Elgin marbles: The controversial ancient Greek artefacts that live in the British Museum

I’m obsessed with ancient Greece, as far as ancient civilizations go I think it’s pretty much the best of the best.

From its interesting and often salacious mythology to its magnificent architecture.

And while London may seem far removed from Ancient Greece geographically and chronologically, there are several fascinating links between the two.

Read more: London news

The British Museum in London houses a significant collection of sculptures from the Parthenon, known as the Elgin Marbles, which Lord Elgin took from Athens in the early 19th century.

While controversial, these artefacts are a direct link to Ancient Greece and are some of the most famous ancient Greek sculptures in the world.

The Parthenon was built between 447 and 432 BCE as a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, the patron deity of Athens.

It was part of the larger Acropolis complex, and its sculptures are some of the finest examples of classical Greek art.

The sculptures include a variety of marble friezes, metopes, and statues depicting scenes from Greek mythology and Athenian life, such as the Panathenaic Procession, the battle between the Lapiths and Centaurs, and various depictions of the gods and goddesses of the Greek pantheon.

Over the centuries, the Parthenon suffered damage from wars, natural disasters, and misuse (including being used as a church, a mosque, and a gunpowder magazine).

By the early 19th century, the building and its sculptures were in a state of severe disrepair.

At the time, Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin, was the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Greece at the time.

Between 1801 and 1812, he arranged to remove a significant portion of the surviving sculptures from the Parthenon and other Acropolis buildings.

Elgin claimed that he had obtained permission from the Ottoman authorities (who ruled Greece then) to take the sculptures to Britain.

However, the legitimacy of this permission, or "firman," has been widely debated and remains unclear.

After initially transporting the sculptures to Britain at great personal expense, Elgin sold them to the British government in 1816, which then entrusted them to the British Museum, where they have been on display ever since. The collection includes about half of the surviving sculptures from the Parthenon, including:

• 75 meters of the Parthenon frieze (out of the original 160 meters)
• 15 metopes from the south side of the Parthenon
• Various pediment sculptures
• Fragments from other Acropolis buildings, including the Erechtheion and the Temple of Athena Nike.

In 2014 a team of British lawyers including a then newlywed Amal Clooney (George Clooney’s wife), visited Athens to advise the Greek government on Britain's possible restitution of the Elgin Marbles to Greece.

The British Museum has consistently refused to return the marbles, citing legal ownership and the argument that the marbles are part of the world's shared cultural heritage and should be accessible to as many people as possible in an international context.

The British Museum attracts millions of visitors from all over the world, and the Elgin Marbles are seen by a broader audience than they might be in Greece. The Duveen Gallery, where the Elgin Marbles are displayed, was specifically designed to showcase these sculptures.