Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis met Boris Johnson on Tuesday, 16 November, and made a renewed effort to get back the Parthenon Sculptures, which are sometimes referred to as the Elgin Marbles.
A new Acropolis Museum that opened in May this year houses a number of ancient Greek artefacts but it remains to be seen whether the Elgin Marbles will ever call it home.
Mr Mitsotakis told the Daily Telegraph recently: "The marbles were stolen in the 19th century, they belong in the Acropolis Museum and we need to discuss this issue in earnest.''
In 1801 the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Lord Elgin, got permission to remove the marble sculptures from the Temple of Athena - also known as the Parthenon - in Athens, which dates back to the 5th century BC.
He took them back to London and Parliament eventually allocated money to acquire the collection and put it in the British Museum.
Johnson said this week he “understood the strength of feeling of the Greek people on this issue, but reiterated the UK’s longstanding position that this matter is one for the trustees of the British Museum.”
In June this year the former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, was appointed chair of the British Museum trustees but they show no sign of moving their position.
A British Museum spokeswoman told Sputnik: “We believe the strength and depth of the British Museum collection is as a whole. The Trustees lend extensively all over the world and over 4.5 million objects from the collection are available to study online. Each year millions of visitors see objects from our collection and gain an insight into the cultures of the world and how they interconnect over time.”
She said: “By the early 19th century, the Ottoman Empire had been the governing authority in Athens for 350 years. Lord Elgin was the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and successfully petitioned the authorities to be able to draw, measure and remove figures.”
The spokeswoman said Lord Elgin was granted a permit - known as a firman - to remove about half of the remaining sculptures from the ruins of the Parthenon and also obtained permission to take sculptures which had been removed from the Erechtheion and the Propylaia.
“All of Elgin's collection of antiquities was then transported to Britain. Lord Elgin's activities were thoroughly investigated by a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 and found to be entirely legal. Following a vote of Parliament, the British Museum was allocated funds to acquire the collection,” she added.
She said Greece first made a formal request for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures in 1983 but she added: “Media coverage has referred to Greek government requests, but a loan request has never been received.”
The spokeswoman said: “The trustees will consider any loan request for any part of the collection (subject to all our normal loan conditions).”
But crucially she added: “Successive Greek governments have refused to acknowledge the trustees' title to the Parthenon Sculptures.”
She pointed out the trustees had to obey the 1963 British Museum Act which limited their powers to give away objects from the museum’s collection.
Under the Act “objects vested in the trustees as part of the collection of the museum shall not be disposed of by them otherwise than as provided by the Act.”
The trustees also have an obligation not to“disregard the wishes of donors.”
Greece’s position is that Lord Elgin had no right to remove the sculptures and the Ottoman Empire - which was Turkish - had no right to give away artefacts which were integral to Greek culture and history.
UNESCO has in the past offered to mediate in the dispute.
Johnson, who studied the Classics at university, is thought to be sympathetic to the Greek view and may put some unofficial pressure on Mr Osborne to find some face-saving deal which will return the sculptures to Greece, perhaps as a permanent loan.
In recent years there has been a spate of museums returning artefacts to the country from which they originated.
Last month the German government agreed to return 1,100 Benin Bronzes to Nigeria, following the completion of a new museum, the Edo Museum of West African Art in Benin City.
Belgium has also agreed to return thousands of artefacts taken from what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo during the rule of King Leopold in the 19th century.
Several British museums have also returned items taken during the colonial era.
In 2019 the Natural History Museum returned skulls, a jawbone and other bones to the descendants of people from the Torres Straits Islands, off Australia. The bones had been taken during the 19th century.