDF/BM1963Act.pdf

As far as I can see, under the Act they can only dispose of objects under the following circumstances:

(1) The Trustees of the British Museum may sell, exchange, give away or otherwise dispose of any object vested in them and comprised in their collection if -

(a) the object is duplicate of another object, or

(b) the object appears to the Trustees to have been made not earlier
than the year 1850, and substantially consists of printed matter
of which a copy made by photography or a process akin to
photography is held by the Trustees, or

(c) in the opinion of the Trustees the object is unfit to be retained
in the collections of the Museum and can be disposed of without
detriment to the interests of students

None of these things apply. The certainly weren't made after 1850, there isn't another version of them and if they weren't fit to be retained, the Greeks would be unlikely to want them back.

markharding557

Dan: wrote: »

The Greeks have never forgiven Germany for WWII occupation - and why should they???

They can't seriously blame todays germans for wwii occupation because most of them were not around.
It is as silly as gordon brown apologising for government actions of seventy years ago when he clearly was not involved.