The British Museum should serve as a space for intellectual engagement, even if it involves confronting uncomfortable historical realities, argues Bonnie Greer.
During the most aggressive museum tour that I have ever experienced – at the opening of the Acropolis museum in June 2009 – I was shown a plaster replica, a deliberately bad replica at that, of parts of the Parthenon Frieze. Those parts that have been on display at the British Museum since 1817.
This replica of what is incorrectly known in Britain as the Elgin Marbles had pride of place at the opening. As a then-board member of the British Museum, I was clearly being given a message.
At the time, I appreciated the fact that Neil MacGregor, then director of the British Museum, had picked women to represent the museum in Athens. Those women were the BM’s keeper of Greece and Rome – the formal name of the person responsible for its artefacts from those ancient civilisations – and me...Keep reading on The New European.
During the most aggressive museum tour that I have ever experienced – at the opening of the Acropolis museum in June 2009 – I was shown a plaster replica, a deliberately bad replica at that, of parts of the Parthenon Frieze. Those parts that have been on display at the British Museum since 1817.
This replica of what is incorrectly known in Britain as the Elgin Marbles had pride of place at the opening. As a then-board member of the British Museum, I was clearly being given a message.
At the time, I appreciated the fact that Neil MacGregor, then director of the British Museum, had picked women to represent the museum in Athens. Those women were the BM’s keeper of Greece and Rome – the formal name of the person responsible for its artefacts from those ancient civilisations – and me...Keep reading on The New European.