Culture Minister Lina Mendoni, who said the Parthenon marbles held at the British Museum for 200 years had been stolen, said Greece was nonetheless willing to lend the institution valuable artifacts so that the marbles are returned.
It was unclear whether this would be permanent or a loan of the type proposed by the museum’s president, George Osborne, with the idea of ”reunification” and Greek artifacts held in the museum until the marbles are returned.
Speaking to British newspaper The Guardian, Lina Mendoni promised that the London institution’s revered Greek galleries would never remain empty.
“Our position is clear,” she said. “If the sculptures were brought together in Athens, Greece is ready to host rotating exhibitions of important antiquities that would fill the void.”
Asked whether any particular work had been requested by London, the minister – a classical archaeologist by training – insisted that ongoing discussions had not extended to “specific artefacts”, said the newspaper.
“(They) would fill the gap, maintain and constantly renew the interest of international visitors in the Greek galleries of the British Museum,” Mendoni said, while warning that “any agreement and all its details would have to follow Greek principles.” law on cultural heritage”, without details.
Osborne and British officials said Greece should relinquish ownership of the marbles taken from the Parthenon in the early 19th century by a Scottish diplomat, Lord Elgin, who later sold them to the museum.
He said he had permission from the then-ruling Ottoman Empire – which did not own them – and the British Museum cited this as proof that he is now the true owner of the marbles created in Greece years ago. is 2,500 years old.
The newspaper specifies that the most coveted object in particular is the mask of Agamemnon, the golden funerary mask that historians call the “Mona Lisa of prehistory”, which could be sent to the British museum to attract crowds.
“We want to create a real partnership,” Osborne told British lawmakers on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in October, “that would mean objects from Greece coming here, objects that have potentially not never left Greece before and which have certainly never been seen before, and objects from the Parthenon collection potentially travelable to Greece.
Talks to secure a loan deal will continue, he promised, despite the diplomatic fallout when British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earlier refused to meet Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who was in London.
The British Museum’s collection includes almost half of the 160-meter (525-foot-long) Parthenon frieze depicting the procession to the temple of the Panathenaic festival in honor of the warrior goddess Athena, as well as 15 carved panels and 17 pedimented figures which were part of its unique decoration.
Mendoni said Greece would not accept a loan or give up property and it was unclear what form the new deal would take. “The Parthenon, a world heritage monument, with its universal importance… demands its integrity in the place (where the sculptures were carved) and for the reasons that created it. »
She denied that the idea of establishing a branch of the British Museum at the Acropolis Museum, built specifically to display the statues, was once again on the table. “There were no such discussions,” she said.
Asked whether Greece had ruled out taking legal action against the British Museum, Mendoni said the government would continue to “fully exploit the possibilities offered by dialogue and cultural diplomacy”.
“Even those who for years opposed the return of the sculptures to Greece now support our demand,” she said. “If I were not optimistic, I would not work with fervor and faith for the national cause of bringing together the sculptures of the Acropolis Museum here in Athens.”
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