Why the marbles matter

The Parthenon Sculptures are unique. Not only do they rank as one of the world's greatest works of art, they are at the heart of Greek cultural identity

The Parthenon Sculptures have a significance for the Greeks that they can never have for the British, just as the Stone of Destiny has a meaning for the Scots that it can never have for the English… who held it for 700 years before returning it to Scotland in 1996.

Since acquiring sections of the Parthenon Sculptures from Lord Elgin in 1816 (hence their description as the 'Elgin Marbles'), the British Museum has owned 56 sculpted friezes, 15 metopes and 19 pedimental statues - around half of the statuary that once adorned the Parthenon. They are displayed in a room at the British Museum where a succession of notices seek to explain that, while roughly half the Sculptures are on display in London, half remain in Athens.

The Parthenon Sculptures are a magnificent work of art that makes sense only as a whole.

As Christopher Hitchens (Historian & Journalist) explains, it is wrong that "a brilliant frieze, which was carved as a unity, and tells a narrative story, should be broken in two and exhibited in separate cities. Suppose that the Mona Lisa had been arbitrarily sawn in two, with one half in a gallery in Budapest and the other in Barcelona. Who would resist the call to reunite the two parts ?"

Reuniting the Parthenon Sculptures in Athens, in the new Acropolis Museum, would allow the global community to view and appreciate this unique work of art in the most complete form possible and within sight of the building of which the Sculptures were at one stage a physical and integral part.