Parthenon Marbles

The ownership of the originals of these have been contentious for years, and they are also known as the Elgin Marbles. Lord Elgin, then UK Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, acquired permission in the early 1800s from the Ottoman Empire to saw off and remove about half of them from the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, which was built in the 5th cenury BCE. Some of the sculptures themselves are literally cut in half, so the head is in one country and the torso in another. Elgin took them back to the UK to put in his new home, but he eventually came on hard times and sold them to the British Museum, where they have been displayed ever since.

When Greece regained its independence in 1832, they disputed the removal and tried to get the Marbles back, a process that has continued until the present day. One of the UK's arguments against repatriation is that Greece did not have the proper space to store and display them. Athens has now built the beautiful New Acropolis Museum specifically to house the Parthenon Marbles and the dispute about repatriation continues between Greece and the UK. It took 32 years and over three billion dollars to build this museum because it took so much time and money to excavate the land underneath and everything had to be negotiated with archaeologists. There are glass panels in some parts of the floor so that you can see the excavation sites below as you walk around the museum.

In recent years, many countries, museums, and other organizations have been returning stolen or dubiously acquired art objects and national treasures to their countries of origin, but the Parthenon Marbles are not one of them.

This is a great topic to discuss with kids, who often have very clear ideas about ownership, fairness, and doing what is right, and this is an interesting and complicated history that they’ll enjoy discussing and thinking about. Here's a video I like on the subject, by ABC Australia that explains both sides of the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHdoeR7zp-Y.