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cbarrick t1_j141o0x wrote

Reply to comment by KOBossy55 in Germany returns 20 Benin bronzes to Nigeria, noting ‘dark past’ by Fit-Asparagus8557

And while we're at it, let's stop calling them the "Elgin Marbles" and start calling them the "Parthenon Sculptures."

Fuck Lord Elgin.

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BoltgunOnHisHip t1_j14lo4k wrote

"But he bought them legitimately from the government of Greece at the time!"

  1. No, he wrote a letter SAYING he bought them legitimately

  2. The government of Greece at the time was another colonial power

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Nukemind t1_j15b1c1 wrote

The government of Greece at the time wasn’t really a colonial power. It was the Sublime Porte, AKA the Ottoman Empire. It was an Empire in the classical sense. They conquered regions and attempted to rule them as a part of the country, as opposed to forming extraction based economies.

Now that doesn’t make them benevolent- like most empires they were backwards and they were later called the Sick Man of Europe for a reason. But colonialism is actually one of the major reasons the Ottomans declined, as it allowed Europeans to get the resources that traditionally flowed across Asia Minor via sea lanes, and in some cases they even conquered the origin points ending what was their traditionally largest source of income.

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