The deputy director of the British Museum has proposed a “Parthenon partnership” with Greece that could see the marbles returned to Athens after more than 200 years.
The sculptures, 17 figures and part of a frieze that decorated the 2,500-year-old Parthenon temple on the Acropolis, were taken by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century when he was the British ambassador to the empire Ottoman, and since then they have been the subject of a long dispute over where they should be displayed.
In an interview with the Sunday Times Culture magazine, Jonathan Williams said the British Museum wanted to “change the temperature of the debate” around the marbles.
Williams said: “What we are asking for is an active ‘Parthenon partnership’ with our friends and colleagues in Greece. I strongly believe that there is room for a truly dynamic and positive conversation in which new ways of work together”.
The British Museum has not said it will return the sculptures, with Williams arguing they are “an absolutely integral part” of the collection.
However, he said that “they want to change the temperature of the debate”, and added that all parties must “find an advanced path in cultural exchange of a level, intensity and dynamism that had not been conceived until now.”
He added: “There are lots of wonderful things we’d be happy to borrow and lend. It’s what we do.”
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has called on many occasions for the Parthenon marbles to be returned to Greece, even offering to give some of his country’s other treasures to the British Museum in return.
Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter, every weekday morning at 7am BST
Mitsotakis has reaffirmed that Greece is open to negotiations, but said: “Small steps are not enough. We want big steps.”
The director of the Acropolis Museum, Nikolaos Stampolidis, said there could be a “basis for constructive talks” with the Parthenon’s “positive offer of collaboration”.
He added: “In the difficult days we are living, returning them would be an act of history. It would be as if the British were restoring democracy itself.”