What are the Parthenon Marbles that Britain may return to Greece after 200 years?

The British Museum has proposed a “Parthenon partnership” with Greece, as part of which the contentious Elgin Marbles may be returned to Athens after more than 200 years.

According to The Guardian, Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has called for the Parthenon marbles to be returned to the nation on many occasions. The country has even offered to loan some of its other treasures to the British Museum in exchange.

What are Parthenon Marbles?

The Parthenon Marbles are 17 sculptures and part of a frieze that once decorated the 2,500-year-old Parthenon temple on the Acropolis.

The marble statues are also known as Elgin Marbles after Lord Elgin who brought the sculptures to Britain in the early 19th century while he was the British ambassador to the Ottoman empire. It has since been part of a collection on display in the British Museum.

According to the British Museum, the collection includes sculptures from the Parthenon, roughly half of what now survives: 247 feet of the original 524 feet of frieze; 15 of 92 metopes; 17 figures from the pediments, and various other pieces of architecture.

It also includes objects from other buildings on the Acropolis: the Erechtheion, the Propylaia, and the Temple of Athena Nike.

Lord Elgin acquired these sculptures, inscriptions and architectural features in Athens between 1801 and 1805. These objects were purchased by the British Parliament from Lord Elgin in 1816 and presented by Parliament to the British Museum.

Built nearly 2,500 years ago as a temple dedicated to the Greek goddess Athena, the Parthenon was for a thousand years the church of the Virgin Mary of the Athenians, then a mosque, and finally an archaeological ruin.

The building was altered and the sculptures damaged over the course of the centuries.

The first major loss occurred around AD 500 when the Parthenon was converted into a church. When the city was under siege by the Venetians in 1687, the Parthenon itself was used as a gunpowder store. A huge explosion blew the roof off and destroyed a large portion of the remaining sculptures. The building has been a ruin ever since. Archaeologists worldwide agreed that the surviving sculptures could never be re-attached to the structure.

Why is it a topic of contention between Greece and Britain?

The Greek government and several international organisations have actively campaigned for the Marbles’ return since as early as the 1980s.

In 2014, UNESCO offered to mediate between Greece and the United Kingdom to resolve the dispute, although this was later turned down by the British Museum on the basis that UNESCO works with government bodies, not trustees of museums.

In 2021, UNESCO issued its first decision on the Parthenon Marbles, calling for the United Kingdom to return them to Greece.

What is happening under the “Parthenon partnership”?

Even though the British Museum has not said it will hand over the sculptures to Greece, its deputy director Jonathan Williams did say that they wanted to “change the temperature of the debate” around the marbles.

“What we are calling for is an active ‘Parthenon partnership’ with our friends and colleagues in Greece. I firmly believe there is space for a really dynamic and positive conversation within which new ways of working together can be found,” Williams said in an interview with the Sunday Times Culture Magazine.

He argued that the marbles are an “absolutely integral part” of the collection and all sides needed to “find a way forward around cultural exchange of a level, intensity and dynamism which has not been conceived hitherto”.

“There are many wonderful things we’d be delighted to borrow and lend. It is what we do,” he said, as reported by The Guardian.

In response, the Greek PM has stated that Greece is open to negotiations but “Baby steps are not enough. We want big steps.”

With inputs from agencies

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