THE ELGIN MARBLES.

Putaruru Press, Volume IV, Issue 164, 23 December 1926, Page 8

THE ELGIN MARBLES.

QUESTION OF RETURN. The Elgin marbles, which are the y-ide of the British Museum, the regret of Greece, and the despair of all sculptors who ever saw them, are again in the limie.iig.ht. The Greek Government is setting up the columns of the Parthenon again, using for the most part the ancient segfents, wlaic,ln have been lying nea.r the temple ever since the Venetian shell blew it up in 1659. And agitation has been started as to whether the British. Mtisuem should not now restore to Athens has reliefs that have Ihten h England for over a century.

In the opinion of Dr.'R. V. D. Magoffin, president of the Archaeological Institute of America, the Elgin marbles should find ’their ultimate home in Athens (states Science Seivice). In a statement made to Science Service, Dr. Magoffin said. — “It has been the artistic world rather than Great Britain which has insisted that tine Elgin marbles remain in London. In the first place, they were safe, and in the second place many more people could and would s ee them there. The propriety o£ having the marbles in Athens is, of course, unquestioned. The willingness and scientific ability of the Greeks to care properly for them is admitted. The .chief question remains: Ha s the political stability of the Balkans reached the point where there is no possibility of a war in which Athens might be shelled?” Dr. Magoffin believes that Lord Elgin did both Greece and tile artistic world a service when he salvaged the marbles from the ruins of the Parthenon in ISO2 and carried them to England. “Had they remained in Athens many of them would have been destroyed, and the rest would certainly have .suffered from weather or unscientific handling,” be said. “Proof of this can be seen in the British Museum to-day on the walls in the F.lgin Room, where two sets of casts are placed one above the other, one made a good many years ago and the other made lately. All of the later casts show the hard usage of man or time, and in a few cases the later cast shows the present marble to be so mutilated thatwithout the .earlier cast the entire meaning of the sculpture would te lost.” Sir Charles Waldston, British archaeologist, who recently spent some time in Greece, has discussed the situation at length on his return to London. His attitude is that the El(Continued in Next Colupan.)

gin .marbles could not in any case he set up on the Parthenon, because they could not sfauo the exposure to weather, and const viently the marbles cannot play a {Aft in the present restoration of the temple. So tong as the sculptures cannot be returned to the building itself, he considers that fue Greek desire to have them in the museum at Athens is no argument at all for their return. A s a substitute gesture of goodwill from England to Greece, he suggests that the Greeks are very anxious to have cement casts of certain parts of the tri-glyph frieze of the Parthe--non; a.id as these bas relief sculptures aie in the British Museum, he has asloed that England present about 23 cement cases to the Greece Government.