Loosing my Marbles

This week the Acropolis Museum was unveiled in Athens, just below the site of the world famous Parthenon; one of the most famous buildings to survive from the Classical World. The museum cost £110 million and was built to provide Athens with a place the display the city’s rich history. It is no accident then that it is placed next to the Acropolis, the centrepiece of Ancient Athens. The main motivation for building the museum was to provide a place to display the Elgin Marbles and other statues which formerly adorned the Parthenon. These statues are currently held in the British Museum, having been brought there from Athens in the early 19^th century.

The Elgin Marbles, named after the person who removed them from Athens and brought them to the British Museum, make up about 75 metres of the 160 metre frieze that decorated the interior of the Parthenon. This frieze has been recreated as the centre piece of the Acropolis Museum partly with the pieces which remained in Athens and partly with copies made of the pieces currently in London. It is the hope of the Greek authorities that the Elgin Marbles will be returned to Athens to be reunited with the rest of the frieze. They argue that it is a vital part of the Athenian heritage and was wrongful removed from the Parthenon. They believe that they have a right to possess them.

On the face of it this claim is simple enough; the marbles were originally made in Athens so they belong there. However by making this claim the Athenians make a claim about their own culture and heritage which is far bold than first appears. While Athens in name and geography is the same city as it was in the 4^th century BC, it is very different culturally and socially; modern Athens is in no way the same city as Classical Athens. For a start modern Athens is the capital of a Greek state then never existed in the 4^th century BC. At this time Greece was made up of a series of city-states more likely to fight each other than to cooperate. Even when threatened from outside they only cooperated for reasons of mutual self-interest, rather than any sense of national identity. The idea of a culturally and politically united Greek state was not even considered by the people’s of the day; it was a world of small city-states and large empires or leagues, not nation-states and united coalitions. Secondly the religion of ancient Athens was a polytheistic, anthropomorphic religion of sacrifices and frequent festivals. The gods were ever-present and took a concerted interest in the life of the citizens. This is far removed from the Orthodox Christian religion of Modern Athens, which can trace its roots back to a combination of Judaism and the philosophy of Plato. These two religions are so different that it is impossible to say that one is in any way the successor of the other. Finally Ancient Athens was the intellectual and cultural centre of the Mediterranean world for centuries, whereas modern Athens is the culturally and political capital of a poor, unimportant state in the south of the Balkans, one of the poorest areas of Europe. Modern Athenians can claim to link to ancient Athens beyond the geography. They are two completely different cities situated in the same place.

There is no reason therefore for the authorities at the Parthenon Museum to demand that the Marbles be returned to them because they simply don’t belong to them. They belong to a city and a culture far removed from the modern city. Given that the Parthenon was build by an imperialist power from the money taken from subject states, mostly unwillingly, ostensibly for their defence, London may be the more appropriate place for the Marbles. Beyond this cynicism the Parthenon represents the wider ideals of democracy and freedom embraced in 4^th century Athens in what was comparatively one of the most progressive societies in history. These are ideals embraced the world over and as such the Marbles do not belong to anyone, but everyone. They represent the expressive freedom which allowed the artistic excellence which designed and build them to flourish. As such there is no doubt that they should be on display in their most accessible and complete form.

Regardless the current state of affair is unsatisfactory; the frieze exists in several different parts across the world. They should be complete, no matter where they are on display. Given that it is the birthplace of democracy, despite the sad and insignificant pretence of a city with delusions of grandeur which now squats in its place, the frieze should be on display in Athens, next to the Parthenon; the building which is and will always be the enduring symbol of democracy.

Wednesday's a nerd's day

I was hoping to review ‘Chinese Democracy’ today, but I think I need to listen to it a little more before passing judgment. So instead I’m gonna ramble on about nothing in particular and hope that you don’t notice that I’m just killing time because I have nothing else to talk about. In fact I’m going to tell you all about the incredibly nerdy day I had on Wednesday.

The classics department at my school (and you know it’s gonna be nerdy as soon as you read that it was organised by the classics department) organised a trip down to London to see Oedipus at the National Theatre. They decided to make a day of it, so we visited the British Museum and National Gallery as well. Yes I was all cultured out by the end of it.

We had about one hundred hours too few in the British Museum, the National Theatre is a concrete monstrosity and the National Gallery is so horrifically pretentious that I nearly threw up. Other than that it was a really good day out and well worth £25. Yeah, I can’t go anywhere without moaning about something, it is a testament to the awesomeness of the British Museum that my only complain was that we did not have nearly enough time in there. Free entry to one of the finest museums in the world? At times you have to admit socialism has its bonuses… NO! Stop! Get in character damnit!!!! Socialism sucks ass.

The play itself (the reason we went down in the first place) was pretty good. I wont bore you with the details of the performance, but I want to mention a few things I didn’t like so much. For one it took a long time to get going, especially Ralph Fiennes (better knows as Lord Voldemort), who pretty much carried the entire thing – as you might expect from a main character. The play is of course a Tragedy – written originally by Sophocles (as if that information will get you anywhere in life), so you expect a fair amount of dramatic wailing, but at times the actors got a little carried away and there was little one could do but laugh at the over-dramaticism (and word is telling my that dramatisicm is not a word… well it damn well should be). The last thing that got on my nerves was the fact that all the cast looked like city executives; they were all wearing black suits and ties. Seriously, could they not afford authentic Greek costumes? I don’t know if it was meant to be some subtle political point or just laziness on the part of the costuming department, but either way it was pretty bewildering, especially when the play was in no way re-written to fit a modern context. Other than that, I really liked it. Shame it was I such a pathetically dull building.

As you can see from the picture it has 1960’s written all over it. Clearly concrete was the in thing when this was built. Granted they try to liven it up at night by lighting in a rather pleasing way, but you can polish a turd all you want, it’s still a turd. The most bewildering thing is that they didn’t even bother to decorate the interior! Most of the wall is still just bare concrete, full marks for originality I suppose. The theatre itself was rather better than the building in which it was situated, which was nice.

Last on our whistle-stop tour of the cultural attractions of London was the National Art Gallery. Suffice to say we decided to abort our tour round the place as we approached the modern art; we were all Classicists or Ancient Historians, so venturing past 1000 AD was an adventure in itself. I mentioned before that it was the definition of pretentious and I wasn’t kidding. Half the security guards were French, one was balding and still had a ponytail and several were more than a little camp. Not that I’m stereotyping or anything. The art itself was nice, but the place seemed very full of itself (yes I’m aware of both the hypocrisy and the fact that the Gallery is inanimate and therefore cannot be full of itself, it’s a turn of phrase you arse.). Even the Café was pretensions; it was all weird flavoured smoothies and organic fruit. I suppose they’re just appealing to their customer.

Right, so that was my cultured and very nerdy Wednesday. I think I’ve managed to garble on long enough to distract from the fact that I have nothing much to say. Next weekend is hectic, but I shall endeavour to write a review of Chinese Democracy and get it up as some point…