Britain urged to return Elgin Marbles to Greece
By Lyndsay Griffiths
LONDON, May 6 (Reuters) - A
group of ancient marble sculptures taken from the Parthenon in Athens by a
British aristocrat over 180 years ago were championed on Wednesday as a
symbol of democracy as campaigners urged Britain to send the sculptures
home.
Greece has fought long and hard
to regain the ``Elgin Marbles,'' housed in London since the Earl of Elgin
took them and sold them to the British Museum in 1816.
London says Greece has no
legitimate claim to the statues, while Athens insists they were plundered.
``The Marbles are part of our
history and our future. They are a sign of democracy and our identity,''
said the Greek singer and politician Nana Mouskouri.
Mouskouri spoke to Reuters at
the opening of a touring exhibition on the Marbles that aims to encourage
their return to a museum in Greece due to open by 2004.
``These Marbles left Greece in
a very strange way during our dark years,'' said Mouskouri. ``Now there is
freedom and democracy, it is normal that the Marbles come back to the place
where they belong.''
Hopes rose a year ago that
Britain's incoming Labour government would hand the Marbles back but Prime
Minister Tony Blair has refused, fearing a barrage of pleas for the return
of other disputed treasures.
Culture Secretary Chris Smith
has said it is not ``feasible or sensible'' to relinquish the sculptures,
even though his Greek counterpart Evangelos Venizelos insists it is time to
reunite the art with its classical home.
``The sculptures were
transferred to London and displayed in the British Museum while the
building remained in Athens with the scar of the mutilation in its body,''
he said in a message to the exhibition. ``I believe it is an obligation of
the international community to support the restitution of the monument's
integrity.''
The Parthenon stands on the
highest point of the Acropolis, which served as both citadel and religious
centre. Its sculptures were completed by 432 BC, shortly after the
Parthenon itself.
Most of the surviving pieces
are in the British Museum or Greece. One is in the Louvre, in Paris, and
fragments are scattered from Copenhagen to Vienna.
``This problem offers the
opportunity for governments to get together and re-unify the fragments of
the greatest monument in Europe,'' said Graham Binns, chairman of The
British Committee for the Restoration of the Parthenon Marbles, a campaign
group set up in 1982.
``Twenty years ago nobody had
heard of the Marbles. Now support is widespread so it's not a vain hope
that one day the Marbles will go home,'' he told Reuters. ^REUTERS@
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