Parthenon Sculptures

• A diplomatic row sparked between Greece and the UK after British Prime Minister cancelled a meeting with his Greek counterpart over the status of the Parthenon Sculptures housed at the British Museum.

ABOUT PARTHENON SCULPTURES

• The Parthenon Sculptures at the British Museum are more than 30 ancient stone sculptures from Greece that are more than 2,000 years old.
• Most of them originally adorned the walls and grounds of the Parthenon temple on the rocky Acropolis hill in Athens.
• Completed in 432 BC, the temple is dedicated to the goddess Athena and is seen as the crowning glory of Athens’ Golden Age.
• While one notable sculpture, which is 75 metres long, depicts a procession for the birthday of Athena, others show gods, heroes or mythical creatures.
• They were removed from the Parthenon in the early 19th century by Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin and then-British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
  • The marbles were taken to Britain and purchased by the British Museum in 1816.
  • While Athens accused Lord Elgin of theft, he insisted he had permission to remove the marbles from the Ottoman Empire, which used to control Athen at the time.
  • The original letter giving him permission, however, has been lost.

Athens has been demanding the return of the sculptures since it became independent in the early 1830s.