Elgin’s Shaky Grounds: How Firm Was the Firman?

The Italian-language version of Elgin's firman, owned by the British Museum

During his recent conversation with Tate director Nicholas Serota at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Neil MacGregor, the British Museum's director, said this about Lord Elgin's removal from Athens to England of the Parthenon Marbles:

There's no question it was legal because you can't move those things without the approval of the power of the day.

In its online attempt to address "common misconceptions" (scroll to "9") about the marbles, the British Museum makes a similar argument:

Lord Elgin's work was carried out openly and with the support of local officials both Turkish and Greek.

But was this support secured by bribes, as some have alleged? Here's how the British Museum addresses that "misconception":

Presents were given to the Turkish officials in Athens according to the custom of the times and their total value did not exceed £600. Elgin presented his full accounts to the Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816.

If bribes WERE clandestinely paid, one wonders whether they would have been publicly listed in Elgin's "full accounts."

But discussions about the legality of Elgin's removal of the marbles always come down to the 1801 firman (letter of permission) granted to him by the Ottoman authorities then in power.

What does that document actually say?

Let's go to the copy that has come down to us---an Italian-language transcription made for Lord Elgin from the (now lost) original. In 2006, the British Museum purchased that copy of the firman from its previous owner, William St. Clair. The museum put the document on public display from October 2008 to April 2009.

The English translation of the firman and an image of the document itself are posted for all to see on the museum's website, here. The wording of the English-language translation is so convoluted that it seems quite possible that something has been lost in one or more of the two translations. But what has come down to us seems to fall far short of blanket permission for Lord Elgin and his men to hack slabs of the famous frieze from the walls of the Parthenon.

The firman refers to "five English painters," already in Athens, who were commissioned by Elgin "to view, contemplate, and also draw the images remaining" at the ancient ruins. It grants permission for them "to dig, according to need, the foundations to find the inscribed blocks, which may have been preserved in the rubble [emphasis added]."

They were to be allowed to make plaster molds of "ornaments and visible figures" and "to take away some pieces of stone with old inscriptions and figures." They were also permitted to undertake excavations "of the foundations, in search of inscribed blocks perhaps preserved among the rubble" and to remove "any pieces of stone with inscriptions and figures."

It is that last phrase ("any pieces...") that the British Museum relies on---both on its website and in the label that accompanied the firman when it was publicly exhibited earlier this year. In its online argument that Elgin had carte blanche to cart away the marbles, the museum goes on to assert:

There was no exclusion clause concerning removal of material from buildings and walls.

But reading the phrase that permitted removal of "any pieces of stone" in the context of what came before it---the reference to objects "preserved among the rubble"---makes it appear likely that intent of this convolutedly worded edict was to allow removal of loose pieces at the base of the monument, not of the frieze slabs still affixed to its walls.

I'm not the only one of this opinion. In her 2001 book, The Parthenon Frieze, Jenifer Neils, professor of art history and classics at Case Western Reserve, states (p. 241):

The official firman...does not specifically grant authority to remove the superstructure of the temple, but rather to 'carry away some pieces of stone with inscriptions and figures' (presumably those lying around the Acropolis after the explosion of 1687).

It seems clear that Elgin and his henchmen did exceed the authority granted him by the Turks who then occupied Greece, but no one at the time challenged their actions. The generous bribes to Turkish officials, quite customary throughout the Ottoman Empire, allowed Lord Elgin's agents virtual carte blanche on the Acropolis.

You can access it and try to decipher it for yourself, but It seems to me that a close reading of the English translation of the firman undermines, rather than supports, the British Museum's legal argument. Maybe that's why MacGregor is now arguing that the removal was "legal" because Ottoman officials obviously knew what was going on.

In less weighty cultural-property news---the British Museum, on the same page where the firman's translation is published, displays an ad for its museum shop's mouse mat in the shape and image of another of its hotly contested possessions---the Rosetta Stone.

Egypt, which covets that iconic slab, has just opened its Rosetta National Museum. Al-Ahram Weekly reports:

The highlight of the museum is a life-size replica of the Rosetta Stone offered by the British Museum in response to an official request submitted by [Zahi] Hawass to the museum's ancient Egyptian department.

A full-size replica stone is not yet available in the British Museum's online giftshop. But the ever-popular Rosetta Stone Mouse Mat CAN be yours, for a mere £8.99!