Pressure on UK as Pope hands back Greek relics

THE Vatican has returned three fragments of the Parthenon sculptures to

Greece in a move that will increase pressure on the

British Museum to follow suit.

The 2,500-year-old marbles, depicting a horse and two male heads, had been in the papal collection for centuries. Last year Pope Francis announced they would be returned.

At a repatriation ceremony at the Acropolis Museum in Athens on Friday, the Greek culture minister Lina Mendoni said: ‘Initiatives like these show how the pieces of the Parthenon can be reunited, healing the wounds caused by barbaric hands so many years ago.’

About half of the surviving sculptures are in the British Museum. They were taken in the 19th Century by British diplomat Lord Elgin. Greece has been campaigning to have them returned for years, but UK law prohibits their permanent removal.

Former Chancellor George Osborne, who is chairman of the British Museum, has been exploring the possibility of an ‘exchange’.