UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who took office in July, has reversed his previous calls for the British Museum in London to return the Parthenon marbles to Greece, the Financial Times reports.
Burnham had as early as 2002 said he supported the Parthenon marbles’ return to Greece, reupping that statement as recently as 2023. At the time, he added that their return should be “no strings attached.”
However, when asked by the FT in an interview last month about his current stance on the subject, Burnham told the paper, “Ultimately it’s an issue for the British Museum, isn’t it? Legally that’s where that issue rests, but I’m all in favour of using British cultural diplomacy. That’s something that I’m hugely in favour of.”
The Parthenon marbles date to the 5th century BCE and were originally created for the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens. During the first decade of the 19th century, Lord Elgin, who was then British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, received a permit from the empire, which had control over Athens for 350 years, to remove half of the remaining marbles from the Parthenon.
He then transported them to the UK, where they were subsequently acquired by the British Museum. Elgin’s “actions were thoroughly investigated by a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 and found to be entirely legal,” according to the British Museum. Because of his involvement, the collection, which includes 15 metopes, 17 pedimental figures, and 247 feet of the original frieze, has colloquially been called the Elgin Marbles.
The Greek government first made a formal request for the Parthenon marbles to be restituted in 1983. The Acropolis Museum, which houses the Parthenon marbles that remain in Greece, opened to the public in 2009. If the British Museum’s collection of the Parthenon marbles were to be returned, they would also go to the Acropolis Museum.
The British Museum has consistently denied Greece’s requests. In a previous statement, the museum has said, “The Trustees firmly believe that there’s a positive advantage and public benefit in having the sculptures divided between two great museums, each telling a complementary but different story.”
