British Museum Highlights

[goran21715]

The fall of Nineveh shocked the ancient world. The Jewish prophet Nahum described the Median armies advancing to the city that had once ruled the Near East.

An attacker advances against you, Nineveh. [...]

The shields of his soldiers are red;

the warriors are clad in scarlet.

The metal on the chariots flashes

on the day they are made ready

the spears of pine are brandished

The chariots storm through the streets,

rushing back and forth through the squares

WHY THIS POEN NON EXSIST

[verticalsmurf]

If I was interested in Egyptian or Assyrian art I'd go there. I went to the British Museum to see British history. All I saw was imports or guilded bits and coins. No mention of the acutual country. I went into that beautiful Library, but surprise, don't touch! No wonder why kids don't read any more, can't touch the books...

[chickenruler]

I don't get it when people say we "stole" stuff. A lot of stuff we took from lands that weren't technically countries when we took it! Also, we found it and figured out what the thing was so why can't we keep it! And if enough people wanted it back it would be a global scandal in all the headlines!!!

[scorphicus]

can´t believe howmany stuff these bastards have stolen from iraq and others.

someday it will be returned i promis

[VendPrekmurec]

smells like teen spirit music?! :P

[Demie11]

Well almost everything in that museum is taken from different cultures. They STOLE the Parthenon Marbles, destroyed them and they will not return them. But of course not, with all the profit they get, why should they... It really makes us sad...

[Arvanitasi]

thiefs

[JawJee23Q]

I love the winged bull the LEGS the reach off assyria the body is the strength the wing is the locations and the FIVE LEGS R THE STATES the winged bull has 5 legs coz of the 5 ancient states of assyria LOVE IT MATE SURAYEEE BESLEEEEWAA

[JawJee23Q]

hard stolen and displayed in glass cages LA moorrii ani nashekh leyaatee moo beghziyenna LOL ani khooool ena surya ASHURIN ASSYRIAN ALL one thing and give it BACK give it back TOMORROW stealer

[achelleos14]

they are all stolen from the british

[dkokkinidis]

I am truly saddened by the fact that the parthenon marbles are listed as..Elgin marbles. Even a simple google search will wield more results using the term "elgin".

As for people claiming that the marbles would be dust now, please compare the marbles in brittish possesion vs the ones at the acropolis museum. At least those in greek hands are not vandalized by 9y old kids writting their initials on them. Truly sad

[TheGunner1324]

haha dont even know wat ur talkig about go fuck off least we had an empire to be honest the best aybe not the biggest but the best so take that bitch greece is s poor

[dkokkinidis]

If you don't know what this is about, why reply?

Oh, i get it. It is your patriotism. If you love your country that much friend, first learn to structure your sentences properly, using your language. Then take a history lesson or two. Maybe then, you will understand why "we" are "poor", and how stupid your remark about GB's empire was.

[ART33N]

Im an Assyrians and Im really proud of Britain preserving my History, i cant wait to go and see them!

[spiderger77]

The whole world know who the british were and are... and the fate they will have...

Is a pity that, in terms of Greek people, they can not have these wonderful pieces back. But those cultures as assyrian, egypcian, aztecs, etc, have pride, something that british did not, do not and won't have...

[ReligionOfSacrifice]

It really is a pity that everyone knows who the Egyptians are & the fate they will have as listed in the Bible. The Egyptians have pride & we know what comes after pride.

Zechariah 14:17-19 clearly states that once the slaughter of the Jews for real is accomplished until the world will wonder if there even exists Jews that Egypt will be the nation that will hate that Jesus reforms Israel more than any other Muslim state. They will pay for that pride & stupid hatred of anything that was God's.

[Fornonbelievers]

Overall British are thief.......

[tigerwa]

Why should we respect you just because we now own some marbles that you ancestors made? You get respect in this world from your own actions, do you honestly have no pride in yourself. Please do not try to add meanings to my comments that I have not expressed myself it just makes you look stupid, I am perfectly capable of expressing my own meaning.

[tigerwa]

They used brushes to clean them in the 1930s the British museum has the most advanced conservation departments in the entire world, it is not even a valid point given that they are marble and are in a sealed environment, they will not need to be cleaned for another several hundred years.

[1964Byron]

Last time they brush-washed them was in the early 80s and actually after consulting the Greeks they were asked not to change the natural look of aged marble.

Sealed environment? You forget the videos in British TV with party attendees leaving wine glasses on the sculpture, apparently using them as tables?

Just the fact that you call them marbles instead of sculptures shows how much you respect them.

Calling them Elgin instead of Parthenon shows how much you respect us, their creators.

[aeneid5ph]

This is a message for all you people who go on and on about how all this is supposedly 'stolen' from one country or another.

The BM isn't the only museum that has treasure from other countries. I mean christ, the big museum in berlin has the ishtar gate! Thats more important than anything in the BM. So if you insist on ranting, give it to others to.

Also, if the majority of the treasure in the british museum had never been taken it would have been smashed up, melted down etc, eg in Greece.

[tigerwa]

They were not just occupiers who came in for 10 mins and sold them they ruled Athens for 300 years, they had a legitimate claim to the ownership of the marbles under any law then and now. Why do you mention 10 years? I said 300 years if my car is still in one piece in 300 years you can have it hahaha!

[1964Byron]

Who said that time of possession wins ownership on stolen goods. You guys must have some strange laws in Britain.

Well if your culture instructs you to communicate in a discussion of this sort with ha, ha, ha, then I am sorry but it seems there is no reason to continue this.

Without knowing it you gave me the answer I wanted. Your answer was ha,ha,ha, right?

[tigerwa]

Lord Elgin was paid £35,000 for the marbles and it cost him £50,000 to remove them, he made a huge loss from the venture, he was an astute business man so one can only assume his intentions were to save the sculptures from further damage and not to destroy them.

The ottomans has been the rulers of Athens for 300 years before Elgin obtained the rights to remove the marbles they did not just walk in one day and decide to sell them, you have no facts to support yourself with just piss and wind.

[1964Byron]

No my tiger friend,

THIS IS A PURE CASE OF BUYING STOLEN GOODS.

The Ottoman Muslims were illegal occupiers not legal owners of Greece.

Tell me, the thief who stole your car, 10 years from now will become its legal owner and therefore I could buy it from him?

Does time legalize unjust actions?

Give me your facts, please!!!

[WanderingOdysseus]

This is the museum with the stolen marbles from Parthenon.

Return what belongs to the World. Prove you respect History, or History will forget you.

[chelsal]

Totally disagree - the British Musuem has the resources,skill & dedication to preserve these wonderful relics so that we & future generations can appreciate them.

[WanderingOdysseus]

This cannot change the fact that these ancient pieces of art were brutally removed and stolen. They have to be with the rest Thomas Bruce didnt stole, than in two different museums and they will be someday.

I have no doubt the English museum does everything needed to preserve them, but it didnt happen the same in the past. Not only they were brutally removed, but they were left to rot for years at Bruces basement. You see, he wanted to get a nice price from the British government.

[aeneid5ph]

One of the reasons they were moved from greece is because the greeks didn't 'respect history'. The marbles that were left, and even the parthenon, have deteriorated, so we have actually protected your history.

[WanderingOdysseus]

This crap is commonly used to cover your lies. Thomas Bruce would cut the whole Parthenon in pieces in order to sell it to the british government, if he could.

The marbles were taken violently as they were brutally removed, that's the only truth and it's beyond dispute.

If you think you protect history, return them.

The marbles will return in the near future. There's nothing you can do to keep them besides than posting silly lies. The whole world knows!

[1964Byron]

The Greeks love the Brits and their culture and they prove it by sending hundreds of thousands of tourists to Britain every year. This is no personal war to the individual British.

The reason we dont attack the Berlin museum is because they dont have something of ours that we value so much and want. The same goes for the Louvre or the Vatican museums.

Nike or Venus if had remained in Greece they would probably be unknown. Big museums have the media power to create fame for their items.

[1964Byron]

Now, just because some Greeks may be ranting, out of anger for the issue, you dont have to be childish also and say that the Greeks didnt care about their own history and that is why Lord Elgin cut the sculptures from Parthenon to take them to Britain and (save) them.

The sculptures in our possession are in better shape because we never used acid and brushes to clean them as BBC says. When needed we used laser for cleaning them. Check the BBC site to learn more about it.

[1964Byron]

The conservative ruling class of Britain embarrasses its nation and especially British people who are ethical and respect whats right and whose majority wants the return of the stolen artworks.

Concerning caretaking, Greece is a developed country just as Britain and keeps its treasures quite well (or better than Britain as BBC says).

Greeks use lasers to clean the sculpture - not brushes as the Brits, damaging most of them.

Read about it in BBC site.

[1964Byron]

The fact that all Europeans committed atrocities to weaker countries in the past, including the Greeks, does not justify theft in the 19th century.

Elgin did not buy the artworks from the Greek owners. He bought them from a state that illegally held Greece at the time, the Ottoman Muslims.

Buying the artwork from the Muslim Turks was no different than buying from Hitler, French artworks, stolen by Nazis in occupied France.

This is a s pure case of BUYING STOLENS GOODS.

[braindripper]

And by the way God Bless Assyria!

[greenwar13]

Shame on you England...We want our Ancient back in Athens!!!Acropolis new Museum !!! SHAME ON YOU !!!

[Ashmansworth]

@greenwar13

No Shame! just the way things turned out, We bought them! they will never be returned with good judgment.

[flobblepop1]

To all you guys crying about 'theft' and crap like that: look at it from another point of view... maybe it's better that some countries have bits of other countries' art, it means that the population can learn from the culture in question. Eh?

But for now, get over it: and get over yourselves.

[braindripper]

You know what? Why dont you just call it "the Museum" and not "the British museum". You dont care about other countries just face it. Parthenon was butchered by Elgin, it is practically halved. So why don YOU get over your fascism, stupid colonist wannabes

[masyiel]

i was in paris last year i went to the louvre museum last year they had some pretty cool stuff . As an assyrian it was good to see that our stuff was still around. I guess we should be lucky that someone has it. It's better then it being destroyed

[MrKolowski]

@masyiel

I have fond respect for the cradle of civilization... God Blessed and Blesses you Assyrians, and may God Bless us all!

[mw3wd]

you have no right to take anything from owr land bring it all back you people .

[ashley92wales]

1.that land you speak of was actually british at the time.

2. dont say 'but you only invaded it' because all land is set by boundries created by militaries. That land was british just as much as anyone elses at any time in history or now.

[abrashTX]

Hey, that's the Bad Plus. Cool. British Museum's not bad either!

[massivetuber]

Theft.

[moahandsome]

Most of the things shown in this video are froom Babylon/Iraq. and after the 2003 war the american stole more from our museums.

[Ashmansworth]

Nah, we stole them lond long time ago. Go back to Victorian time and start there.

Not the Yanks

[DavidLLoco]

from assyrians/babylon = iraq now,

most of them belong to the assyrian empire

yeh British stole them .

[agnostosxxxx]

these guys are unbeliveble!

they stole so many things by other countries...

The greek antiquity has been stolen while greeks where under the ottoman empire's fasistic tyrrany.

When turks where making "crimes against humanity" at greek people,the british troops ignoring the killings and tortures were stealing antiquitys of Greece....

Shame on them...

Where is humanity and justice ?

[CisforCrystal]

I get that its kind of a modern indecency, but to be fair, the Romans and every other empire that ever concurred the Greeks stole their treasures as well.

[meotaku2]

@agnostosxxxx. What nonsense !

[HeritageKey1]

twisted music

[glory2win]

all of iraqs treasures must return back to the national meusium

[Aburegil]

half of the stuff belongs to ancient Mesopotamia (Iraq).

[Creamy360]

smells like teen spirit has just been killed and mummified.

[viccc21]

the elgin marbles belong to Greece!!!!!!!!!!! the brits are thieves of sacred history

[tigerwa]

Boohoo! Perhaps if the children looked after their toys better then the adults would not need to take them away.

[1989panos]

and now the children became adults and ask for their toys back ... and the other adults wont give them back cause they wanna play with them... does this sound right?

anyway britain was never our mother so she hadn't the authority to take them away

[mbollons]

Surely it's relevant that in 1801 when the marbles were removed, the Acropolis was an Ottoman fort with the Parthenon as the main amunition store. It had suffered extensive damage over the centuries from war. In fact some 30 years later it was the Greeks fighting for independance that bombarded the site with cannon, blasting bits off and completely destroying the north porch. I'm not saying the Brits should be free of criticism, but we should all be glad that so much has actually survived.

[braindripper]

The fact is that NOW and for many years Greece is an independent Country and the Parthenon is a curtailed monument. Imagine the Statue of Liberty without the torch. The problem with the british is their relentless chauvinism and their colonist delusion, shame on you!

[halasgil]

did any of u guys know that the great dain is actually an assyrian dog cuz they used it in their lion hunts u may ask how i know this well partially cuz im assyrian and when u look at the tablets u can see a bone structure of a great dain

[peymaania]

Okay we all know that had these great works of Art and Architecture been in Iraq, they would have been blown up by now. People of the Middle East Wake Up!

[halasgil]

did u know that the great dain is an assyrian dog not a british because assyrians would take them on lion hunts quit often

[aomtanya]

god bless assyria

[bludolf]

well documented.

[Sanharib]

that's great 'cause I'm an Assyrian :)

[FraterO]

cool.. who is playing this nirvana cover?