Who Owns Antiquity?: Museums and the Battle over Our Ancient Heritage

497 Pages·2008·12.5 MB·English

by  James Cuno

WHO OWNS
ANTIQUITY?
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J A M E S C U N O
WHO OWNS
ANTIQUIT Y?
MUSEUMS AND THE BATTLE OVER OUR ANCIENT HERITAGE
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS • PRINCETON AND OXFORD
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Copyright © 2008 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street,
Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
All Rights Reserved
ISBN-13: 978-0-691-13712-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2008922048
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Minion with display font in Bernhard Fashion
Printed on acid-free paper ∞
press.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
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For Sarah, Claire, and Kate
*
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Nationalism becomes self-reproducing in a world of nation-states.
For once the world has defi ned “normality” as national solidarity
and national statehood, every nation must be vigilant against
signs of cultural assimilation and must produce nationalists
whose self-appointed task is to strengthen national identity and
uniqueness in order to increase social cohesion and solidarity.
In a world of nation-states, nationalism can never be ultimately
satisfi ed.
—Anthony D. S. Smith, Nationalism in the
Twentieth Century (1979)
*
Economic integration, and with it cultural globalization, has far
outpaced our global mindset, which is still rooted in nationalist
terms. We benefi t from all that the world has to offer, but we think
only in narrow terms of protecting the land and people within our
national borders—the borders that have been established only in the
modern era. The barbed wire, chain-link fences, security forces,
and immigration and customs agents that separate us from the rest
of the world . . . cannot change the fact that we are bound together
through the invisible fi lament of history.
— Nayan Chanda, Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers,
Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization (2007)
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CONTENTS
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Preface ix
Introduction: The Crux of the Matter 1
ONE
Political Matters 21
TWO
More Political Matters 44
THREE
The Turkish Question 67
FOUR
The Chinese Question 88
FIVE
Identity Matters 121
Epilogue 146
Notes 163
Select Bibliography 207
Index 217
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PREFACE
*
It is the magic of nationalism to turn chance into destiny.
— Benedict Anderson1
I. Through the fi rst decade of the nineteenth century, Thomas Bruce,
7th Earl of Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman court in Con-
stantinople from 1799 to 1803, had numerous sculptures removed
from the Parthenon in Athens and shipped to London. He did so, we
are told, with permission from the governing Ottoman authorities.
The original legal instrument has disappeared and is said to exist only
in an Italian translation made for Elgin by the Ottoman court. Some
then and now question the legality of Elgin’s actions. The Italian lan-
guage document gives Elgin the right to draw, measure, and make
plaster casts of the sculptures, and dig for others that might have been
buried. It also allows for “some pieces of stone with old inscriptions
and fi gures” to be taken away. Did this refer to the sculptures on the
building or only the fragments found on the ground? The document
is not clear. And without greater clarity (and, at this point, probably
even with it), no legal case can be made against Britain’s ownership of
the marbles. Still, the modern government of Greece has consistently
called for their return.
Whatever the legal circumstances of Elgin’s actions, they could
hardly have been surreptitious. The sculptures, both freestanding and
in relief, were numerous and heavy and had to be taken off the build-
ing and down from the temple’s considerable height. They then had
to be transported to ships, where, for fear of sinking the ships them-
selves, Elgin’s agents sawed off the backs of the thickest relief slabs
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