preview

The Importance Of The Elgin Marbles

Decent Essays

Around the year of 440 BC, a cultural monument was constructed in Athens Greece in dedication to the city’s patron Greek goddess Athena. This monument is known as the Parthenon which not only served as a temple for the athenian people, but also is home to a collection of marble sculptures which we know now as the famous “Elgin Marbles.” These marbles now sit in the British Museum of London thousands of years after their construction, thousands of miles away from the original location in Athens Greece.The Elgin Marbles are a collection of sculptures that were taken from their place of origin, Athens, Greece by Lord Elgin to London in1803. The controversy that has surfaced over the past one hundred plus years deals with the the reasoning behind the removal of the marbles. The two sides of the argument as indicated by Juan Pablo Sanchez in an issue of National Geographic's are whether the marbles were “salvaged or stolen.” In order to understand why this argument stands, one must gain knowledge of what the marbles are, look into both sides of the argument, and finally search for the reasoning behind both sides.
The three different types of sculptures known as the Elgin Marbles are the pediments, metopes, and the frieze. The pediments of the Parthenon are triangular niches on the upper parts of the temple, one which is located on the East, the other on the West. The greek goddess Athena’s tale of her birth is depicted in images carved into the East pediment The East pediment

Get Access