Deborah Kyvrikosaios

ATHENS (Reuters) – A marble fragment of the Parthenon temple has been returned to Athens from a museum in Sicily, a move officials hope will advance efforts to have the British Museum send back ancient sculptures from Greece’s most renowned ancient landmark.

Athens’ Acropolis Museum displayed Monday the Fagan Fragment, a marble fragment measuring 35 by 31 centimetres showing Artemis’ foot. It was brought back from Palermo’s Antonio Salinas Archaeological Museum.

Nikolaos Stampolidis, Director of Acropolis Museum, said that the fragment was once part of an eastern frieze of the temple.

It is to be placed in the Parthenon Gallery – a glass-walled chamber with a view of the Parthenon that displays sculptures of the temple’s 160-metre-(520-foot)-long frieze in the same position as they were on the original monument, with plaster copies replacing pieces that are now mainly in the British Museum.

Caterina Greco (Director of Antonio Salinas museum) said, “We hope this first step by Sicily can inspire a similar decision elsewhere.”

Part of Sicily’s cultural heritage deal, which allows for exchanges and transfers of artifacts among museums, the Parthenon Fragment will be loaned athens for 4 years, with the possibility of renewal for an additional 4. However, talks between the governments are ongoing to ensure that the fragment remains permanently.

The Acropolis Museum will lend Palermo for four years a headless 5th-century BC statue of Athena, and an amphora (8th century BC) from the Geometric period.

Parthenon fragments were part of the collection of Robert Fagan (a British consul general to Sicily in the 19th Century), who was a diplomat and archaeologist. The Parthenon fragment was later purchased by Royal University of Palermo from Fagan’s widow, after his death. The origin of the acquisition by Fagan is unknown.

LONG DISPUTE OVER ELGIN MARBLES

The Parthenon’s “Fagan fragment”, the first part of the Parthenon sculptures – Greece’s most famous monument of 5th Century BC – is to be brought back to Greece via a foreign museum.

Athens is attempting to get the Elgin Marbles, as they have been called – 75m of Parthenon frieze and 15 metopes along with 17 sculptures – returned to the British Museum. They were taken by Lord Elgin (British diplomat to the Ottoman Empire) in the 19th Century.

Officials from Britain claim they were legally purchased by the British Museum 1816. This is a claim Greece refutes and there are currently no discussions with the Greek government regarding their return.

Lina Mendoni from Greece’s Culture Ministry said, “They are essentially providing a road map for how the permanent back of the Parthenon marbles to Athens might be organised.” Lina Mendoni was speaking about the Italian loan.

After decades of unsuccessful appeals, the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitchells offered to lend significant artifacts to Britain as a return for the marbles.

“This” opens the door for Mitsotakis to have serious talks with Greek authorities and find mutually beneficial solutions, Mitsotakis explained during his presentation.

Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, told Mitsotakis that this was a matter for the British Museum rather than his government when he visited Downing Street last November.

Mitsotakis stated Monday that he raised the matter when he visited. “Johnson’s statement that the British government wouldn’t oppose an agreement between Greece and Britain was encouraging to me.”

Johnson stated to a Greek newspaper in March that Britain owned the marbles.

Recent European countries like France, Spain, and Germany have taken steps to bring back looted artifacts from their museums to the African countries they came from.

If there’s a will there’s a way. Mitsotakis spoke of the Marbles’ return to Britain.

Reporting and writing by Deborah Kyvrikosaios. Editing by Mark Heinrich