[PaulRobinson]

Temporary loans in exchange for other items on temporary loan (which is what this is), is legally the only way the British Museum can let material leave their collections.

I realise that there is a lot of meme-age worthy material that the British Museum is full of stolen property, but it's worth remembering that most of the items were donated at a time when legal provenance was virtually impossible to establish (particularly if you have to assume a peer of the realm like Elgin is an honest man, lest you find yourself under attack from the entire establishment), and the Museum is prevented by an Act of Parliament from giving items away regardless of later legal claims.

To return the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles to Greece, for example, requires a new Act, which - given the current government's legislative programme - is unlikely to happen in the next 3-4 years, and there's little appetite for it.

A temporary loan deal would be more realistic if both the British and Greek governments trusted each other to make the returns. That means the Greeks would basically need to loan out half the museum of Athens to make it work...

[swores]

Surely there's no legal reason why the British Museum couldn't, if they wanted to, "loan" things out for a pittance in return, and indefinitely?

The law may prevent them from saying "we are giving these back to Greece", but if they felt it the moral thing to do why not just send it to Greece while maintaining that they officially claim ownership of the items which are out on loan?

(As a Brit, this is what I want to see happen. Even as a better option than actually changing the law - politicians should be focussed on more important matters if the museum can fix the issue this easily.)

[PaulRobinson]

No, they can't. The legislation[0], does allow them to lend things out, but:

    The Trustees of the British Museum may lend for public exhibition (whether in the United Kingdom or elsewhere) any object comprised in the collections of the Museum:

    Provided that in deciding whether or not to lend any such object, and in determining the time for which, and the conditions subject to which, any such object is to be lent, the Trustees shall have regard to the interests of students and other persons visiting the Museum, to the physical condition and degree of rarity of the object in question, and to any risks to which it is likely to be exposed.

Lending it indefinitely is not in the interests of students in the UK or other persons visiting the British Museum, and there are considerable risks of non-return. It would be considered a disposal. Disposals are not allowed apart from under certain conditions expressed in clause 5 of the Act.

Politics is focused on more important matters, but the law is the law. You're confusing party politics with legislation because the two are intertwined within the British constitution, but the Museum would be breaking the law and the entire directorate would be in a huge, huge amount of trouble if they just decided to ship the marbles off "on loan" any time soon without explicit changes in legislation.

[0] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/24

[swores]

If the museum were to argue that it is more in students' interest to see a poster explaining the importance of loaning something back to the country it came from (along with either a photo, or for anything where it's feasible even a real-looking replica), is there any chance they would actually get in trouble - beyond some negative op eds being written in the press?

Considering the law is a) interpreted by humans, and b) only something that matters if somebody both tries to enforce it and succeeds, I still feel they could do this despite what you point out. But I'm not at all an expert either on the subject of artifices like these or on the related legal issues, so you may well be right that it would cause them trouble if they followed my plan.

[PaulRobinson]

Yes, because the act says that isn't an acceptable disposal.

[swores]

I'm talking about calling it a loan, not officially getting rid of it. Who would take them to court to argue that it's actually a disposal rather than a loan?

[megapolitics]

I think a loan of the Parthenon Sculptures within the next few years is more likely than you think.

Both Kier Starmer and George Osborne are keen for a deal, and the majority of the British public are in favour of the sculpture’s return.

It would be a temporary loan on paper, but everyone involved understands that they would never return to the UK.

[PaulRobinson]

That would be a disposal and requires an amendment to the law (specifically the British Museum Act 1963, which I've quoted in a reply to another comment in this thread).

"Everyone involved understands" is not sufficient guarantee to either the Museum or the Greek authorities that the law has been changed. It either must be a temporary loan - and ideally with artefacts of similar value being lent the other way to make clear that the loan is "de-risked" - or it can't happen.

I can't see that change in law happening any time soon.

[megapolitics]

I don’t believe the courts would rule such a loan to be a disposal given the trend towards judicial activism in the UK.

[arp242]

People did complain at the time and denied that Elgin had the right to take them in the first place, which is why parliament investigated the matter at the time. While the controversy has intensified in the last few decades, it's been controversial pretty much since day one. It's not a "meme-age" thing.

Whether Elgin did or did not have permission from the occupying Ottoman forces is of secondary importance. Many people at the time already considered the Greeks to be occupied by the Ottomans, which is one reason why all of this was controversial at the time (Greeks were not viewed with the same racism as the occupied people in Africa or Asia – quite the opposite since many people were huge Greek fanboys).

If some official had legally approved removing huge chunks of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1800 then the British would be up in arms about it today, and rightfully so. Nazis had "legal" permission to remove a lot of art works through occupied Europe. No one today would claim that the painting of the Fallen Madonna with the Big Boobies would belong to the inheritors of Herr Flick, no matter how they were acquired in the first place. There are many examples of things done "legally" where today we no longer acknowledge the legality of it.

This is also why the British government is often so disproportionally testy about the entire matter, and why that law was passed in the first place. They know that is is clearly and obviously the right thing to return one of the most prominent cultural and historical artifacts to Greece, removed by someone for his private garden, with dubious permission to do so, and even if it did exist it was given by someone who had no right to give it in the first place. They know they're wrong and don't want to talk about it.

[graemep]

> . It's not a "meme-age" thing.

Not the marbles, but the "British Museum is full of stolen" stuff is a meme age thing and not true (go there and check the origins of what you see).

[arp242]

I suppose we need to have a semantic discussion about what exactly "full of" means. Note that the original person who started the thread used the phrasing "many" (which only moves the semantic discussion to how many artifacts with dubious origins you need to have to speak of "many").

Personally I think that's not a very interesting discussion. Your general point that there are also a great many artifacts are not stolen (the majority): yes, you are correct. And I agree it's worth pointing that out as some people do overstate the case at times.

[PaulRobinson]

Complaining - even quite correctly - about the ethics of ownership is not a legal challenge to ownership.

You even point out yourself that other occupying forces had rights of ownership legally, even if they did not have moral and ethical rights.

I'm not arguing whether Elgin should or should not have taken them. I'm not arguing whether he had permission or not. I'm saying he did take them, and that legally pushing back against that was almost impossible at the time because UK law did not prevent him from presenting them to the British Museum, and multiple acts (the most recent being the 1963 act), have made it clear once an item is gifted to the Museum, disposing of it must only be done for very specific reasons that don't apply to the Marbles.

They could have changed the law then, but they didn't. And they didn't, not because of malice or evil or even incompetence. They didn't because changing the law in that context was hard. And changing it today is hard.

I personally am pretty ambivalent about the items in question. They're nice enough to visit, they're interesting, they could stay, they could go, I'm glad they were salvaged from what sounds like a disaster stone (it's not like they were much loved by anybody in Athens at the time), and sure, they could go back if everyone wanted them to.

But that's all irrelevant - the law is the law. We can't just instruct the directors of the Museum to ignore the law. We can't just expect Downing Street to make an edict. An Act of Parliament has to be passed to amend section 5 of the 1963 British Museum Act. End of. There's nothing else to discuss here.

And parliamentarians will be reticent, because the moment that's in the chamber, every other nation on Earth will ask for other material to be returned regardless of the means of procurement (even if legally bought at auction). In essence, to amend the act for the Marbles would be to disperse the entire collection and close the Museum. You might be OK with that, but given its contribution to the studies of historians and archaeologists for centuries, and the fact it's an incredibly popular (and free to access), tourist attraction, it might be a hard pill for most MPs to swallow.

The Greeks could offer a loan deal for a few years, and we could take it from there, but my original point is that no side trusts the other, and without the law being amended, it all seems rather sadly remote, and the chances of the law being amended seem remote too.