The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Austria, Alexander Schallenberg, announced that he has been negotiating with Greece for months to repatriate the two fragments to Athens so that they can be exhibited in the Acropolis Museum. In a press conference in which Schallenberg and his Greek counterpart, Nikos Dendias, participated, both politicians recognized the importance of this type of action for the London press and that they agreed to the repatriation of the marbles that Thomas Bruce, known as Lord Elgin, looted two hundred years ago.
So far, the so-called Fagan Fragment, preserved in the Antonio Salinas Archaeological Museum in Palermo, and the three returned by Pope Francis have been returned to Greece. All of them are exhibited in the room dedicated to the sculpture of the great Phidias.
According to Dendias, the Austrian gesture is essential to put pressure on the United Kingdom in the negotiations for the repatriation of the Phidias marbles and a good starting point to return to the stalled negotiations between Athens and London.
Although the meeting of the Unesco Intergovernmental Committee to promote the Return of Cultural Property to its Countries of Origin held in Paris in 2021 laid the foundations for the repatriation of the Parthenon sculptures preserved in the British Museum, the negotiations between Athens and London have been paralyzed since, last January, when Greece did not have the conditions established by the British institution. The historic resolution of Unesco, however, gives a period of two years for both nations to reach an agreement.
With the new restitution, Austria will become the latest state to return pieces of the Parthenon to Greece. We will have to wait for Great Britain to give in to international pressure and the masterpieces return to the city to which they belong.
The looting of the Parthenon
Elgin removed the sculptures when Greece found itself under the Ottoman yoke. They were moved to London and sold for £35 to the British Museum, where they have been on display, without any historical or artistic context, for 200 years.
The dispute between the two nations focuses, above all, on the fact that Greece assures that the United Kingdom does not own the sculptures because they were looted and demands restitution and not a loan.
