In what many are calling a breakthrough moment for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece, the British Museum has proposed a Parthenon partnership to Athens.
In an interview with The Sunday Times, the museum’s deputy director Jonathan Williams said that a new “cultural exchange” agreement may be on the cards.
Williams said the museum wanted to “change the temperature of the debate” around the marbles.
“What we are calling for is an active ‘Parthenon partnership’ with our friends and colleagues in Greece,” Williams is quoted as saying.
“I firmly believe there is space for a really dynamic and positive conversation within which new ways of working together can be found,” he said, noting that the sculptures are an “absolutely integral part of the British Museum.”
“We need to find a way forward around cultural exchange of a level, intensity and dynamism which has not been conceived hitherto,” Williams said. “There are many wonderful things we’d be delighted to borrow and lend. It is what we do.”
The Sunday Times report said that, in exchange, Greece could lend treasures to the United Kingdom.
