ATHENS (EFE).- Greece does not recognize the jurisdiction, possession and ownership of the British Museum of the Parthenon Sculptures. opposition party.
Tsipras, head of the left-wing Syriza, expressed “great concern” over reports in British media that Greek officials were close to striking a deal with the British Museum to return the Parthenon marbles to Greece through a “loan” and ” exchange” of archaeological pieces.
“You can’t lend or exchange something that doesn’t belong to you,” said Tsipras, who asked the government for full transparency on this sensitive issue.
He also recalled that it was a firm position of all Greek governments not to recognize any right over the “stolen” Marbles to any legal entity -such as the British Museum- and to any other state other than the Greek one.
On Wednesday 4, the newspaper “The Telegraph” stressed that these 2,500-year-old cultural treasures could be returned “sooner rather than soon” to Greece, under an agreement with the British Museum, which would lend the pieces to Athens, in the long term. exchange of ancient Greek archaeological objects transferred to London.
The next day, “The Times” newspaper referred to a possible deal between the two sides in the form of an “permanent loan” of the sculptures to Greece, “in exchange for loans of pieces from the Acropolis Museum” found in Athens.
While the Greek Ministry of Culture has indicated that it does not grant the British Museum any rights to the Parthenon Marbles, it has so far neither explicitly confirmed nor denied the existence of any alleged “loan” arrangements for the objects to which the articles refer. average.
In the early 19th century the Parthenon Marbles traveled to Great Britain when that country’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Thomas Bruce, better known as Lord Elgin —who described himself as a lover of antiquities—, obtained the sultan’s permission to take part of the metopes and the internal frieze of the Parthenon.
He later sold them to his country’s government for £35,000. Since 1939 the jewels of antiquity have been exhibited in the British Museum.
The Acropolis Museum exhibits only a few copies of the originals.
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