A diplomatic row sparked between Greece and the United Kingdom (UK) after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak cancelled a meeting with his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis over the status of the Parthenon Sculptures.
- Currently these sculptures housed at the British Museum.
About Parthenon Sculptures
- The Parthenon Sculptures at the British Museum are more than 30 ancient stone sculptures from Greece completed in 432 BC.
- Most of them originally adorned the walls and grounds of the Parthenon temple on the rocky Acropolis hill in Athens.
- The temple is dedicated to the goddess Athena and is seen as the crowning glory of Athens’ Golden Age.
- They were removed from the Parthenon in the early 19th century by Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin and then-British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire.
- The marbles were taken to Britain and purchased by the British Museum in 1816.
- Greece has been demanding the return of the sculptures since it became independent in the early 1830s.
- The campaign gained momentum in the 1980s after Greek Oscar-nominated actress Melina Mercouri launched a movement for their return when she was culture minister between 1981 and 1989.
