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Within the run-up to the bicentennial celebration of Greek independence, Athens has renewed its marketing campaign to deliver the fifth-century BC Parthenon Marbles carvings again to their place of birth.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has rejected calls for from Greek authorities to return the Parthenon Marbles, in any other case often called the Elgin Marbles.
Johnson urged that the priceless cultural artifacts had been “legally acquired” and are the rightful property of the British Museum.
“I perceive the robust emotions of the Greek folks – and certainly Prime Minister Mitsotakis – on the difficulty”, Johnson mentioned to Greek newspaper Ta Nea.
“However the UK authorities has a agency longstanding place on the sculptures which is that they had been legally acquired by Lord Elgin below the suitable legal guidelines of the time and have been legally owned by the British Museum’s trustees since their acquisition”.
In response to the Friday interview, Greek tradition minister Lina Mendoni acknowledged that the British PM had not been knowledgeable of “the brand new historic information concerning Greece’s occupation by the Ottomans” that reveals that there has “by no means been a authentic acquisition of the Parthenon Sculptures by Lord Elgin and, due to this fact neither has the British Museum ever acquired the Sculptures in a authentic method”.
“The Ministry of Tradition and Sports activities can present the required documentary proof that may inform the British folks that the British Museum possesses the Sculptures illegally”.
Mendoni reaffirmed that Greece “doesn’t settle for authorized possession, prefecture and possession of the Sculptures within the British Museum”.
The Parthenon, as an emblem of UNESCO and Western Civilization, displays common values. We’re all obliged to work in direction of this route”, she mentioned.
In 2020, Mendoni branded Elgin – an early nineteenth century British lord – a “serial thief” and accused him of getting seized the marbles via unlawful means.
Shortly after ascending to the workplace of Greek Prime Minister in 2019, Mitsotakis supplied to point out never-before-seen treasures overseas in London in return for the marbles being returned to Athens.
“I don’t assume [Britain] ought to be preventing a shedding battle. Ultimately, that is going to be a shedding battle … On the finish of the day there may be going to be mounting stress on this difficulty”, he informed the Observer.
He added that it’s “a monument of world cultural heritage. However should you actually need to see the monument in its unity you need to see what we name the Parthenon sculptures in situ … it’s a query of uniting the monument”.
Athens’ New Acropolis Museum is constructed to comprise artifacts found on the rock and on the encircling areas – the Byzantine interval, the Greek Bronze Age, and the Romans. It at the moment homes half of the unique items.
The 2,500-year-old sculptures – initially carved as a single entity – had been faraway from the Acropolis over 200 years in the past and have since been the topic of dispute over possession between London and Athens.
Roughly half of the unique carvings had been eliminated and brought to Britain within the early nineteenth century by workers of the seventh Earl of Elgin, Thomas Bruce, after having embellished the traditional Greek Parthenon temple and different buildings on the Acropolis for millennia.