The British Museum bought off Greece with a vase

The question of the return of the Parthenon Marbles is up in the air

The long-term dispute between Great Britain and Greece over the Parthenon marble sculptures has reached the point of ridiculousness. The British Museum, which has housed artifacts taken by Lord Elgin from the Athenian Acropolis since the early 19th century, will send the Meidias Vase to an exhibition in Athens as part of a “cultural exchange.” True, only for a few months. Britain believes that this is a big step towards resolving the dispute, because this ceramics from the early 5th century has not been exported from “foggy Albion” since the 18th century. Is it so?

An ancient Greek vase depicting female figures on a black background dates back to 420 AD and is signed “Meidias.” The name of this potter is well known to specialists. It was he who, at the beginning of the 5th century, founded a guild in Attica that created red-figure ceramics, which became widespread in Greece. About 40 thousand amphoras or fragments of red-figure vases have survived to this day. Artists who belonged to a pottery guild usually marked their works with the name of its founder. This vase with female figures was brought to England in the 1760s by the British diplomat William Hamilton, from whom the British Museum bought the artifact found during excavations in 1772. Since then, the vase has not left his side.

The news of the transfer of the exhibit to temporary exhibition in Greece became known after a speech by the chairman of the British Museum, George Osborne, in which he discussed the agreement with Greece, the Parthenon marbles and possible “cultural exchanges.” Greece’s claims to the Parthenon marbles have become much more persistent after the scandal surrounding the thefts from the British Museum, from which, as it turned out in August, exhibits had been missing for years – a total of 2,000 were missing. Masterpieces of ancient Greek art are not safe in London, the Greeks believe. In addition, this spring, the Vatican Museums returned three fragments of the Parthenon sculptures to the Athens Acropolis Museum. So what’s stopping Britain from going down the same path?

However, it is impossible to reach an agreement with the British on the return of the sculptures that once adorned the ancient Greek temple of the Parthenon. Despite all the diplomatic moves and speeches of Osborne, the current British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak spoke quite clearly: the return of the sculptures is excluded, because they are a “huge asset” for Great Britain. In this situation, the British Museum, which is in solidarity with the Prime Minister, but does not want to aggravate the conflict with Greece, is trying to “put a good face on a bad game.” So I started the “gesture” with the vase. The Greeks remained tactfully silent in response. They will, of course, show the vase at their Athens exhibition “Knowledge: Personifications and Allegories from Antiquity to the Present” at the Acropolis Museum, which will run from December 4 to April 14. But they will continue to fight for the marble statues of the Parthenon.