A magnificent piece of art as a building. If someone is an arts lover he can spent days and months in there. You can travel through time and see most of humanity’s achievements. Not all of them, but a fair amount of it.

When I was a teenager a great Greek politician died. She was also a singer and an actress, amongst other things. She is mostly famous for her passionate performance at “Never On Sunday”, a movie made by Jules Dassin. But she was also famous for her eager to bring back to Greece the marbles of Parthenon, or the so called Elgin marbles. Melina Merkouri was the only Greek politician, as far as I am concerned, who ever fought for them. Since then nobody has expressed any kind of interest in bringing them back. If it weren’t for her, I probably wouldn’t have ever heard about them.

Since her death, I wanted to visit the British museum and see them. What puzzled me then and still puzzles me now is why I had to go to England to see them. They belong to the Acropolis. And the Greeks never gave permission for the marbles to leave the country. It was the Ottomans who did, supposedly, because it has never been proved. You can read more about them at wikipedia.

Anyway, I saw them there, in a good condition and environment. Along with other unique pieces of art, including the Rosetta Stone and countless others from all over the world.

There was one section closed in the museum, with Greek exhibits, because as an employee explained to us, they lacked staff. I went all the way to London to see my stolen items, and I couldn’t because they had no staff. And I say mine, because I am a Greek too, all these artifacts and bricks belong to me and all Greeks.

I understand and respect the policy of the museum to not charge you with a fee for getting in. That is really very kind of them. But if I go there to see my heritage, I really want to see it. And it would be unfair to pay too. No matter the price, it would be unfair because none of these items really belong in there and if they can’t keep them, they’d better send them back to their homes.

Then I thought, it really is amazing to go into a building and see thousands of years of history in one day. I would never be able to travel to all these cities and visit them in their natural environment. It would take a lifetime and loads of money.

But on the other hand, if you had built the Acropolis, you would want it to stay there. You chose the exact spot and made the perfect plan. And what you made, makes your country great and unique. Especially for the Greeks, we have no present and I doubt that we have any future. All we have is a glorious past. You can’t move it wherever it suits you.

But I think it’s the same for other countries too. One of my dreams is to visit Egypt. I don’t want to visit empty pyramids. I want to see museums in the pyramids themselves with all their content. It’s like stripping one country of it’s history. And that is totally unacceptable, but money buys everything. I can’t think of any other reason why some countries accepted to sell their history.

As much as I loved the British museum I think every country has the right to keep it’s glorious past and it would bring them much more money from tourism in the long term.