CULTURE AND MIGRATION

113 K. Papadopoulou Refugees and the Parthenon sculptures entitled him in taking the sculptures in England. The above consider the “personal documentation” of the sculptures. More specifically, when the sculptures were removed – May 1801- Ottoman relations with England could not have been better. 165 So after Elgin (who had at this stage not bothered to visit Athens) was told that his workmen would need a Firman to be able to access the site, he instructed a young clergyman in his employ, to draw up a request. This request was conveyed to the Sublime Porte by the dragoman (the official Turkish interpreter at the British embassy) and the permission – the Firman – was allegedly given in July 1801. The original Turkish document has never been found, although a copy of the Italian translation has been kept. If this copy of the Italian, as translated into English, really does reflect an original Turkish Firman, then it is clear Elgin disobeyed it. It recites a request for five painters to enter and draw, and to take mouldings, and to “dig the foundations to find inscribed blocks that may be preserved in the rubbish”, and adds that no obstruction should be given if they “wished to take away some pieces of stone with old inscriptions”. The five painters should be allowed “to make moulds from their ladders around the ancient temple” and permitted to copy, mode, and to “dig according to need the foundations to find inscribed blocks among the rubbish” and no opposition should be made “to the taking away of some pieces of stone and inscriptions and figures” 166 . 167 It is abundantly clear from this Italian document that neither the seeker nor the granter of permission envisaged that Elgin’s men would rip down and carry off large sections of the frieze, or any of the metopes and pediment statues. The permission was carefully limited to drawings, mouldings and items found as a result of digging in the rubbish. Nothing was to be taken from the building and there was no right to remove or damage its frieze or sculptures. 168 The available evidence shows that the stripping of the Parthenon walls by Elgin’s team was blatantly in excess of the power he had been granted by the Firman. 169 Lord Elgin’s title – or lack of it – was vulnerable to the general principle of private international law, that “the proprietary effect of a particular assignment 165. The Ottomans had rejoined in Nelson’s victory in the battle of the Nile, and the British had then driven the French out of Egypt, which had reverted to occupation by the Ottoman Empire. It was a good time to ask for favours. [G. Robertson QC, Prof. N. Palmer QC, A. Clooney “The Case for Return of the Parthenon Sculptures”. 31 July 2015, p. 23.] 166. W. St. Clair: Lord Elgin & The Marbles. Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 339-341. 167. G. Robertson QC, Prof. N. Palmer QC, A. Clooney “The Case for Return of the Parthenon Sculptures”. 31 July 2015, p. 23-25. 168. Idem, p. 25. 169. Idem, p. 29.