- Athens has been demanding the pieces for years and already has a place reserved for them in the Acropolis Museum.

Image of the Elgin Marbles, in the British Museum in London. / Wikipedia

The British Museum secretly negotiates the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece

The president of the British Museum, George Osborne, this week held a "secret" conversation with the Greek Prime Minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, in which they discussed the repatriation of the Parthenon marbles from Athens, also known as the Elgin marbles, reported this Saturday The Times newspaper.

The former Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer, appointed head of the London museum in June last year, met the Greek leader on Monday at a hotel in the wealthy Knightsbridge district of the British capital, the newspaper reported.

Mitsotakis, who during his visit to the United Kingdom was received by the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, and King Carlos III, had held "exploratory talks" with Osborne last November, according to what the Greek press has revealed.

The new meeting in Knightsbridge, whose sole aim was to discuss the return of the 2,500-year-old sculptures, has raised expectations that progress will be made toward resolving the bitter dispute between the UK and Greece.

Athens has been demanding the pieces for years and expressly built a new Acropolis Museum in 2009 to demonstrate that it has a suitable place to house this archaeological treasure.

The sculptures, known as the Elgin Marbles, occupy a prominent place in the British Museum, which has an extensive collection of artifacts from ancient Greece and other ancient cultures, as well as the largest display of artifacts from Pharaonic Egypt outside of Cairo.

The Parthenon marbles were acquired by the Scottish aristocrat Thomas Bruce, seventh Earl of Elgin, between 1801 and 1805, when he was ambassador to the Ottoman court in Istanbul —which occupied Greece—, and later sold to the United Kingdom, transactions that Greece has described as as "plunder".

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