Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries Book

Mary Beard is a wonderful writer, who has written extensively on the Classical World. So, the subject of the Parthenon would seem at natural one for her. For the first 100 pages or so, that is the case as Beard tells the history (as much as we know at least) of the famous 5th Century Athens temple. It's amazing that there is even a building left. It's been hit by 700 cannon balls, blown up, shot at, and, in more peaceful times, turned into a Christian church and, later, Muslim mosque. Over the years it's been chipped at, defaced, painted, and robbed. Beard tells this story with economy and humor. It's incredible how she covers so much ground so quickly.

It's the second hundred pages where my interest waned. It's here the reader gets caught up in the controversy regarding the Elgin Marbles. Briefly, Lord Elgin, in the early part of the 19th Century, ripped off big chunks of the Parthenon's sculptures. Some of them were simply on the ground, others were located on the building's frieze (hammer and chisel time). In fairness to Elgin, Greece as a country back then was a sketchy concept. Athens was something of a backwater, and the Parthenon was teetering on the edge of non-existence (it was a ruin in the full sense of the word). Elgin shipped the good stuff back England, and eventually he would (due to financial problems) sell them to the British Museum.

Now, understandably, Greece would like them back. The Parthenon is currently being restored (there have been several restorations - some of them unintentionally destructive), and a museum built to house the artifacts. It's here that Beard comes down strongly on the side of the British Museum's continued retention of the Marbles. I simply can't wrap my mind around her argument that a "greater [World History] context" is created by the Marbles being in the British collection. (There's also a bit of unattractive snark as she suggests that the Greek museum looks a bit like an airline terminal.) As far this short book goes, a disproportionate number of pages are spent discussing (arguing?) on the controversy. It mars the book. The question (now) of ownership seems to me to be a moral one. Beard's argument is very British, very Empire, and very weak.