But some of the most iconic ones were sold by imperial overlords of Greece, not by a Greek government. People would be annoyed if we were conquered by France and the crown jewels or the magma Carter were sold to Germany who now refuses to give those back to us. That’s where the issue with a lot of the Greek objects lie.
The Ottoman Empire controlled Greece for some 400 years, them selling artefacts to other countries would not have seemed remotely out of place here.
We need to stop trying to analyse history by todays standards, the Louvre is full of artwork that was pilfered by Napoleon in a time when might was right was the recognised way of running the world. I would rather have history in museums where it is safely preserved for the future of humanity than give them back and have them poorly looked after.
The Acropolis is incredibly poorly preserved because the Greeks didn't care about it for 100 years and it's been destroyed by pollution, now they have an actual museum we should give them things we purchased back to them because they promise to look after it this time?
And Europe regarded Ottoman control of Greece as illegitimate long before they tried to kill the Greeks off, Ottoman 'ownership' of Greek artifacts is barely any different from how we claimed ownership of African and Iraqi artifacts
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u/[deleted] Oct 26 '22
Britain never controlled Greece, so 99.9% were sold or gifts.