The Parthenon Marbles are close to returning home to Athens, with the British Museum and the Acropolis Museum of Athens nearer to reaching a deal, according to a report by Bloomberg this week.
Talks about reaching an agreement have intensified over the last few months, and a deal is in sight, according to Bloomberg.
In its report, Bloomberg, which cited persons familiar with the matter, claimed the proposed agreement would see a part of the marble sculptures sent to Athens on a rotating basis over several years.
Those cited, who declined to be identified because a deal hasn’t been finalized, said other pieces would be effectively loaned to the London museum in exchange. Britain may even obtain plaster reproductions of the Parthenon statues.
According to the sources, any agreement may be similar to the one reached last year, in which Greece reclaimed 161 antique treasures from New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
As reported in Kathimerini, the deal with the Met, which also includes a Delaware-based cultural institution, “will see marble sculptures collected by an American millionaire progressively returned to Greece after being presented at the Met, with other works traveling in the opposite direction, in a lengthy process lasting between 2023 and 2048.”
The Greek Government has been requesting the British Museum in London to return the Parthenon Marbles for decades, but only recently have both sides held such open dialogue and come this close to an agreement.