It's not for thieves to decide where the plunder will be safer. The marbles could as easily have been destroyed in the WWII bombings of London as (if they had stayed in Greece) wiped out by some calamity in Greece.
At any rate, it is yet another myth of the British imperialists that the British Museum took care of the marbles. In fact, they harmed the marbles - exactly as one would expect from pirates.
(Following stories from 1999 - you should have known this story by now, KittyWampus, if you wish to speak with authority on this issue...)
http://www.museum-security.org/99/104.htmlMuseum to come clean over Elgin Marbles
By Nigel Reynolds, Arts Correspondent
FRESH evidence about high-level cover-ups, bribery, barbarism and Britain's legal claim to the Elgin Marbles will be presented tomorrow to a conference of academics.
George Papandreou, Greek foreign minister, shows his family the Elgin Marbles during a visit to the British Museum
With pressure mounting on Britain to return the Marbles to Athens, the British Museum has convened the conference to investigate an episode 60 years ago when museum workers scraped clean many of the marbles to make them appear white. Two dozen conservation and archaeology specialists from around the world will sit for two days to take evidence from the museum, its accusers and the Greek government into the episode. They will hear allegations that in the Thirties unskilled workers "skinned" some of the 2,500-year-old marbles by using wire wool, carborundum, hammers and chisels to remove their original stained patina and the last traces of paint with which they were decorated. They will also hear claims that the museum's trustees at the time, who included Stanley Baldwin and the Archbishop of Canterbury, subsequently hushed up the damage and misled Parliament and even Prime Ministers.
The museum was forced to call tomorrow's conference after publication last year of a book exposing the scandal by William St Clair, a former senior Treasury official, amateur classicist and archaeological sleuth. In his book, Mr St Clair, 61, who studied Greek sculpture at Oxford before joining the Civil Service, said the damage affected the surfaces of 80 per cent of the marbles and was irreparable. Since then, he says, he has uncovered further examples of damage and evidence casting doubt on Britain's claims to have legal title to the marbles, which once adorned the Parthenon. Britain's resistance to returning the marbles is largely based on the defence that in 1801 the adventurer Lord Elgin was given permission by the Turks, who then ruled Greece, to remove them.
Mr St Clair, who wll appear as the first witness at the conference, says he has now uncovered evidence that Lord Elgin bribed local Turkish officials to allow him to remove many more pieces than he was given formal permission for. According to papers he has found in the Elgin family archives, the bribes amounted to 25 per cent of the total cost of Lord Elgin's removal expedition. The British Museum has always maintained that the damage was not significant, that it has always been open about it and that Mr St Clair has exaggerated his claims. But he says the museum has ignored the "30-year rule" on releasing official papers by refusing to admit the existence of vital documents. In his book last year, Mr St Clair disclosed that the then Archbishop of Canterbury chaired an internal inquiry into the damage in 1939. It examined only three marbles and concluded that one of them had been "skinned". When the book came out, the museum admitted to The Telegraph that it had been guilty of "a misjudgment" in not previously disclosing the inquiry's findings.
The conference will also hear evidence from an official team of Greek archaeologists which was allowed to study the marbles last month after the row over Mr St Clair's claims. It will say that damage is worse than had been realised and that many details have been lost or distorted. The museum is expected to mount a vigorous defence of the cleaning while admitting that it has been less than open about disclosing all the facts.
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Greece Reports on Parthenon Marbles
By THEODORA TONGAS Associated Press Writer
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Marble figures and panels from the ancient Parthenon were defaced and damaged during a cleaning at the British Museum during the 1930s, Greece's culture minister said Monday, previewing the conclusions of a team of experts. ``There truly was a barbarous cleaning. The marbles were tortured,'' said Elisavet Papazoi, who presented a synopsis of a 100-page Greek report on the condition of the artifacts widely known as the Elgin Marbles. The report, scheduled to be presented Tuesday at a symposium in London, could boost Greek efforts to pressure Britain to return the pieces: 17 figures and part of a 160-yard frieze that decorated the 2,500-year-old Acropolis monument.
Britain has denied Greek charges that the marbles were improperly cleaned. ``We have not yet seen a copy of the report by the Greek team, but look forward to hearing their views and those of other distinguished archeologists and conservators at the conference tomorrow,'' Frances Dunkels, a spokeswoman for the British Museum, said Monday. The marbles were taken by Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, in the early 19th century. Britain maintains that Elgin acquired the sculptures legally when Greece was ruled by the Ottomans. Papazoi said that during cleaning in the 1930s, many of the marble surfaces were smoothed out and stripped of original details such as chiseled grooves that characterize the architectural work of the Parthenon. Papazoi stressed that the symposium is ``clearly a scientific meeting'' and not a deliberation on the marbles' repatriation.
SNIP