[CPProt.net] Blonde, glamorous and a fearless hunter of treasures, archaeologist Dr Dorothy King would perhaps inevitably be dubbed the 'female Indiana Jones'.

[Museum Security and Cultural Property Protection (Ton Cremers)]

January 8, 2006

"Blonde, glamorous and a fearless hunter of treasures, archaeologist Dr
Dorothy King would perhaps inevitably be dubbed the 'female Indiana Jones'."


Let's hope Ms. King does not share Indiana Jones' outrageous invasion of old
cultures, and theft of treasures. 'Archaeologists hunting for treasures'
answers to a 19th century and modern day Hollywood image of this profession.
Modern day archaeologists do not hunt for treasures but for historical
facts. 

"she defends the legality of Elgin's acquisition of the marbles and argues
that he saved them from destruction or decay". 

It is almost repulsive that a modern archaeologist should write about the
Elgin 'acquisition'of the Parthenon marbles without stating the real facts.
These marbles were not purchased, but Elgin bribed the Turkish invaders of
Greece. By no means did he save the marbles from decay or destruction.
Removing the marbles from the Parthenon was an act of vandalism and
destruction in itself. The first frieze Elgin tried to remove tumbled down
and crashed into pieces. The first ship with marbles leaving for England
wrecked before the Greek coast. And then there is the cleaning disaster in
the British Museum. Untrained janitors cleaned the marbles using steel
brushes thus damaging the vulnerable surface and removing the remnants of
the original colors. Those are facts, facts that 'scientist' Dr. King must
be aware of. Elgin's removal of the marbles did NOT protect them but damaged
the Parthenon AND the marbles.

The British Museum will be pleased with this book, and it most certainly
will get a prominent place in the bookshop. In this British Museum book shop
not one single book is available criticizing the presence of the Parthenon
Marbles in the museum. In that respect the British Museum is obscuring facts
about history until this day. The Parthenon Marbles, the Rosetta Stone, and
the Benin Bronzes all are shameful remnants of an ugly colonial era. As long
as these objects are not returned this era is not ended.

Half the text of the book review below is about Ms King's looks. She is not
responsible for that although she herself very proudly must have told David
Smith that she was invited to pose in Playboy. Maybe Ms Kings looks are more
authentic than her ideas, and therefore deserve the attention these looks
get.

Ton Cremers



Hands off our Marbles 

Dorothy King defends the British Museum in her breezy history of the
Parthenon sculptures, The Elgin Marbles, says David Smith 

Sunday January 8, 2006
The Observer 


The Elgin Marbles
by Dorothy King
Hutchinson £18.99, pp352

Blonde, glamorous and a fearless hunter of treasures, archaeologist Dr
Dorothy King would perhaps inevitably be dubbed the 'female Indiana Jones'.
Such sobriquets can be both a blessing and curse. Invitations to academic
conferences and TV programmes have dropped through the letterbox, but so,
too, has a request to pose in Playboy (she refused).

Thankfully, the publisher of King's first book, The Elgin Marbles, has
resisted a front cover picturing her draped over the torso of Poseidon and
declined to make much of her headline-grabbing exploits as scourge of the
Greek government's application to reclaim the marbles from the British
Museum.

The main narrative is a winding history of the Parthenon and the outcrop on
which it sits, the Acropolis in Athens. Ploughing through nearly 2,500 years
of Persians, Romans, Christians, Byzantines, Ottomans, Anglo-French and
Anglo-Greek squabbles is exhausting work. King is equally unstinting in her
60-page description and interpretation of the Parthenon's metopes, pediments
and frieze in a style.

In a style breezy and informal, she defends the legality of Elgin's
acquisition of the marbles and argues that he saved them from destruction or
decay, adding: 'The Parthenon sculptures which Elgin brought back have been
in the British Museum far longer than Greece has existed as a country.' King
also chastises Greece for failing to care properly for the marbles it has.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/