– If the British can give back all of India to the Indians, they should also be able to give back a room in the British Museum to us Greeks, says writer and journalist Alexis Mantheakis.

He fought for the so-called “Elgin marbles” to be returned to the newly opened Acropolis Museum in Athens. A game that Greece has been busy with for a long time.

Also read:

Refused to pass a cultural tax

The treasure, which consists of an ancient 75-meter-long marble frieze from the temple on the Acropolis, was brought to London sometime in the early 19th century by British nobleman and diplomat Lord Elgin..

In 1816 Lord Elgin sold it to the British Parliament who then passed it on to the British Museum.

– It’s ours!

One of the main arguments for why Britain previously did not want to return the statues was that Greece had no suitable place to store them, and that the cultural treasures of the Acropolis had been destroyed by all the pollution in Athens. But this weekend the Greeks opened their new Acropolis Museum.

– They belong together, and they belong here. It’s ours, Greece’s Culture Minister, Antonis Samaras, told the BBC.

In the new Acropolis Museum, the Greeks show off the marble decorations they still have, and symbolically make room for lost items:

Greece can borrow

Museums in London had stated clearly that they were willing to loan the statues to Athens for a period of time, but the Greek authorities refused to borrow something they believed had been stolen by the British.

The issue became so heated that no official representatives from the UK attended the gala opening of the Acropolis Museum, although more than 30 other countries attended.

– Nobody wants to place it outside the Acropolis today. At the moment, the statues are in museums, and if we saw them, it wouldn’t matter if they were distributed among several museums, answers Hannah Boulton of The British Museum.