Greece renews its calls for British Museum to return Parthenon Marbles in wake of priceless thefts

Today's technology? We've had plaster casts for millennia. Story time!

The Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece has replicas of the marbles on display on the second floor, as it's all they have. When the Acropolis Museum was being constructed, the British Museum sent two sets of casts for them to use (refusing once again to return the originals). The first was a set of basically placeholder casts that were made quickly so that the folks building the Acropolis Museum could plan out the space / measure them for mounting, etc. They're ugly, lack a bunch of detail and have visible seams where the casts were put together. Later, they sent a second set that were much more carefully done and are, in reality, very nice. They show a lot of detail and are, aside from the fact that they're made of plaster, nearly indistinguishable from the original marbles. Now, which set do you think the Greeks elected to hang in the museum?

If you go visit the Acropolis Museum today, you can get a guided tour where the guide will take you up to the second floor, show you these awful, sloppily done plaster casts and loudly lament how the British Museum won't return the originals and only sent them these shitty casts which they have no choice but to hang here since they have nothing else to use and isn't it just insulting how terrible they are and how little the British care?

It's honestly a little hilarious. The British Museum needs to return the Parthenon Marbles and display the nice casts themselves for many reasons but "make the Acropolis Museum more than just the Monument to Greek Bitterness" is somewhere on that list.

Why are the Pyramids in Giza?
They couldn't fit in a British museum.

Only the things they couldn't carry. There was a colossal head and arm of an Egyptian statue in the British museum, and a plaque saying the rest of the statue (body and legs) were still where they found it. Presumably because they were to heavy to take back.

There are some things - there are quite a few things that were either gifted by ambassadors or legitimately bought (as opposed to the dubious purchase of the Partheneon marbles) and also British artefacts.

The Parthenon frieze and marbles

Well, there were those artifacts that went missing recently. Those aren't in the British Museum any more.

Let me think about it... no.

You should see what the Parthenon looks like if you want to talk about mismanagement.

Ohi Stephen