Sir, Professor Snodgrass (letter, Jan 21) advocates removing the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum while the museum retains title of ownership.

It would of course be equally valid to suggest that the British Museum could transfer title of ownership while retaining the Marbles in London. However, neither approach really improves anything.

Likewise, the cost of transferring the Marbles requires some advantage to be gained from the transfer. As I understand, the intention is merely to rehouse the Elgin Marbles in another equally artificial surrounding and a situation little different from now.

Some may say that to reunite the Marbles with other related fragments is sufficient reason to move them but such a simple collating task could equally well be achieved by moving them all to London, New York or anywhere else.

A radical and forward approach that could only happen in Athens would be to plan a joint restoration of the entire Parthenon to its pre-Ottoman condition and thereby include as many of the original masonry parts as possible within their original settings. Unavoidable gaps might be filled with newly crafted copies of such original designs as can be researched.

This replacement approach has been used very successfully to maintain and preserve our English medieval cathedrals on a continuous basis since they were built. That a particular carved stone has been replaced once or twice by new stone over the past 1,000 years or so does not in any way detract from the splendour of the usually well-maintained whole.

No cathedral maintainer would consider removing a large section of stonework and displaying it in a different building some distance away from the original site, as the Greeks now propose for the Marbles.

A Parthenon building restoration approach would gain the support of many who currently prefer to see the Marbles, saved as they were by Elgin from almost certain total destruction, safely here in England, and I commend the idea to Professor Snodgrass for his consideration, should he prefer not to spend the next 200 years fretting over the location of Elgin’s Marbles.

PAUL J. WEIGHELL
Purley, Surrey

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