"British Museum is preparing to GIVE UP our heritage" | David Starkey Talks... to archaeologist

[00:00:04]When people say there's nothing British about British museum, I get a little bit vexed because the very fact that it exists and with this breath of collection is a British product is a British testimony and is a tribute to British ingenuity.

[00:00:22]Hello and welcome to David Starky talks and today I'm delighted to be talking to my competing mic with my terrible seno blot Mario Fabuko dea and who is an expert on the one of the great subjects of debate the so-called Elgen marbles in the museum which is a subject of deternal debate it seems in the 20 20th and 21st centuries between Britain and Greece as to who owns them, why are they in the British Museum?

[00:00:56]Should they be at the Acropolis? So let's begin sort of at the beginning not quite with peries but but let's let's begin with the situation that we find ourselves in at the end of the uh 18th the beginning of the 19th century uh with Lord Elgen a nobleman of the Bruce family uh in Scotland uh making this extraordinary decision to finance vast cost to himself a removal of a proportion of the marbles from completely erected decaying structure of the pathon. Can we just fill in a little bit of all of this? Um why is the pathon in this state? I mean if I look at a few drawings of the 16th century which survive, it is practically perfect as as some of the temples that survive uh in in for example the meal pad or whatever.

[00:01:55]The structure is after all extremely solid massive marble pillars and a marble slab roof and uh built on solid rock as opposed to a foundation of the chiff. So what happened? Why is it the ruin? So uh you're perfectly right that in the 16th century the Bartan was already converted into a mosque uh because obviously Athens was part of the Ottoman Empire by then and let just again fill in. So the uh the what we see of course is this extraordinary shift in the Eastern Mediterranean. Well, you all talk about the fall of Constantinople, but the fall of Constantinople, of course, is only the final stage in the conquest of the Easter, the Greekeaking bit, the Roman Empire, the by which we call the Byzantine Empire by this imported Asiatic people from the central steps of the Asia, which we must never forget uh the Turkish conquest uh which sweeps over an already existing Arabian conquest.

[00:02:58]uh and takes over the whole of of of the effectively in fact the whole mor of of the of the eastern empire. So we're there uh but it it survives. In other words, Athens, the glory of the ancient world becomes a very minor and provincial city and the northern edge of the empire.

[00:03:18]It had been quite a modest city to be honest uh since the the incorporation into the Roman Empire. uh it had been going down but still remaining a preminent center of culture of beauty and but we must not forget the emperor Adrien for example love that and doed it with with new buildings and renovations etc but still it was in the so-called progressive decline state um because obviously the center power was Constantinople and uh others was no longer in charge of anything at all. Um so what happens is uh come 1453 obviously Constantinople gets overrun by the Ottomans and uh what happens is all the other bits of the Ottoman Empire that had already not been conquered by the Ottomans start falling down like dominant pieces. Let's not forget also that in this particular moment uh the part of um the Ottoman Empire that was in the continental uh Europe basically is already been converted into a lot of small principalities uh since the fourth crusade of 1204. Athens is exactly one of those principalities. is the dy of Athens and neopatra and it has been a dy Frankish dy in in for for the last 300 years. Then what happens is uh it gets conquered just after Constantinople in 1458.

[00:04:55]And then um the first thing uh Mhmed the second does was um to convert the big ci um Catholic cathedral that was on top of the propolis. one of the most symbolic uh uh buildings of antiquity and of dominating the landscape of the new conquest and into a mosque which is something that obviously did operate in Constantinople with a Sophia with many other churches and uh since then there is yes a little bit of adaptation obviously the ar becomes the nikab there is a a mil gets added to the building but after all the building remain is pretty much the same. Uh it stays like this for another 200 years. Uh come the uh one of the >> So in other words, the the the the Pathnon having gone undergone Christian conquest and becoming a Christian cathedral is then exactly like Santa Sophia uh in uh in turned into a mosque. Um this vast structure rising from the center of this little city. Yeah, absolutely. And uh we have those nice pictures and and little graphs from the 1500s and 1600s. We have travelers even Turkish travelers like the uh that see the these old cathedral turned into into a mosque has a beautiful church has a beautiful building is firing. It's a a celebrated work of the sages. That's the way the wise men that were uh um that's the way that they were identified uh back then from the tempation. So there was a mixture of of reverence and a mix of obviously bringing it back into use and continuing the long story the long journey of the building. It goes like this for almost 200 years when there is one of the routine clashes between the Venetian and the Ottomans. Venicia still being the end of a great power, a great maritime power controlling the >> controlling the Adriatic and the Eastern Mediterranean. Yeah, absolutely. And then they clashed many many times and one of those uh Venian Ottoman wars was when the Parthanon gets basically blown up. What happens is the doer of Venice, military commander of the expedition, Frances for Morini, um puts others on the sea and uh one fortunate shot in the way that this Morini's own words hits there like a motor that basically shoots a grenade through the roof of the parthanon and the parthanon gets blown up. It would not have been as bad had the partner not been converted into a gunpowder store by then. This effectively a fortress. It Yes. The whole of the >> the whole is converted into and the war becomes a fortress and and it is this terrible combination of the fact you've got gunpowder inside and a mortar going down through the ree. But also we must not forget that the Acropoly uh the propolis looked entirely different from what it looks like now because now we are used to go to the cropolis is a bare plate with just a couple of buildings back then it was a little village. It was one it was a city and many city in Britain who is for for example familiar with another very similar structure which is the old city of Lincoln. the old city of Lincoln rising up on a very very similar volcanic the plug of a volcano volcanic outcrop and there you've got uh the cathedral you've got the castle and you got a school all within walls around it and the Acropolis looked exactly like so we've blown it up let's let's move forward we've blown we've blown it up there species all over the place both on the plateau and beyond and that's that's when obviously the progressive degradation of the building starts having a massive acceleration Because people start reusing fament of marble in order to powder them and make motor with the collectors start acquiring little pieces here and there. Obviously there were a constant influx of foreign travelers and they would grab souvenirs and this goes on and on and on up until the years of Elen. Um by the time Elen comes there obviously there is a documented history of this. We have uh several western travelers that have gone there made sketches and made uh publications and Elen starts being quite aware of this decay is but by then he's not even gone to Athens yet. But what he has done, he has paid for a an expedition of artists and these artists are basically painters, draftsmen, um um molders and these are charged with a an interesting artistic and scientific mission that is to document whatever is left of a rescue mission. He's conceived of and again it's important isn't it that we get uh what somebody like Elgen and indeed his great opponent Byron would have been trained in these old people sunk in the classical of ancient Greece and Rome they know them intimately uh they've done them at school at conditions of course the whole of the artistic achievement of 18th century Britain um that the again this is one of the one of the areas that I think we need really to think about there is the sea modern notion of cultural appropriation. The whole history of the world is a history of cultural appropriation. the entire reconstruction uh of medieval Europe.

[00:10:51]And uh for inance well earlier of course of the Renaissance but if we take the symbolic the symbolic standardized account it is that encounter of an essentially uh Christian quai Germanali world with the the surviving uh extraordinary testimony of this preceding civilization uh of of Greece and Rome as embodied in its great larying depth and the enormous impact of on the imagination uh on the political structures of the west. So here we have somebody who is a aware that there is one of the most precious monuments of the ancient world literally being torn apart, bits of it being ground down to make mortar, other bits of it being picked up to make souvenirs. And what he does is something tremendously modern.

[00:11:40]He decides and again this seems to me to be something we need to be saying. 18th century England is uh Scotland uh but first in England is the area where you get a thing called antiquarianism is a rediscovery not simply of the past as words not simply a discovery of the past as books but a discovery of the past as things a desire to preserve them to document them to understand them and and I think that that this this why so many of our medieval buildings still survive why they're not just locked down. It's not simply that we too was easy to do anything about them. There is an appreciation of them. I'm going to use a very modern word as cultural monuments.

[00:12:26]They're documented. I mean in my in my own fast is a very active member of of the society of antiquaries of London.

[00:12:34]They begin in the middle of the 18th century a program of documenting every single serious historical survival they could find in Britain. It's astonishing astonishing you know having this is obviously long before photography but you have great engravers like George Virtue drawing uh first drawing and then engraving every copy of every important historical painting um books published on the great new buildings of the country houses of course with that wonderful echoing term vuvvious so the so you've got the great Roman architect but he's transferred to Britain. So this is now this this and Britain of course much the richest country in the world uh the aristocracy as being at least as rich now as as the American robber baronss uh in the 19th 20th and 21st centuries and deciding to do something about it quite interesting you've touched on on two interesting words one is the imagination because obviously there is a quite idealized version of ancient She's in the mind and ancient Rome as well. Absolutely. The other thing is the documentation. The documentation had already started obviously 70 years before when Pompean gets discovered discovered and obviously there is this head of revival and there is this um uh division between one purpose that is just documenting the art for our sake and the other purpose is to document the art for the progress of the farther art that is created and that's where obviously your video refer before it was a fight because they were using all the stuffs, all these make in order to reproduce and we are in the in the in the Greek revival uh period of the of neocclassicism where obviously uh they were constantly rehashing the models of the ancients and in order to make new art, new uh furniture, new architecture and all of these was the past not being a dead thing. offered not simply something to be understood but actually reshapes in dialogue.

[00:14:52]>> Absolutely. Uh contemporary art, contemporary furniture. Um but so we've got ourselves to there. Elgen is a is a civil again it's important to say highly civilized of this determined as a a as I suppose really a kind of the prince of Scotland to do something about it to to send out his voyage of rescue. And again, it's one of the things that's quite striking.

[00:15:17]Of course, so much of the British Empire was a result of precisely this kind of private initiative. Uh you know, uh the the East India Company being the most obvious example. So there's a privately funded expedition that begins as an attempt at recording and then becomes an attempt at rescue.

[00:15:36]>> Yes. Because that's exactly what happens. And the people on the ground start telling wait everything is crumbling down we need to do something and that's how the initially artistic mission initi initially all the documenting and molding and taking casts and everything starts pivoting to a mission of rescue when the uh already a little bit of familiarity with taking away pieces of antiquity with full permission of the Ottoman Empire.

[00:16:07]He had obviously friends in high places and the the Bashad the great admiral of the feet was a friend of his and he starts asking per permissions that the way he acquires. So, we're still, we need to remind everybody, Athens at this point is deeply poor provincial city in the far north uh of what is beginning to be a crumbling empire anyway. Uh that has no interest whatever in historic preservation that regards these things by this time as alien monuments that is also dealing with uh simmering the Greek revolt. So the last thing it's got any concerns about is a great symbol of the of of the once greatness of Greece and so on. So he decides as you said and to to do the rescue mission and to remove them and to bring them back to London and to do that he negotiates a formal agreement uh with the uh what what was the so the name of the official is the Kakhan the Khan is basically the deputy grand visier. So the gravis here is obviously the the prime minister of the Ottoman Empire, but he's also the commander-in-chief of the of the army. So he has jurisdiction over every military fortress, every uh part of the army is obviously he was fighting the French in Egypt. Therefore he left in Constantinople and Constantinople is the uh is is vice is is number two and obviously his deputy the kaakan is the one that gets this request from uh the so the state the decision is taken in and constant >> absolutely yes to proper >> and by the way we need to fill everybody in so they get a sense the French have invaded Egypt partly on exactly the same grounds the military con Napoleon yes military conquest but also and it will lead to to to to I'm sure that tal on the rosetta still with the idea of the preservation of the understanding of the interpretation of the hieroglyphs and whatever. So when Napoleon invades Egypt, he takes scholars with that. He takes archaeologists with it. He's already beginning to think of the creation of the ecodes or whatever the the whole apparatus of of what you could describe as knowledge as an aspect of empire.

[00:18:28]>> Indeed. So we let's get ourselves back.

[00:18:31]I'm just trying to I'm just trying to get people to have a sense of the overall job. All this is happening at the same time. The So he gets the permission. that permission is done in due form.

[00:18:42]>> Yeah, absolutely.

[00:18:43]>> And fulfills it fulfills Turkish rule >> entirely.

[00:18:47]>> In other words, the to deny or or to talk of this as theft is simply to deny the legitimacy of Turkish rule over that portion uh of of the empire, which of course would mean that there was absolutely no grounds for legal action anyway. Not that that so we we're dealing with a fundamental confusion here that assuming that there are kind of subsisting rights of of Greek people that doesn't exist.

[00:19:15]>> Not only this doesn't exist doesn't exist a conception of uh cultural heritage at the moment and also >> which is only entirely alien.

[00:19:25]>> It's something that gets developed because of the anti-quarian work but much later. So, so what happens is a person in in his personal capacity in a personal capacity is asking the opponents for permission to take basically what they don't particularly value and what garbage >> what yeah for them is basically all garbage and something that can be used as a a quick proc something to to amuse in a way and kind of the cooperation that was already taking case between the Ottoman Empire and its great ally the British Empire. Um in a moment when obviously they both had dealings and they both were aligned in the same front against Napoleon because Napoleon takes Egypt because wants to cut off India the main source of the wealth of the British Empire. Therefore he wants to take sewage. He wants to take the the the the passage of this wealth and cut off the English on on that particular side. Um obviously the the the Mediterranean fleet with Melson make a total mess of his plan and what happens is the Ottomans are very grateful but the important bit is that the permission gets given to before the great uh uh winning of Egypt. So we are in a in a in a moment where uh the Ottomans are friendly with Elgen. The Ottomans have already considered some antiquity as well. So it's it's not something that is unprecedented and it's completely going in this in the framework of what is legitimate action from one power to do with their own things especially public property coming from a military base in their own right according to their own will. uh as we said they uh the deniers of this permission not only not only deny the legitimacy and deny international law they also deny agency to the Turks because what they are saying is oh they should have done something else who are you to say that they what they should have done are you putting yourself in those shoes that's entirely preposterous so everything gets his permission and uh this permission gets delivered by an imperial message that gets sent to others with a paper and the the permission gets delivered or whatever it's called. Yeah, they call it but the technical term apparently should be a you will be an official or um >> and that marvelous calligraphic script that they knew. Yeah. Yeah. But the the other thing is that we get h this furman is the second issue of a similar furman.

[00:22:15]the first one wasn't just as effective. So what happens is whenever Philip P with his um Lord Ali's private secretary um gets his second furman what he does he asked for the translation. Why? Because obviously he wanted to be in charge of the negotiation and so he needed to know exactly what the Turkish Ottoman text of the permission exactly was specifying.

[00:22:43]Well, what were the limits of his this enterrise? Limits that it turns out were quite humble because the Furman actually has an interesting bit where it says that whe whenever the the division want to take any pieces of stone with inscriptions or figure no position be made there too. That's exactly the text that we have from this Italian translation that was commissioned by Hunt. Why Italian? because Italian was the ling of lingua frana of the levant back then a little bit like French will become a diplomatic language um after that. So uh it was perfectly normal for ant to have an an Italian copy of the permission to know its limits and for this copy to be in Italian and uh we have this permission we have the text of this letter because it's revered just a few meters from here in the British it was acquired from the the H family. Yes. Uh so what happens is they acquire all of these sculptures. We are talking about tons and tons of carved stone which gets obviously uh reworked. They cut off the back part of because they are huge blocks of marble. They cut off the half the back half of them and they take only the the valable portion and they try to save as much as possible. They don't take everything because let's remember that part of the columns of the of the pattern are basically cover part of the fallen decoration. So therefore without cranes and things like this it was quite difficult but for a year and a half on the acropolis we have hundreds of laborers. So let's also put this in context. Had they not had permission, would you have hundreds of laborers working out material in a military base?

[00:24:44]That's completely multiverse. So, right, let's just pause because because um as always, the tide of his the tide of history even during podcasts. Um the so we've we we've we've got them removed with formal permiss.

[00:25:00]>> They are carefully packed. They are transported enormous. an enormous cost um on land and sea to Britain and and then uh very quickly what happens effectively um Elgen after this enormous effort dies bankrupt that's yeah more or less more or less what happen in a way yes because he tries to uh sell these sculptures to the government much like many other collectors and antiquarians had done before him there is the town collection of sculptures in the British museum there is a Hamilton collection of bases so he wanted to do pretty much the same. Sell it to the government for a price that initially was deemed to be too high. So he basically goes back to the government saying okay you do the price let's make a commission. There was in the meantime also Bayon stiring up sensibilities because he had published he had gone to others had published the conflict the curse of Manva where he was attacking Elliot as a desoiler as a plunderer as a thief and this obviously had started creeping into the the public distraction here in London and make things a little bit difficult for actually what he does is quite smart. He says, "Let's convene a select committee of parliament. Let parliament decide what the price should be if I have done everything correctly and if it's worth for the nation to acquire this these marvels which parliament does. They conven.

[00:26:31]They call witnesses left, right and center. Even Carova from Italy coming over and so they they they call everyone they look into it properly and they decide yes the acquisition was legitimate. Yes, Aeen acted in his own personal capacity and with his own money, which was also quite interesting because had it not uh had it been a um acting on behalf of the F, obviously the F would not have had to pay for them because they were already current property. But no, they were LG's property. They were acquired legitimately and they were of the first order. So something definitely worthwhile. So they decide £35,000 which was half of what Helen had um paid in order to get them. And this is vast.

[00:27:26]>> It is a vast amount. It's is definitely one of the biggest as was talking about the end of the Napoleonic wars. We are at the moment where the coffers of the state are quite depleted. Therefore, it's it's something that measures in a way how worthwhile investment culture was perceived be right. Can I just pause there because the institution that they acquired on behalf of the National Museum is comparatively new founded in the middle of the 18th century. Um there's profound rivalry, cultural rivalry with France which is exactly at this moment is developing on the wreckage of the AAN regime and the the the lon is developing the Louv as a great rival uh on essentially using the French royal collection and the vast additions and loot which Napoleon carries out and the armies the armies of the imperial armies of France loot Europe strip outward Lut and and so on. So there's this immense cultural rivalry between the two dominant parts of the west which is Britain and Britain and France. But the British Museum is itself a profoundly classically rooted concept, isn't it?

[00:28:48]There was no there were no collections that related to Britain in the British Museum. uh it was conceived of as a museum right from the beginning of a world civilization that was seen to be rooted in ancient Greece Rome. That's in other words is a hu is a kind of national uh national expansion of what you will see if you go into so many of the great Georgian houses. If you look at the the collections um in in Hton for example uh the the the house of the ears of Leicester where you will see gallery after gallery um of of of magnificent Greek and Roman antiquities or the great collections which have been held up two centuries earlier in Rome by by by by the by by the great Roman families that of course give their names to some of the most famous uh objects uh surviving from the ancient world. But what? Let's get it into London. Let's get it into the British Museum. Let's look at what the consequences are because we've been filling in all of this detail. It's all jolly interesting and exciting. But what happens when he comes into London? I'm going to give you a little test here.

[00:29:59]What are the f what is the first clear evidence of the enormous impact that this has had? Every time for example, you look at an image of the British monarch sitting enthroned. What are you also looking at?

[00:30:18]Have I triggered a memory? I don't think I am revival. Well, let you tell you.

[00:30:23]Let me tell you something. One of the first things that happens is you decide that the throne room Buckingham Palace will have its own path freeze. the path and freeze of British history with B of the throne, the marriage of of Henry II as he as he then is and Elizabeth of York as the moment of the ending of the wars of the roses in the style of the pathlandon freeze the club that I'm deeply fond of the travelers club the library has a Greek freeze so in other words what I think all these people witering on about vitally important it is that these things go back to Athens.

[00:31:04]Their impact is in London. Absolutely.

[00:31:07]The point at which they join world culture is in London. The point at which they are first seen is London. The place where they acquire and this is the big point I want us to focus on. The place where they acquire actual historical meaning trigger a complete reunderstanding of the Greek Roman world which is what happened.

[00:31:30]>> It's the first Greek econal that comes into the British. Let's not forget also that it's it's it's quite a momentous happening for the British museum because up until then they are also only being relying on Roman copies of Greek originals and that's the first time that actually something Greek from Greece comes into the into London and start exciting the artistic imagination and in all fields because you are talking about architecture obviously Another interesting example is obviously the Athenian club that PSU created right now in this very moment and they what happens is they put between the first and the second of the building that >> another production >> another phrase production of the LG Marles phrase and this happens >> the very name they have >> they have a name exactly for that and also what happens is they start making little copies of it the big get sent all over the place the handings uh sculptures. They basically make small copies that get copied over and over again and collected judiciously from all the elite of uh of Britain. And also we get the marbles influencing things that are even everyday use objects. the the the uh the Stonton fle the horse of the stuntton fest is actually the horse of Selini from the early models or almost pseudo Greek furniture the entire Greek in Scotland as well with Athenian Stewart even coins for example the gold sovereigns from that moment on that is an Italian Benedi which is the mint engraver chief engraver of the royal mint basically takes the model from the early marble reworks it into a Michael that he kills the dragon and then he kills the the dragon and then puts it as the main emblem which is on the gold for ever since for 200 years we've had basically a bit of marbles in our coin for lectures and and everywhere bar a couple of examples >> so in other words I think it really is important just to repeat this point these things acquire meaning cultural significance cultural impact here here in London as you would expect. You see I would also like to put let's shift now then we we we've got a very strong case why they remain here and it's fair I mean we can leap forward to the magnificent UV gallery that's constructed for them which seems to mean to me one of the genuine great works of museum display that has ever ever been done. I mean the impact is simply extraordinary. So let's part with Arbles for a moment and just conclude by coming back uh to to what's going on with the with with with with with the with the uh contemporary fight uh I mean contemporary then going on at the same time fight between Britain and France over Egypt and the acquisition the famous acquisition of the Rosetta spoon.

[00:34:36]Now, it seems to me again the case for the Rosetta Stone remaining in the British Museum is even stronger than for the Elgen Mars because again I'll leave you to tell the story. What was the Rosetta Stone when it was found?

[00:34:50]>> Exactly. Right. Right in that moment when it was found was just rubble. What they >> it was it was in the core of the state.

[00:34:57]>> They they were reworking some major in order to to reap a fortification and all of a sudden this big block of granite basically comes out and they they they take it out. They see therap and they pass it obviously to the scientists of the Napoleonic scientific expedition.

[00:35:15]And but what happens is that when the uh French get defeated in the terms of the capitulation, we have a clear record of all the scientific collections being handed over from the French to the victims because as I said culture is part of empire. the the idea that you are conquering the world not solely to take physical control of it but that it becomes part of a huge cultural enterprise not simply of possession but fundamentally of understanding because what seems to me to be remarkable from this point onwards okay Britain's one Britain's get Britain's gets clear is legal Britain Britain Britain gets that the Rosetta stood but then there's this intense competition to understand it to use that triilingual inscription in order that you can interpret the hieroglyphic. In other words, the the the whole of ancient Egypt, which people obviously parade off to Egypt to see its understanding begins here with um the um what what what you see in Egypt and again it's no accident that is a British expedition that covers the tomb of two times the morning um that that that what you have in Egypt is a culture at that point that was entirely unaware and entirely indifferent to Washington inherited. it and the the whole way in which you understand it historically, you understand it artistically, you understand it culturally, you understand it in terms of the material artifact is here and indeed the very idea of history in the sense that that that we are talking about is invented here is invented here in France, Germany and you what it seems to me we've been just extraordinary there's been an extraordinary act of selfabasement of negation of the west really the the seeing the world in the way that we do see the world as a series of civilizations theories of histories that can be understood is here it's created here the west and we need to say that say very very loud and proudly I've been saying it very loudly you're going to say >> absolutely and proudly so what happens is that that this particular moment obviously it's only a a sensibility and a new that is present on the British side because even in the capitulation when the Ottomans get things that were obviously things that were extracted from Egypt therefore they needed to be given back to Egypt. What happens is the Ottomans themselves which have obviously the ownership of this material just say to the British you can get them because the British obviously Alexander etc. They they they were obviously quite interested in in in them as you rightly say. And while there is this part of this competition, the scientific competition between Paris and London, in a way London is a little bit on the back in this very moment because Napoleon is starting to use knowledge as an instrument of power while what happens in the British Museum at this very moment, it will change later. But in this very moment is more a a genuine interest in putting up the a collection that displays the thirst for knowledge across the entire landscape and the entire world of the British. The British Museum is a way is a product of British ingenuity. When people say there's nothing British about British museum, I get a little bit vexed because it's actually the very fact that it exists and with this breath of collection is a British product is a British testimony and and is a tribute to British ingenuity. And that's why um it's quite different from what happens in the other so-called universal museum because while there is the the universalism in scope which obviously comes from the French enlightenment from the secodism and all of these it's is not so closely linked as an instrument of power as it will be in France. I mean, you see Napoleon with his conquest with Western Europe deliberately conceiving of Paris as a new European capital and in which he will do exactly what Rome had done when it became the imperial capital. And you looked every single important artistic object. Hence the great horses which are still which which which which you used to be in Venice. Hence the remains of the triple uh which is in Istanbul the the great cultural looting of Greece by Rome and Napoleon was clearly envisaging that which is why the valid why the Vatican is stripped why handworp is stripped um uh why uh Spain again a great conflict in Spain as to who got what uh with of course the Duke Wellington finishing up walking off with it all this cons uh conversation could go on forever. Well, unfortunately, it can't. I'm delighted that we've rather than just having this relentless, you know, tit fortat argument that that what I hope we've done and I hope you feel we've done is to put this into this broadest of context which above all you and I dressed in echoes of each other in in this in this European tradition need are doing what we need as a country, what we need as a country, what we need as a civilization asserting with confidence what we actually did, how we reshaped not simply the world in terms of the economy, not simply the world in terms of power, but the world in terms of of understanding. And up the road there, the British Museum again as a kind of neo Greek temple even even with with its ionic columns and which were once beautifully described by somewhat ignorant gentleman's ironic columns, but ionic columns. There we There we have it. Inside and out, Mario. Yeah, I'm very brave.

[00:41:33]>> Thank you very much.