Opinions on the British History Museum?

It's the britfag way!

T. white-men-saving-brown-women-from-brown-men

Cry harder Greek yogurt

>wahhh muh marbles

When will you admit it's just better to let professionals maintain and display them for free in London rather than greasing the palm of some lazy crypto-Turk Athenian communist to the tune of €500 to see the Angela Merkel Presents: The Volkswagen Parthenon Marbles in Greece?

when

The professionals have ruined them John.

I have paid the entry fee to see the bit they didn't manage to ruin, it was pretty cheap.

best thing in london

So good that I was a member for 5 years.

Nothing better than whittling away my lunch breaks in the member's lounge.

>because some guy 80 years ago worked on them in a manner considered ok at the time but now though of as deficient, they should be removed from their purpose built gallery, sent across Europe and deposited in what is rapidly becoming a third world country that can just about keep the streetlights running

OK Stelios, whatever.

Send them back and within a week some anarchist will smash them, crying that the money should have been spent on welfare instead.

>Trust me, the imagined damage I can fantasize about you doing is MUCH worse than the actual irreparable damage I have done.

>we care about these things so much, we left them out in the rain while other people put them in a museum

And it was factually the better choice.

...

>1. leave ancient temple where it stood for centuries
>2. chop up ancient temple and ferry it somewhere else, then damage it out of sheer incompetence

I can see why thieving Brits did the latter, but why would the Greeks?

>we totally knew that leaving them out in acid rain would preserve them better than contemporary understanding of preservation techniques, we just didn't tell anyone because... reasons

I will reiterate that for you: the bits which were left in the rain are now in a far better condition than the ones stolen by the Brits and subjected to their "care".

Only by sheer dumb luck, not some amazing Greek wisdom.

>leave ancient monument be
>destroy ancient monument on accident

hmmm I wonder which is the better option

Sheer dumb luck is better than sheer dumb stupidity propped up by theft.

>leaving ancient monument be also destroys in
>ancient monument is also in a poor country that would be ravaged by war and economic strife

>using standard contemporary techniques is stupidity

>Greeks actually believe this is true

But many countries are getting stable or are already so the BM doesn't really have a legit reason to apply that lien of reasoning in certain cases.

Like what will they say to a country that got it's stuff robbed from them and want it back that is stable? Will they come up with another reason or attempt to literally do the equivalent of making a guy pay the car thief to be able to drive his own car like one would a rental car?

>>leaving ancient monument be also destroys in
Incorrect.

>ancient monument is also in a poor country that would be ravaged by war and economic strife
Correct me if I'm wrong but was it London or Athens which was bombarded in both world wars? It's "sheer dumb luck" the Museum wasn't hit.

>claim you're doing something good but actually ruin it because you don't know what you're doing

Yes, textbook stupidity.

Like what will you say to Ghana when they desire their stuff back? Do they not deserve to see the history of their own country in their own lands?

>when you have no culture, so you need to steal and exhibit culture from around the world

They will throw it in a mud-walled shack and probably forget about it.

Oh for fucks sake.
This thread already had an argument, don't double it up.

*Note that I'm neither Greek nor do I think the Brits should return anything.

It's just that the "we didn't steal it! we've taken good care of it!" is funny, mostly by being wrong on both counts.

But the Greeks can fuck off and Brits should just tell them to μολὼν λαβέ.

They have museums user.

So acid rain didn't damage any monuments?

Was it London or Athens than went through a ground invasion and occupation by hostile foreign troops, then a civil war?

>claim you doing something good but actually ruin it because you did what everyone else would have done, the Greeks include

There was no fighting, ground or otherwise, in Athens. The Germans just walked in and took over.

>did what everyone else would have done, the Greeks include
Evidently not.

The Greeks didn't even bother their arses to put them under cover until the 1990s. I'm assuming they'd have used the same techniques as everyone else if they actually gave a shit.

>Brits should just tell them to μολὼν λαβέ.

This. The correct response to "y-you stole it" is "what are you going to do about it?".

P.S. There is literally nothing wrong with colonialism.

You see the thing with that statement is that this isn't Britain's prime years anymore. They can't just gorilla themselves to be immune to this stuff, the empire days are over.

I'll believe it when I see it.
Until then it's going to be my all-time favourite punchline.

They're not up against Russia here. It's fucking Greece. What are they going to do?

Built by the British.

...

When it comes to research and conservation, the British Museum can actually just gorilla themselves.

As a Brit I say that if we banter the Greeks enough for them to get angry, stop being lazy cunts, work hard, and become a world power capable of forcing the UK to hand over the marbles then they will have earned them and can have them back.

Even if it doesn't work and they only improve themselves slightly before giving up it's still progress. Another selfless British gift to the world. You're welcome.

I agree with this.

On that note the same applies to the rest of the world. Get on with it, Africa.

All of Ghana's museums are post independence.
One is colonial-era but built by an Asante ruler after returning from 30 years of exile.

Why does it cause butthurt?

>when you realize revanchism is a creative force

Got a tour of it from a scholar as my 18th birthday wish

Almost nutted, totally worth it

See this thread for the prime example.

It goes further than the Elgin Marbles though. They issued a statement a while ago saying they had worked with Syrian archaeologists and similar to house the artefacts that they could get out of Palmyra before IS took over and started destroying it and beheaded the guy who was taking care of the site. People threw an absolute shit fit, saying that it was new colonialism and demanding the artefacts be returned to Syria immediately.

>"""British"""" museum
>everything is stolen from other countries
British civilization, really makes you think...

This would be funnier if British involvement wasn't a significant factor in the rise of ISIS and if hundreds of jihadis from Britain weren't involved in the fighting.

>extensive Bronze Age, Iron Age, Roman, Medieval, Renaissance and Enlightenment galleries
>most other artefacts donated by private collectors who had bought and paid for them

Fuck off with your dank maymays

It's not like the British Museum had anything to do with either of those things though.

Someone is having a shitfit because they don't have a better gallery.

Amazing.

Seeing all those old Chinese cutlery and vases made me orgasm.

>private collectors who had bought and paid for them

Many of which are of dubious legality. The illegal art culture industry is massive, on par with illegal arms.

>are of

We're talking about donations that happened decades ago, of items that were purchased decades before that.

You think time makes it any more different?

It's not like we have receipts to show who paid who for what for which price. How can you prove they were dubiously carried out?

Because even back then they had ways to track the source of ownership vs say pillage/theft.

Do we though? How do you prove Lord Muck bought that vase versus kicking down the temple door and stealing it as a giant boulder rolls after him, when he's dead, everyone who interacted with him is dead and noone on either side wrote about it, which is the case for many artefacts in the BM and other large collections?

too many god damn mummies

Love the major museums in the UK--most of them are free entry (except for special exhibits).

Went to the BM to see the display of Egyptian artifacts recovered from the sea bed at Canopus/Heraklion. Amazing. Only drawback was no photos allowed.

Also, saw the damage from Luftwaffe bomb-splinters in the courtyard.

If you *really* want to see plunder, go to some of the regimental or military museums in the UK. The Royal Marines (who went everywhere the Royal Navy went) is full of wonderful things, like items looted from the Summer Palace of the Qing Dynasty. And the 14th Hussars have a silver chamberpot captured from Napoleon's brother. At the annual Waterloo Dinner, it is filled with champagne for the officers to pass around and drink a toast.

waterloo200.org/200-object/king-joseph-bonapartes-chamber-pot/

>Brits drinking out of French toilets
Really makes you think.

Bump