UK government today ruled out returning the Parthenon friezes on display at the British Museum in London to Greece, in response to media reports that a deal had been finalised.
I’ve been very clear about this, I don’t think they [the friezes] should return to Greece,” British Culture Minister Michelle Donelan defended in statements to the BBC station.
The person in charge of the culture portfolio added that British Museum president George Osborne also agrees with the intention not to return the sculptures and that these “originally belong to the United Kingdom”.
Since the beginning of the 20th century, Greece has officially requested the return of a 75-meter frieze detached from the Parthenon, as well as one of the famous caryatids from the Erechtheion, a small ancient temple on the Acropolis, now artifacts in the British Museum.
The sculptures form part of a 160-meter-long frieze around the outer walls of the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis, dedicated to Athena.
Most of the monument was lost in a 17th-century bombardment, and the remaining half of the works were removed by British diplomat Lord Elgin in the early 19th century.
The Parthenon was built between 447-432 BC and is considered the crown jewel of classical architecture. The frieze depicts a procession in honor of Athena. Some small pieces of that frieze – and other Parthenon sculptures – can be seen in other European museums.
London claims the sculptures were “lawfully acquired” by a British diplomat in 1802, who sold them to the British Museum.
But Athens claimed these were related to “plunder” when the country was under Ottoman occupation.
On January 4, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported that the museum’s president was in the process of finalizing a deal with Athens to return these funds to Greece as part of a long-term loan, a “cultural exchange”, that would circumvent British law preventing the London museum from dismantling its collection.
“I think [George Osborne’s] view on this matter has been misrepresented and misrepresented. It is not his intention and he has no desire to do so,” the minister assured.
“There was also the idea of a 100-year loan, but that’s not exactly what he was planning”, he stressed.
The minister said he feared the return of the sculptures would open a “Pandora’s box”.
In recent years, there has been increasing pressure on Western museums to return works acquired during the colonial period to their countries of origin.
