Greece Offers to Trade ‘Most Important’ Artifacts for Parthenon Marbles

Greece has actually provided to provide a few of its “crucial” artifacts to the British Museum to “fill deep space” left if the London organization returns the Parthenon Marbles to Athens.

In an interview with the GuardianGreek culture minister Lina Mendoni assured a trade contract that would guarantee treasures from Greek antiquities are constantly shown at the London organization.

“Our position is clear,” she stated. “Should the sculptures be reunited in Athens, Greece is prepared to arrange turning exhibits of crucial antiquities that would fill deep space.” Asked to elaborate on which treasures would be exchanged, Mendoni stated that continuous conversations had actually not reached such specifics.

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[The works] would fill deep space, preserve, and continuously restore, global visitor interest in the Greek galleries of the British Museum,” Mendoni included. She clarified that “any arrangement and all its details, would have to be in accordance with the Greek law on cultural heritage.”

Mendoni’s declarations recommend a generous turn in relations in between Greece and the British Museum, topping a year of sputtered settlements and public rebukes. The centuries-old disagreement over whether the Parthenon Marbles belong in England, where they presently live, or in Greece, from which they come from, continued in 2023, with both sides speaking of “a collaboration” that might bring a “win-win” option.

Whether 2024 will lastly bring the long-running disagreement to a close stays unsure. This previous January, the British Museum, which has actually held the sculptures considering that 1832, verified that it had actually been meeting Greece over a prospective loan contract, just for Medoni to reveal days later on that there was no possibility of an offer verifying the United Kingdom’s ownership claim of the sculptures.

“We duplicate, when again, our nation’s company position that it does not acknowledge the British Museum’s jurisdiction, belongings and ownership of the Sculptures, as they are the item of theft,” her declaration checked out.

And in November, stress once again increased after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak openly implicated Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis of “grandstanding” over the objected to art work. Sunak later on cancelled a conference with Mitsotakis hours before it was set to begin. Mitsotakis, for his part, informed the Associated Press that, “There was a favorable side to the cancellation of this conference, that it acquired much more promotion … [for] the reasonable demand of Greece for the reunification of the sculptures of the Parthenon.”