Debate over Parthenon Marbles rumbles on

There were hopes that the opening of the museum (pictured) would boost the likelihood of the marbles returning to Greece; its state-of-the-art building supposedly quashing the argument that they should remain in the British Museum, where they have been since 1816, because of a lack of appropriate display facilities in Athens.However, according to a report in the Guardian newspaper yesterday, a spokesman for the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport said that the new museum makes no difference to the UK’s commitment to keeping the sculptures , and that one of the main arguments for keeping the marbles in the British Museum is because they are available free of charge in an institution that has more visitors than any other in the world.Greece is still campaigning for the return of the Parthenon Marbles, which originally decorated the famous Classical Greek temple to Athena on the Acropolis in Athens.The sculptures were removed from the Parthenon by Lord Elgin in the early nineteenth century and sold to the British Museum, where they remain to this day.Last month, over 200 antiquities dating from the classical and medieval periods were returned to Greece from a number of European countries, prompting speculation about the return of the Parthenon Marbles to their cultural homeland.The galleries of the new Acropolis Museum in Athens will be officially unveiled on Saturday, 20 June, and will be accompanied by a week-long series of events in Athens.The Greek Ministry of Culture has set the admission price to the museum at €1 for all of 2009, in honour of Greek taxpayers who funded its construction, with the price due to rise to €5 from 2010.