<P> English travel writer Edward Daniel Clarke, an eyewitness, wrote that the Disdar, the Ottoman official on the scene, attempted to stop the removal of the metopes but was bribed to allow it to continue . In contrast, Professor John Merryman, Sweitzer Professor of Law and also Professor of Art at Stanford University, putting aside the discrepancy presented by Rudenstine, argues that since the Ottomans had controlled Athens since 1460, their claims to the artefacts were legal and recognisable . The Ottoman sultan was grateful to the British for repelling Napoleonic expansion, and the Parthenon marbles had no sentimental value to him . Further, that written permission exists in the form of the firman, which is the most formal kind of permission available from that government, and that Elgin had further permission to export the marbles, legalises his (and therefore the British Museum's) claim to the Marbles . He does note, though, that the clause concerning the extent of Ottoman authorisation to remove the marbles "is at best ambiguous", adding that the document "provides slender authority for the massive removals from the Parthenon...The reference to' taking away any pieces of stone' seems incidental, intended to apply to objects found while excavating . That was certainly the interpretation privately placed on the firman by several of the Elgin party, including Lady Elgin . Publicly, however, a different attitude was taken, and the work of dismantling the sculptures on the Parthenon and packing them for shipment to England began in earnest . In the process, Elgin's party damaged the structure, leaving the Parthenon not only denuded of its sculptures but further ruined by the process of removal . It is certainly arguable that Elgin exceeded the authority granted in the firman in both respects". </P> <P> The issue of firmans of this nature, along with universally required bribes, was not unusual at this time: In 1801 for example, Edward Clarke and his assistant Cripps, obtained an authorisation from the governor of Athens for the removal of a statue of Demeter which was at Eleusis, with the intervention of Italian artist Giovanni Lusieri who was Lord Elgin's assistant at the time . Prior to Clarke, the statue had been discovered in 1676 by the traveller George Wheler and since then several ambassadors had submitted unsuccessful applications for its removal, but Clarke had been the one to remove the statue by force, after bribing the waiwode of Athens and obtaining a firman, despite the objections and a riot, of the local population who unofficially, and against the traditions of the iconoclastic Church, worshiped the statue as the uncanonised Saint Demetra (Greek: Αγία Δήμητρα). The people would adorn the statue with garlands, and believed that the goddess was able to bring fertility to their fields and that the removal of the statue would cause that benefit to disappear . Clarke also removed other marbles from Greece such as a statue of Pan, a figure of Eros, a comic mask, various reliefs and funerary stelæ, amongst others . Clarke donated these to the University of Cambridge and subsequently in 1803 the statue of Demeter was displayed at the library . The collection was later moved to the Fitzwilliam Museum where it formed one of the two main collections of the institution . </P> <P> When the marbles were shipped to England, they were "an instant success among many" who admired the sculptures and supported their arrival, but both the sculptures and Elgin also received criticism from detractors . Lord Elgin began negotiations for the sale of the collection to the British Museum in 1811, but negotiations failed despite the support of British artists after the government showed little interest . Many Britons opposed purchase of the statues because they were in bad condition and therefore did not display the "ideal beauty" found in other sculpture collections . The following years marked an increased interest in classical Greece, and in June 1816, after parliamentary hearings, the House of Commons offered £ 35,000 in exchange for the sculptures . Even at the time the acquisition inspired much debate, although it was supported by "many persuasive calls" for the purchase . </P> <P> Lord Byron strongly objected to the removal of the marbles from Greece, denouncing Elgin as a vandal . His point of view about the removal of the Marbles from Athens is also reflected in his poem "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage": </P>

How did the british museum get the marbles
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