Three 2,500-year-old pieces of the Parthenon will be returned to Greece on the orders of Pope Francis.
The items — part of a horse’s head, a child’s head and a bearded man — have been in the papal collections of the Vatican Museums for more than a century.
The announcement comes as western European nations have been forced to review how artefacts in national museums were collected, including cases of items the original country considers to be stolen.
On Friday, Germany confirmed it would soon be returning the first 20 of the Benin Bronzes to Nigeria.
One of the most high-profile cases is for the Parthenon Marbles held by the British Museum, where they are also known as the Elgin Marbles.
The Pope is giving the pieces to Ieronymos II, head of the Greek Orthodox Church, as a gesture of ecumenical dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church, the Vatican said in a statement.
The Parthenon, which sits on the Acropolis in Athens, was completed in the fifth century BC as a temple to the goddess Athena, and its decorative friezes contain some of the greatest examples of ancient Greek sculpture.
The partial horse head was pulling Athena's chariot on the west side of the building.
They have been in the Vatican since the 19th century.
Greece has repeatedly demanded the UK returns its marbles, which British diplomat Lord Elgin removed from the Parthenon in the early 19th century when he was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, which ruled Greece at the time.
The British Museum has always ruled out returning the marbles, which include about half of the 160-metre frieze that adorned the Parthenon, and insists they were legally acquired.
A Greek newspaper this month reported that a deal to return the marbles to Greece was close but the Greek government said it was not imminent.
In March, the United Nations' cultural agency Unesco urged Greece and Britain to reach a settlement.
Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s Foreign Minister, on Friday said she would personally take 20 artefacts looted by Europeans during colonial times back to Nigeria when she visits the country next week.
Germany has agreed to send all of the 514 Benin Bronzes held in its museums back to Nigeria.
The bronzes were among a vast trove of treasures stolen in 1897 by a British colonial expedition from the royal palace of the Kingdom of Benin, in what is now south-western Nigeria.
Global state-owned investor ranking by size
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