The Museum's aim is to hold a collection representative of world cultures and to ensure that the collection is housed in safety, conserved, curated, researched and exhibited.

The British Museum tells the story of cultural achievement throughout the world, from the dawn of human history over two million years ago, until the present day. The Parthenon sculptures are a significant part of that story.

The Museum is a unique resource for the world: the breadth and depth of its collection allow a global public to examine cultural identities and explore the complex network of interconnected human cultures ••• stolen by our once mighty and Great British Empire *hide . The Trustees lend extensively all over the world and over 3.5 million objects from the collection are available to study online. ••• If the sculptures were sent to Greece this would not be possible. Our servers and broadband are far better for online studying! *hide The Parthenon sculptures are a vital element in this interconnected world collection ••• for people that cannot travel to Athens but happen to be in London. (Talking about interconnected world let’s not open the Brexit discussion…) *hide . They're a part of the world's shared heritage and transcend political boundaries. ••• The Commonwealth world! They are part of British heritage to the world. *hide

The Acropolis Museum allows the Parthenon sculptures that are in Athens (about half of what survives from the ancient world) to be appreciated against the backdrop of Athenian history. The ••• stolen *hide Parthenon sculptures in London are an important representation of ancient Athenian civilisation in the context of world history ••• (our understanding of world history is actually our Commonwealth history) *hide . Each year millions of visitors, ••• arriving through Heathrow *hide free of charge, ••• (you are welcome) *hide admire the artistry of the sculptures and gain insight into how ancient Greece influenced – and was influenced by – the other civilisations that it encountered. The Trustees firmly believe that there's a positive advantage ••• (if it was negative advantage it would be awkward) *hide and public benefit ••• (the public benefit would be even larger if they were divided in 100 museums as they would all share the world's shared heritage and transcend political boundaries in more interconnected fashion) *hide in having the sculptures divided between two great museums ••• (imagine if they were divided to 100 museums), *hide each telling a complementary but different story ••• (this would be 100 different stories!). Well, the truth is that the same story could be told with casts of the sculptures, this was the original purpose of Elgin, just to make casts. But the Parthenon sculptures are too beautiful to be replaced by casts and this is why they were stolen. The uniqueness comes to the originality of them not the story of the museum. The story said is just a nice way to present you why the sculptures should stay in the British museum. If the museum wants to tell a story it can easily tell a story of the travels of the Parthenon Sculptures between Greece and UK and back to Greece. It would be a great story! *hide

Common misconceptions

All of the ••• Elgin removed *hide sculptures from the Parthenon are in the British Museum This is incorrect. ••• Correction: This is totally correct. *hide About half of the sculptures from the Parthenon are lost, having been destroyed over the 2,500 years of the building's history. The sculptures that remain are found in museums in six countries, including the Louvre and the Vatican, though the majority is divided roughly equally between Athens and the ••• ones stolen and displayed in *hide London.

The Parthenon sculptures now in the British Museum were stolen

••• This is not a common misconception *hide This isn't true. ••• Correction: This is utterly true *hide Lord Elgin, the British diplomat who transported the sculptures to England, acted with the full knowledge and permission of the legal authorities of the day in both Athens ••• occupied by the Turks by bribing them *hide and London. ••• Of course, this is not true for London. If they were acted with the full knowledge and permission of the legal authorities of London why should they be thoroughly investigated after their arrival in the UK? If you bring to customs something illegal you won’t need to form a committee to check its legality. *hide Lord Elgin's activities were thoroughly investigated by a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 and found to be entirely legal. ••• This is not true either, there were serious misgivings expressed by a number of MPs and witnesses, especially whether a British Ambassador was justified in using his position to acquire antiquities from the Government he was accredited to. The Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 had a hot potato to deal with: The Parthenon sculptures would be sold either to the government for the good of the British people or they would be sold to private collectors and may be divided. What would you do if you were in their position at that time? Would you care about their legality or the public benefit of such a treasure? Please note that Greece was not an independent country at that time. Would the same committee make the same decision if this happened after Greece got its independence? *hide Following a vote of Parliament, the British Museum was allocated funds to acquire the collection.

The Greek government has asked for a loan of the sculptures ••• to unite them as a whole, *hide which has been turned down by the British Museum.

The Trustees have never been asked for a loan of the Parthenon sculptures by Greece, only for the permanent removal of all of the sculptures in its care to Athens.

••• Of course it has been turned down! Please read our real governance. Also, we have a different understanding of what “united whole” means. *hide The Trustees will consider (subject to the usual considerations of condition and fitness to travel) any request for any part of the collection to be borrowed and then returned. The simple precondition required by the Trustees before they will consider whether or not to lend an object is that the borrowing institution acknowledges the British Museum's ownership of the object. ••• Yes! Now we are talking! I lend you what belongs to me even if it was stolen from you. *hide In 2014 the Museum lent the pediment sculpture of the river-god Ilissos to the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia, on the anniversary of that museum's foundation. The Trustees frequently lend objects from the collection to museums all around the world, including Greece. In 2015–2016 the Museum lent 5,000 objects to hundreds of museums worldwide. The British Museum is the most generous lender in the world. ••• Lending comes from our unparalleled banking tradition. *hide

The Trustees' policy and their willingness to consider loans to Athens has been made clear to the Greek government, but successive Greek governments have refused to consider borrowing ••• (Sorry are we talking about Greek debt here? I am lost…) *hide or to acknowledge the Trustees ownership of the Parthenon sculptures in their care ••• (oh, yes possession) *hide . This has made any meaningful discussion on the issue virtually impossible.

The British Museum argues that the sculptures in their collection should remain in London because there's nowhere to house them in Greece and that the Greek authorities can't look after them Neither of these claims is true, and the British Museum doesn't argue this ••• anymore *hide . The Trustees argue that the sculptures on display in London convey huge public benefit ••• for travellers coming to London *hide as part of the Museum's worldwide collection. Our colleagues in Athens are, of course, fully able to conserve, preserve and display the material in their care. We admire the display in the Acropolis Museum, in which the Parthenon sculptures are complemented by casts expected ••• to be replaced with their original ones *hide of all of those ••• stolen and displayed *hide in London and elsewhere, creating as full a picture as is now possible of the original sculptural decoration of the temple.

The division of the Parthenon sculptures is a unique case. The sculptures can only be appreciated as a complete set

This isn't so. ••• Correction: This is exactly so but we cannot say it. Uniting the Sculptures can open pandora’s box and all countries will ask their stolen artefacts back. *hide Europe's complex history has often resulted in cultural objects, such as medieval and renaissance altarpieces from one original location being divided and distributed through museums in many countries. Bringing the Parthenon sculptures back together into a unified whole is totally impossible ••• possible in the same way they were transported to UK in the first place *hide .The complicated history of the Parthenon meant that by 1800 about half of the sculptures had been lost or destroyed. ••• And you know our perception of a ''united whole''. *hide

The sculptures could be reunited on the Parthenon

This isn't possible ••• (actually this may be possible, but the sculptures are better preserved in a museum for now). *hide Though partially reconstructed, the Parthenon is a ruin. It's universally recognised that the sculptures that still exist could never be safely returned to the building: they're best seen and conserved in museums. For this reason, all the sculptures that remained on the building have now been removed to the Acropolis Museum, and replicas are now in place.

The matter could be solved by the British Museum setting up an outpost in Athens

The Trustees of the British Museum believe ••• that the sculptures belong to the British Museum. They are our precious! Our precious! and *hide that there's a great public benefit to seeing the sculptures within the context of the world collection of the British Museum, in order to deepen our understanding of their significance within world cultural history ••• ,but still they are our precious *hide . This provides the ideal complement to the display in the Acropolis Museum. Both museums together allow the fullest appreciation of the meaning and importance of the Parthenon sculptures and maximise the number of people that can appreciate them. ••• Again, let’s split them to 100 museums. Then we will maximise the number of people that can appreciate them even more! *hide

UNESCO have offered to mediate on the issue but the British Museum has refused

The British Museum has a long history of collaboration with UNESCO and admires and supports its work ••• but does not discuss its possessions *hide . However, the British Museum isn't a government body. The Trustees have a legal and moral responsibility to preserve and maintain all the collections ••• no matter how they came to its possession (talking about morality) *hide in their care and to make them accessible to world audiences. The Trustees want to strengthen existing good relations with colleagues and institutions in Greece, and to explore collaborative ventures directly between institutions, not on a government-to-government basis. ••• Then we may get a chance to lose our precious. *hide This is why we believe that UNESCO involvement isn't the best way forward. Museums holding Greek works, whether in Greece, the UK or elsewhere in the world, are naturally united in a shared endeavour to show the importance of the legacy of ancient Greece ••• (while if the sculptures return to Greece this universal legacy will be gone forever). *hide . The British Museum is committed to playing its full part in sharing the value of that legacy for all humanity. ••• By the way let's capture also why the Parthenon Sculptures were transported to the UK at the first place. Not because of Elgin’s passion for artifacts but to save them from the Turks as he claimed. If he did not save them they would be destroyed. After Greek independence in 1830s this was not an excuse anymore. In the 1980’s the reasoning changed. The sculptures would stay in UK not because the Turks were a threat anymore but because of Athens pollution and because Greeks would not be able to preserve them. In British Museum they are protected and researched in a controlled museum environment. After the inauguration of the Acropolis museum the Turks and the pollution were no good excuse anymore. The real reason is …yes, Possession! It's mine, my precious!


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