The Chairman of the British Museum, George Osborne, proposed on Wednesday to temporarily return the Parthenon Marbles to Athens, Greece.
Speaking to MPs of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, Mr Osborne said he wanted to explore an arrangement where the Parthenon Marbles spent time in Greece.
“I think it’s worth exploring – and I’ve been in direct talks with the Greek government about this – is there some sort of arrangement that would allow some of the sculptures to spend some of their time in Greece?” Mr Osborne said.
“And what would be the partnership that would be born of that?”
Mr Osborne said the Parthenon Marbles in the United Kingdom had been controversial for 200 years since they were first stolen off the Parthenon and taken to England by British Ambassador Lord Elgin.
This latest statement by Mr Osborne comes amid reports of more than 1,000 artefacts from the British Museum.
Euro News reported that the Museum plans to digitise its entire collection. This is expected to take five years to complete and would mean that roughly eight million objects would be accessible to anyone.
British Museum Interim Director Mark Jones said after discovering objects had been stolen, “We have taken steps to improve security and are now confident that a theft of this kind can never happen again.”
Source: Euro News.
