For Britain, renewed demands by Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Greece’s prime minister, to relinquish the Parthenon marbles brings the country face to face with its colonial past. For Greece, repatriating the sculptures, which have been housed in the British Museum since 1817, is a matter of national identity.
For the past 200 years, Greeks have leaned heavily on the idea that the present-day nation is an extension of ancient Greece. From a young age, this is what I was taught in school. Ancient Greece was everywhere in the curriculum and we were encouraged to feel great pride in having originated from the cradle of European civilisation. But after moving abroad as an adult and reading more widely, I started to question the fragile link between our past and present. Most Greeks will argue for repatriation of the Parthenon sculptures on the basis that ancient Greek artefacts are part of its national heritage. But the current debate exceeds national borders.
