Dr Tiffany Jenkins, author of Keeping Their Marbles, will join new trustees including TV broadcaster and writer Claudia Winkleman, Lord Finkelstein, a Conservative peer who was an adviser to prime minister John Major, the historian and podcaster Tom Holland and the former BBC radio news anchor Martha Kearney for a four-year term. The chair of trustees is George Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor of the exchequer.
In her book Keeping Their Marbles: How the Treasures of the Past Ended up in Museums… and Why They Should Stay There, Jenkins examined the influences behind the high-profile battle to return museum artefacts in an attempt to repair historical wrongs. Her views are at odds with those of another well-known historian and broadcaster, Dr Alice Roberts, who recently met the Greek culture minister, Lina Mendoni, while filming her series on Ancient Greece for Channel 4.
Whether they are returned or not, truth is it will make no difference to any of my life concerns as a Greek. It will make the Acropolis museum a little more spectacular. And it may then bring a little more money than before. That’s it. So yeah, I support the return of all stolen treasures in principle, but the truth is that if they were ever returned it would be more cause for a brief swell of national pride and milked for what it’s worth by whichever government happens to be in place than anything of actual consequence.
Also, by having the artifacts stay at the British Museum, they bear testament to the massive scale extractive exploits of colonialism and how the fates of entire peoples have depended on the favor or disfavor of great powers. I kind of find it more embarrassing for the UK that they are keeping them and every time they refuse to return them it reminds me how rotten and racist the underbelly of western powers is, hidden not-so-well beneath a cultured and democratic veneer.