The Parthenon Marbles debate: London or Athens?

The Parthenon was built between 447 and 432 BC for Athena, the goddess of Athens. It was decorated with sculptures (γλυπτά) of white marble (μάρμαρον), made by a team led by the sculptor Pheidias (Φειδίας). There were three kinds:

• the pediments (ἀετώματα), two triangles filled with large statues at the ends of the roof;
• the metopes (μετόπαι), square carved panels above the outer columns;
• the frieze (ζῳοφόρος), a carved band about 160 metres long that showed a great procession.

Most of these sculptures were not separate works of art: they were carved as parts of the building itself. This matters a great deal in the debate.

In English they are often called the “Elgin Marbles”, after the man who took them to Britain. The British Museum calls them the “Parthenon Sculptures”. In Greece they are «τα Γλυπτά του Παρθενώνα», “the sculptures of the Parthenon”, although the older name «Ελγίνεια μάρμαρα» still appears in dictionaries. The name people choose often shows which side they are on.

In 1687, during a siege by a Venetian army, gunpowder stored inside the Parthenon exploded, and much of the temple collapsed. Many sculptures were broken or lay among the ruins. Around 1800, Athens was part of the Ottoman Empire. Thomas Bruce, Lord Elgin, was the British ambassador in Constantinople (today Istanbul). Between 1801 and 1805 his agents removed about half of the sculptures that still survived. Some were taken from the ruins; from many frieze blocks, the workmen sawed off only the carved front to make them lighter to transport.

Elgin said he had permission from the Ottoman government, a document called a firman. What exactly it allowed, and whether it allowed sculptures to be taken off the building, is one of the main points of disagreement today.

Bringing the marbles to Britain ruined Elgin financially. In 1816 a committee of the House of Commons examined how he had obtained them and recommended buying them for £35,000, much less than he had hoped for. Parliament agreed, and the collection went to the British Museum, where it is still displayed. Since 1963 a law, the British Museum Act, has allowed the Museum’s Trustees to give away objects only in a few special cases, such as duplicates or objects too damaged to keep.

The British Museum is governed by a board of Trustees. Their official statement makes these main points:

• Lord Elgin acted with the knowledge and permission of the legal authorities of the time, in Athens and in London, and the committee of Parliament in 1816 found his actions legal.
• About half of what survives of the sculptures is in Athens. There is a public benefit in dividing them between two great museums, each telling a different but complementary story: in Athens, the history of the city; in London, the history of the world’s cultures.
• The Museum, which visitors enter free of charge, says it will consider a request to lend the sculptures, but any borrower must accept that the Trustees own them.

The 1963 law also limits what the Trustees are allowed to do. In recent years the Museum’s leaders have spoken of a new “Parthenon partnership” with Greece, and talks between the two sides have been reported. In 2025 the Trustees noted that any partnership must fit the legal framework that governs the Museum, and that the UK government had said it would not change that framework.

Greece asks for the reunification (επανένωση) of the sculptures in Athens, not only for their return (ἐπιστροφή). The Greek government argues that:

• the sculptures are parts of one monument, and they should be seen together, in sight of the Parthenon, so that the work can be understood as a whole;
• the removal damaged the building, and Elgin’s firman did not make it legal: in 2024 the culture minister Lina Mendoni said that no Ottoman firman ever allowed Elgin to treat the sculptures as he did;
• Greece does not recognise the Trustees’ ownership, so it will not accept a loan on those terms.

The modern campaign was started by the actress and culture minister Melina Mercouri (Μελίνα Μερκούρη), who asked for the sculptures’ return at a UNESCO conference in Mexico City in 1982. Since 2009 the new Acropolis Museum has displayed the frieze in its original order, with plaster casts in place of the pieces that are in London. Greece has also taken the case to a UNESCO committee for the return of cultural property, which has called on the two countries to resolve it. Smaller fragments held elsewhere have come back, from Palermo in 2022 and from the Vatican in 2023.