Greece reclaims Parthenon sculpture from Germany

A German university returned a sculpture taken from the ancient Parthenon on Tuesday in agesture Greece hopes sets a precedent for the return of the larger Elgin Marbles from the British Museum.

The eight-by-12 centimetre relief sculpture of a man's foot, originally part of the Parthenon's north frieze,was returned tothe Greek governmentby the University of Heidelberg as part of an international effort to reclaim ancient artifacts from the 2,500 year-old site.

"This is a major symbolic gesture ... a new page in the previously deadlocked debate for the return of all [Parthenon] sculptures from museums abroad," Culture Minister Giorgos Voulgarakis said Tuesday.

The Greek government says smaller artifacts like the Heidelberg sculpture and two sculptures recently returned by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles had been exported illegally.

But the biggest prize for the Greek government's antiquities reclamation — a large collection of Parthenon sculptures at the British Museum called the Elgin Marbles — has proven more difficult to obtain.

The marbles were removed by Britain's seventh Lord Elgin in the early 19th century at a time when Greece and the Parthenon were under the control of the Ottoman Empire.

Elgin, the ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, obtained permission to remove the sculptures, though the details of the transaction are disputed.The sculptures included about half (75 metres) of the sculpted frieze that once ran around the building, 15 sculpted panels and 17 life-size marble figures.

The removal of the sculptures from their ancestral home was controversial at the time, with British poet Lord Byron lamenting (in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage) how the antiquities had been "defac'd by British hands."

British Museum officials have long maintained that Elgin's actions saved the marbles from falling into disrepair, and have refused to give them back because of concerns over how the Greek government has cared for the Parthenon, which they view as irretrievably damaged.

Greece failed in its attempt to secure the Marbles in time for the 2004 Athens Games, but still wants them for a new $182 million museum at the foot of the Acropolis, the hill on which the ruins of the Parthenon stand.

The University of Heidelberg "has taken the first step toward reuniting the Parthenon sculptures, recognizing that there was no scientific, legal or moral justification for retaining possession of them," Voulgarakis said.

"The case of the Parthenon is unique ... and does not set a precedent for other monuments and collections," he said. "This is not an issue of national pride. I will never stop saying it ... The reunification of the sculptures is a debt toward history."