What if Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin didn't "steal" the Parthenon Marbles?

Neirdak

Banned
In 1806, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin removed some of the surviving sculptures with the alleged permission of the Ottoman Empire. These sculptures, now known as the Elgin Marbles or the Parthenon Marbles, were sold in 1816 to the British Museum in London, where they are now displayed.

What would have been the fate of those marbles, if he hadn't took them? :confused:
 
They stay on the Parthenon and end up looking like this (compare the very white plaster casts of the ones in London with the state of preservation for the marbles that were left on the building and are now in the Acropolis museum.)

elgin-marbles.jpg
 
As other's have said they would have received another 200 years of erosion and damage though I don't think they would be totally destroyed.
 
As other's have said they would have received another 200 years of erosion and damage though I don't think they would be totally destroyed.

With the Greeks using the Parthenon due to the long standing structure and historical refrences as a symbol for independence, the Ottomans would want it destroyed to harden the blow.
 
Why so any more than OTL?

(Anyway, of course the plaster cast models are white: they're made to look that way! The actual originals don't look that way, and of course we now know they were vividly painted - not that we would have known from the "scrub vigorously, and then scrub some more" preservation efforts of the 19th century British museum! :) )
 
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With the Greeks using the Parthenon due to the long standing structure and historical refrences as a symbol for independence, the Ottomans would want it destroyed to harden the blow.

Unlikely. The vast majority of the structure of the Parthenon wasn't rescued by Elgin and the Ottomans didn't attack that in OTL so I can't imagine they would in this tl. However you would see OTL's pollution, acid rain and incompetence impact the marbles as well as the structure.

Why so any more than OTL?

(Anyway, of course the plaster cast models are white: they're made to look that way! The actual originals don't look that way, and of course we now know they were vividly painted - not that we would have known from the "scrub vigorously, and then scrub some more" preservation efforts of the 19th century British museum! :) )

The British Museum certainly over-cleaned the marbles and destroyed valuable archaeological evidence and paint residues in their desire to preserve them. But if you compare British enthusiasm with Greek neglect and acid rain it's easy to see who took better care of the marbles in their possession.
 

Artaxerxes

Banned
What if Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin didn't "steal" the Parthenon Marbles?

He'd have acquired them from the legitimate owners at the time where they'd ultimately wind up in the British Museum for several hundred years only for a country with very little relation to the Ancient Greeks would whine and whinge about how they wus robbed.
 
The British Museum certainly over-cleaned the marbles and destroyed valuable archaeological evidence and paint residues in their desire to preserve them. But if you compare British enthusiasm with Greek neglect and acid rain it's easy to see who took better care of the marbles in their possession.

Greek acid rain and pollution have been a really serious problem from the 1960s. But the British museum (sans modern air filtering, etc.) had the joys of London pollution from a century earlier... :)

Personally, I'd have to see some side by side photographs of statues taken by Elgin and neighboring ones that stayed to get a really good sense of how badly the Greeks muffed it.

(Balanos, of course, was an idiot).
 
Greek acid rain and pollution have been a really serious problem from the 1960s. But the British museum (sans modern air filtering, etc.) had the joys of London pollution from a century earlier... :)

Personally, I'd have to see some side by side photographs of statues taken by Elgin and neighboring ones that stayed to get a really good sense of how badly the Greeks muffed it.

(Balanos, of course, was an idiot).

Uh, London smog has been pretty successfully kept out of the British Museum since its inception.

Annoyingly, it's pretty much impossible to find a close up shot of the bits of the Parthenon frieze in the Acropolis Museum (which speaks volumes either about the state of preservation or the fact that people are only interested in the ones in London), but for comparison here's the Caryatids from the Erectheum.

The London one:


The Athens selection (the one in the background is the one case I've come across of Elgin doing a botched job and leaving the broken remains behind, but it was later botched together with cement and iron rods so the poor state is pretty much a joint operation in this case)
nytimes_caryatids.jpg


The differences are especially apparent in the face, in the further discoloration and in the pitting on the legs. The building was hit by an Ottoman shell during the Greek War of Independence (though the Caryatid Porch was not directly affected)
 
As I understand it, the marble hasn't been white since long before the classical era ended: it just naturally turns pale yellow in air, so it's hard to say what's normal environmental and what is pollution-driven discoloration. The color of the British one looks like the result of cleaning efforts. The ones in Athens do look more eroded, but it's hard to see really clearly in that small shot.
 
Uh, London smog has been pretty successfully kept out of the British Museum since its inception.

The larger particulates and actual visible smog, sure, but what sort of active measures was the museum using to maintain the quality of its air (ozone, oxides, moisture, etc.)? People in Victorian London didn't enjoy particularly good air quality inside their houses, either. (Although while looking something up I did note that the British Museum used naturally occuring lighting rather than gas, etc?)

Edit: meh. This argument really doesn't hold my interest. Let's just say the odds probably were better for the statues in England than they were in Greece (given the last 200 years of history) and leave it at that. :)
 
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