I have just flown back to New York after attending a meeting of the Parthenon Project in London, which is leading the campaign to return the Parthenon Sculptures (also known as the Elgin Marbles) to Athens, in exchange for bringing Greek masterpieces on a rotating basis to the British Museum. When I first tackled the subject in a Sunday Times column in 2018 the comments were largely hostile, but the national belief in fair play has kicked in. Views on the 2,500-year-old sculptures have changed so fast that a YouGov poll in July found that 64 per cent of the British public favoured their return as part of a deal.
We haven’t heard much about developments lately from George Osborne, chairman of the British Museum, who has been crisis-managing the disappearance of 2,000 stolen artefacts, as well as launching a podcast. But an intriguing recent story in the Greek newspaper Ta Nea claimed that the prime minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, will be having “high-level contact” on the future of the sculptures during his upcoming visit to London, ostensibly to participate in a Greek investment conference.
Content from our partners
