Following discussions with the diplomat and archaeologist
Sir William Hamilton, Elgin decided he would engage, at his own expense, a team of artists and architects to produce plaster casts and detailed drawings of ancient Greek buildings, sculptures and artefacts. In this way he hoped to make his embassy, "beneficial to the progress of the Fine Arts in Great Britain." Elgin procured the services of a
Neapolitan painter,
Lusieri, and of several skilful draughtsmen and modellers. These artists were dispatched to
Athens in the summer of 1800, and were principally employed in making drawings of the ancient monuments. Elgin stated that about the middle of the summer of 1801, he had received a
firman from the
Sublime Porte which allowed his agents not only to "fix scaffolding round the ancient Temple of the Idols [the
Parthenon], and to mould the ornamental sculpture and visible figures thereon in plaster and gypsum," but also "to take away any pieces of stone with old inscriptions or figures thereon". The document exists in an Italian translation made by the British Embassy in Constantinople and now held by the British Museum, but no official copy of it has yet been found in the
Turkish government archives from the
imperial era. There is debate over the legal status of the document. sculptured slabs from the Athenian temple of
Nike Apteros, and various antiquities from Attica and other districts of Hellas. Part of the Elgin collection was prepared for embarkation for Britain in 1803, and considerable difficulties were encountered at every stage of its transit. Elgin's vessel, the
Mentor, was wrecked near
Cerigo with its cargo of marbles, and it was not till after the labours of three years, and the expenditure of a large sum of money, that the marbles were successfully recovered by the divers. On Elgin's departure from the Ottoman Empire in 1803, he withdrew all his artists from Athens with the exception of
Lusieri, who remained to direct the excavations, which were still carried on, though on a much reduced scale. Additions continued to be made to the Elgin collections, and as late as 1812, eighty fresh cases of antiquities arrived in England. Elgin's procurement of the marbles was supported by some, including Goethe, and censured by others in Britain as vandalism, most famously
Lord Byron, who wrote the following lines ::Dull is the eye that will not weep to see ::Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed ::By British hands, which it had best behoved ::To guard those relics ne'er to be restored. ::Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved, ::And once again thy hapless bosom gored, ::And snatch'd thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred! Elgin defended his actions in a pamphlet ''Memorandum on the Subject of the Earl of Elgin's Pursuits in Greece'', published in 1810. On the recommendation of a British parliamentary select committee, the marbles were purchased by the British government in 1816 for £35,000, Britain's ownership of the Elgin Marbles is disputed by Greece. Discussions between UK and Greek officials about the future of the marbles are ongoing. == Detention in France ==