ELGIN MARBLES

Elgin Marbles

Elgin marbles is a collection of ancient Greece sculptures and architectural details, these are also known as Parthenon sculptures. These sculptures were originally on the Parthenon temple in Greece but were later removed from the temple and shipped to England by the arrangement of Thomas Bruce (7th Lord Elgin), who was the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. The removal of the sculptures caused a huge controversy that exemplified questions about the ownership of the cultural artifacts and the return of the antiques to their places of origin and still to this day the controversy is still happening. I believe that the Elgin marbles should be back in Greece, they are part of that country's history, all the sculptures should be together in their rightful place. Imagine parts of Big Ben being in a museum miles away from it's origin. But also Elgin loved the sculptures and wanted to keep them safe so I also don't see the harm with them staying in England. 

I started looking online about why most of the Greek sculptures we see are white and I found out most of them were painting brightly it's just over time the paint has came off. For years people have been using a technique called 'raking light' to analyse art. A lamp is positioned carefully so the path of the light is almost parallel to the surface of the object, which on painting shows the brush strokes, grit and dust clearly. However on sculptures it is more subtle and it is impossible to see the brush strokes but because different paints wear off at different rates the stone is raised in some places. This raises and lowers parts of sculpture and elaborate patterns become visible. Also I have found out that ultraviolet light is used. Here is part of an article about UV light. 

'Ultraviolet is also used to discern patterns. UV light makes many organic compounds fluoresce. Art dealers use UV lights to check if art has been touched up, since older paints have a lot of organic compounds and modern paints have relatively little. On ancient Greek statues, tiny fragments of pigment still left on the surface glow bright, illuminating more detailed patterns. Once the pattern is mapped, there is still the problem of figuring out which paint colors to use. A series of dark blues will create a very different effect than gold and pink. Even if enough pigment is left over so that the naked eye can make out a color, a few thousand years can really change a statue's complexion. There's no reason to think that color seen today would be anything like the hues the statues were originally painted. There is a way around this dilemma. The colors may fade over time, but the original materials – plant and animal-derived pigments, crushed stones or shells – still look the same today as they did thousands of years ago. This can also be discovered using light.'