“We are actively seeking new alliances in the Parthenon with our friends in Greece”explained the British agency, which has spawned a “new year” of contacts between the two parties, according to Security.
According to the Bloomberg agency, a swap agreement under which Athens would recover the marbles in exchange for a loan to London for another piece is close to closing. For his part, Greek Culture Ministry sources denied the newspaper katimerini that there is such an agreementbut he has confirmed that there is contact and that they are progressing in a “constructive” way, as the British Museum disclosed this Thursday in an unprecedented manner.
The Elgin Marbles are one of the main attractions of the British Museum, which also displays other works from ancient Greece and other historic cultures such as Egypt. For his part, Athens has been demanding the pieces for years and decisively built a new Acropolis Museum in 2009 to show that he has a suitable place to store this archaeological treasure.
The gallery combines original marble busts with plaster copies of works in the British Museum and other foreign museums.
The Parthenon marbles were purchased by the Scottish aristocrat Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, between 1801 and 1805, when he was ambassador to the Ottoman court in Istanbul (occupied by Greece), and sold in 1816 to England, a transaction which Greece described as “plundering”.
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