Talks under way for Austria to lend Parthenon marbles to Greece

Athens hopes talks will help negotiations with Britain to return larger hoard

The Parthenon Marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles, at the British Museum in London. AFP

Austria's Foreign Minister said on Tuesday that a museum in Vienna is in talks aimed at lending two marble pieces of the Parthenon to Greece.

Athens hopes the development will help in negotiations with Britain over a much larger hoard.

Two fragments of the Parthenon's northern frieze are currently held by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

Greece hopes that with each agreement to return pieces to Athens there will be growing “positive momentum” in talks on returning pieces being kept elsewhere.

“I am very pleased that technical discussions are taking place between the Kunsthistorische Museum and the Acropolis Museum on mutual loans of the Parthenon frieze,” Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg told a news conference with his Greek counterpart Nikos Dendias.

“I am very hopeful that the talks can move on very quickly and the marbles will be on display in Athens.”

Mr Dendias said the talks were important in the context of discussions about bigger collections, particularly that of the British Museum in London.

The Elgin Marbles — in pictures

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  Sections of the Elgin Marbles, also known as the Parthenon Marbles, are displayed at The British Museum in London. Getty Images

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  Greece has repeatedly called for the permanent return from the British Museum of the 2,500-year-old sculptures. AP

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  The British Museum has ruled out returning the marbles, which include about half of the 160-metre frieze that adorned the Parthenon, insisting that they were legally acquired. Getty Images

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  The Elgin Marbles on display in the Duveen Gallery at the British Museum in 1971. Getty Images

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  Archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler listens to the newly available audio guide in the Duveen Gallery of the British Museum in 1964. Getty Images

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  Workmen unload a portion of the Parthenon frieze before affixing it to the wall in the new Elgin Marbles room of the British Museum in 1961. Getty Images

Since independence in 1832, Greece has repeatedly called for the return of the sculptures — known in Britain as the Elgin Marbles — that British diplomat Lord Elgin removed from the Parthenon temple in Athens in the early 19th century, when Greece was under Ottoman rule.

“The regional government of Sicily in 2022 and Pope Francis in 2023 returned to Greece part of the Parthenon sculptures so this will be the third one and this for us is of huge, huge importance,” Mr Dendias said.

“And also beyond the very fact of this, we believe that will create a momentum which we could use in our discussions with London.”