1801 WHEN LORD ELGIN REMOVED  THE FIRST SCULPTURES FROM THE PARTHENON

Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, ambassador of England to Constantinople, stole precious ancient sculptures from the Parthenon to take to England in the late summer of 1801, marking the beginning of the long dispute about the ownership;

The Scottish diplomat was a famous art collector and the time was a very different one from our own.  But even then, there was a major outcry in Britain against Elgin for removing the sculptures from the Parthenon.

In May 1800, he sent Embassy Secretary, William Hamilton to Athens with six specialists and craftsmen from Italy to assess the monuments of Attica, especially the Parthenon.  His original goal was simply to get casts from various monuments to make replicas to decorate his mansion in Scotland.

When the politics of the era led Turkey to align itself with Great Britain against France.  However, Elgin seized the opportunity to personally benefit and acquire a huge amount of antiquities.

In 1801, he managed to obtain a letter from Kaimaiktam Segat Abdullah, who at the time replaced the Grand Vizier in Constantinople urging the Ottoman authorities in Athens to allow his people to perform excavations around the Acropolis, provided they did not damage the monuments.  

From 1801 to 18040, Elgin's crews worked on the Acropolis causing considerable damage to the sculptures and the monument itself.   They chipped away and divided the spoils nearly half of the sculptures decorating the Parthenon along with some architectural pieces from the structure of the building,

The first metopes from the Parthenon were removed from July 31st to August 1st, 1802  hoards of looted antiquities were then packed in wooden boxes and transferred by sea to England.  

Elgin finally returned to England in 1806, criticized by several of his distinguished compatriots for stealing the Greek antiquities.  Today, however, the marbles, unfortunately, are in the British Museum.