Elgin Marbles Essay

1537 Words7 Pages
Is it possible for the Elgin Marbles to withstand London’s polluted air, or would the marbles be better off in the unfinished Acropolis Museum. Shocking both the Greek and English cultures, the Elgin Marbles from 1801 to 1805 were being removed from the frieze of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece. Throughout the period of the five years the over-life sized marble sculptures were further transported to the British Museum in London. Simply put, those five years would start a controversy that would never end and thus has been continuous between the Greeks and the English for an on-going two-hundred years. There is only one man who is responsible for the major dispute: “Seventh Earl of Elgin (known as Lord Elgin), the then British Ambas-sador to the Ottoman Empire, in 1801” (Yannis Hamilakis, 1999). Lord Elgin at the time was only trying to protect the Parthenon Marbles: “There is no doubt that Elgin saw such removals partly as rescue; the site was being slowly consumed by frequent fires and theft”(Downs, 2010). The Parthenon Marbles created by the Greeks specifically by the designer himself, Phidias, would be responsible for revolutionizing art processes for what we know as historical artifacts today: “The origin of the epidermis on Greek and Roman monuments has been attributed to (a) the application of a preservative treatment, (b) biogenic processes, or (c) a combination of both” (Galanos, & Doganis, 2003). As a result from the Greeks and Romans monuments, present-day sculptures and various monuments are able to retain their present condition for many years to come rather than requiring constant attention. The ancient traditions of the Greeks has provided the society of art work today with the ability to create works that will not only last, but will have the potential to be aesthetic in the future for the many viewers to come. In present-time Greek

More about Elgin Marbles Essay

Open Document