Nazi help Brits find morality again?

[Japher]

I thought all you socialists weren't suppose to be so materialistic!

[MarkG]

The scandal, hushed up for 60 years, is disclosed in a book to be published next week by William St Clair, a world expert on the marbles. It says British Museum curators in the late Thirties scrubbed many of the 2,500-year-old marbles with metal scrapers in an attempt to make them look white by removing original paint and the weathered patina. When the extent of the damage was realised, some marbles were hastily re-coloured with a stained wax and the museum used Whitehall secrecy rules to cover up the episode. Mr St Clair said yesterday that he believed the historic surfaces of 80 per cent of the Parthenon marbles, removed to Britain by Lord Elgin in 1801, have been lost forever. What scholars and visitors have seen for the last 60 years is not the naturally-stained patina of Phydias's original marbles but the results of a botched conservation carried out in secret to the orders of the late Lord Duveen, one of Britain's most controversial players of the art market.

http://www.museum-security.org/reports/03498.html

[General Ludd]

There was an add in the paper a few months ago from the Royal Ontario Museum, seeking information on the historical owners of a native-american artifact that they had in their collection so that it could be returned to a first nations tribe.

[MarkG]

canadians >> brits

[Verto]

bah. If you want something back, you should take it by force.

[Maquiladora]

Originally posted by Verto
Wouldn't having all those things back just be a constant reminder of how pathetic you (Greece) have become?

Like this thread?

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Verto
bah. If you want something back, you should take it by force.

is that the american way of doing things?

[Japher]

First we sue.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Agathon

What about all the Egyptian artifacts?

ditto. They belong to the Egyptians. How would you feel if someone ripped off your stuff and took it to England.

But that's not what happened. The Brits took stuff over 100 years ago that was made by someone 2000-5000 years ago. I don't see how that stuff belongs to modern Egypt any more than anyone else, particularly since the Egyptian state was not in existence then, nor is it a successor of the ancient Egyptian culture. It just happens to occupy the same land.

The Egyptians are long gone.

[chequita guevara]

Re: Re: Nazi help Brits find morality again?

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Well, if you heathen savages could be trusted to properly care for your cultural legacy, the Brits wouldn't have needed to steal it from you in the first place. You should be thankful for all they've done.

I'm turning into a rank cultural chauvanist.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov
The Egyptians are long gone.

No they aren't. You think there were enough Bedouin tribesman to completely obliterate the native Egyptians? In Egypt, as in most places where the Arabs conquered, most people became Arabs, adopting Islam and the Arabic language since it made it easier to get along and chepaer to live. Even still, the Coptic people still survive, even today, and even if you believe all Arabs everywhere are deended from the Arabic peninsula, the Copts are the original Egyptians.

Unlike the Greeks, who died out in the 14th Century.

[alva]

/me expects PH to (re)post his "special" picture.

[Dauphin]

I have British Nationality and I think its a disgrace that they have not been used to taunt the Greeks more than they have.

[chequita guevara]

Brits damage marbles in an attempt to restore them.

Greeks ground marbles into mortar to use as building material.

[MarkG]

Originally posted by Dauphin
I have British Nationality

i thought you were australian....