These were carved for the Parthenon in Athens — the temple of the goddess Athena — under the direction of the sculptor Pheidias.
They showed the gods of Olympus, mythical battles, and the great Panathenaic procession.
They were painted in vivid colours when they were new.
None of that colour survives.
In 1801, Lord Elgin — the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which then controlled Greece — began removing large sections of the sculptures.
He said he had permission from the Ottoman authorities.
Greece disputes this.
Over the following decade, he shipped roughly half the surviving sculptures to London and sold them to the British government in 1816.
The other half of the surviving sculptures are in the Acropolis Museum in Athens, built specifically to display them all together.
Greece has been formally requesting the return of the London half since 1983.
The British Museum cannot legally deaccession them under current UK law.
This is the most contested ownership dispute in the museum world.
Fun fact: even in 1816, many in Britain thought Elgin had done something wrong.
Lord Byron called him a vandal and wrote a poem condemning the removal.
The debate has not stopped since.
