Roger Michel and his team at the Institute for Digital Archeology (IDA) in Oxford, England, have programmed a robot that can produce realistic replicas of historical objects such as the Parthenon Sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles. Michel believes that the British Museum should exhibit his imitation works and return the original Parthenon Sculptures to the Greek government. The sculptures were brought to England two centuries ago by the British ambassador Lord Elgin, who carved them in the Parthenon in Athens. They have been on permanent display in the museum in London since 1817. Despite growing calls for their repatriation, the British Museum has refused to return them to Greece. “We will loan the sculptures, as we do many other objects, to those who wish to exhibit them to other audiences around the world, provided they take care of them and return them,” a British Museum spokesman said in an emailed statement. . Roger Michell stares at a robot used to create 3D replicas of the Elgin Marbles while at the Institute for Digital Archaeology. (Submitted by Roger Michel/IDA/Robotor) Michel said he was denied permission to scan the sculptures by the museum, so he and his team scanned the sculptures using 3D digital imaging software on tablets and smartphones while museum security watched.
“We regularly receive requests to scan the collection from a wide range of private organizations — such as the IDA — along with academics and institutions who wish to study the collection and it is not possible to regularly accommodate all of these,” a British Museum spokesman said. Now, these scans are used to make the robot-guided sculptures. In an interview on CBC Radio’s Day 6, Roger Michel spoke with host Saroja Coelho. Here is part of their conversation. How do you decide which objects to copy with this robot? In this case, we’re looking to find the most iconic objects in the Parthenon Sculpture collection: the horse that created the horse in the Staunton chess set. It is a universally recognized component of these sculptures. The metaphor we reproduce shows the great battle between humans and centaurs. I think we wanted to make sure that we chose things that were easily recognizable so that people could do that visual comparison and see for themselves the kind of quality that we produced with that process. In what ways did you seek to engage with the historical owners of these pieces before duplicating objects? Our first conversation, of course, was with the Greek Embassy in London. We listened very carefully to the kinds of things that seemed important to stakeholders here, because as with all our projects, stakeholders come first. We are at their service. The aim here is to do something that will further the interest of Greece and Britain and return these objects to their homeland where they belong. A robot carves a 3D replica of a horse’s head as part of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon Marble sculptures. The work is being done at the Institute of Digital Archeology in Oxford, England. (IDA/Robot) You had to scan these originals at the British Museum. How did you manage? I believe we have operated entirely within the guidelines for visitors to the British Museum, which allows for 3D scanning from the floor. We worked with the guards that were there. At times, they held people back. We had a lot of cooperation from the floor staff at the museum, and we didn’t break any rules and got the scans we needed. Michel and his team at the Institute for Digital Archeology are using robots to create 3D exact replicas of the Elgin Marbles. (Tobias Morgan) What would you say is the meaning behind these sculptures? These objects are the most emblematic heritage of Greece. They look like the Statue of Liberty in the United States, the Crown Jewels in England. The value of these objects goes far beyond their artistic historical value. These are symbols of the Greek [Hellenic] Democracy. The Greeks seem to want some kind of admission of guilt from the British. And, really, there was no wrongdoing here. The reality is that at the time Elgin visited Athens, it was under the control of the Ottoman Turks. They controlled Athens for centuries — 400 years. This was what the government had to deal with at the time. The story here does not suggest that the British are the bad guys. Perhaps the British were what happened next, keeping these items long after they realized the value to the Greeks? Then, yes, there was wrongdoing. WATCHES | Alberta First Nation lobbying UK museum to return artifacts — and winning:

UK museum returns sacred regalia, artifacts to Alberta First Nation

After lobbying for their return, an Alberta First Nation has received sacred regalia and artifacts that once belonged to Chief Crowfoot from a UK museum where they had been on display for more than a century. Ultimately, you want the British Museum to return these precious originals to Greece and display your copies. How open do you think they will be to doing this? They already display replicas in many cases at the British Museum — not that this is a new idea. The reality is that reconstructions will give museums opportunities that simply don’t exist with the source material. If you want to teach someone about the Italian Renaissance, you don’t take them into a room with a bunch of cardboard jewelry that has all the paint peeled off and the canvases are flashing. When they look at these Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum, all the paint is gone, 30 percent of the material is gone. These are not representative of what antiquity looked like, and that’s what they show. They are still steeped in that romantic movement of the early 19th century. They want to show ruins. They don’t want to show real works of art. The reconstructions will give them that flexibility to show these things, either in their current state of preservation or as they originally appeared — indeed reflecting the art of antiquity. Crowds view sections of the Elgin Marbles on display at the British Museum in London. (Dan Kitwood/Getty Images) The president of the British Museum recently stated that he was open to the possibility of lending the Elginian Marbles to the Athens museum. Why do you think there is such a reluctance to part with these artifacts permanently? The answer is that England has a very complicated relationship with its colonial past. The sun, they say, never sets on the British Empire. This was true for the 19th century. Even now, England has mixed feelings about abandoning these trappings of its colonial glory. Britain has made antiquity part of its national narrative, just not historically accurate. Written by Bob Becken. Radio department produced by Cassandra Yanez-Leyton and Yamri Taddese. The Q&A has been edited for brevity and clarity.