By Major General (Ret.) K. H. Constantinidis
As you may have heard, Mr George Osborne, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the British Museum, has proposed that the Parthenon Sculptures should be exhibited alternately in Athens and London, rather than remaining permanently at the British Museum. According to his interview with the distinguished journalist Mr Papachelas, published in the newspaper Kathimerini on 14 October 2026, the proposal includes:
- A rotating exhibition, with the Sculptures spending part of their time in Athens and the rest in London.
- In Athens, they would be presented within the context of ancient Greek history, while in London they would be displayed as part of the history of world civilisations.
Indeed, the English have both intelligence and a unique sense of humour, but they lack something: a pinch of salt.
This back-and-forth transportation of ancient sculptures between London and Athens, and vice versa, reminded me of the old days of cinema.
When I was serving at the Signals Training Centre in Haidari, we eagerly awaited the black-and-white film that arrived every week, distributed by the distinguished film producers and distributors Karagiannis and Karatzopoulos.
The late Karagiannis would come through snow or rain on a scooter to screen the film at the afternoon showing, then collect it afterwards and deliver it to other cinemas, continuing until midnight. (In the Army, the films were screened free of charge.) He deserves to be recognised as the very first “delivery man”!
This is more or less how the British envisage shuttling the Sculptures back and forth, as though they were suitcases. They will tell us that the Sculptures will be insured for enormous sums, so that even if an aircraft crashes and the Sculptures are destroyed, they will suffer no financial loss. But are these objects really theirs to worry about?
Not only these Sculptures, but everything else in the British Museum is stolen property. What they fear most is that the Sculptures might set a precedent and that the British Museum could eventually be emptied.
The notorious Lord Elgin, armed with a saw, cut the Sculptures from the Parthenon’s metopes, threw them down and gathered up the fragments. He was interested in profit, just as his modern-day counterparts now think in commercial terms rather than considering the safety of the Sculptures.
Instead of allowing them to decay in the British Museum, where the roof leaks when it rains, they would send them to Athens to ease the mounting international pressure—even pressure from the British public. Then, whenever the Sculptures returned to London, they might arrange some venue to exhibit them with a grand celebration, as though they were fresh products arriving on the market.
The British could hardly have conceived a more disastrous solution, without taking into account the safety of these centuries-old Sculptures.
Greece does not agree with Mr Osborne’s proposal for the alternating exhibition of the Sculptures in Athens and London.
If Greece accepted Mr Osborne’s vague arrangement, we would essentially be acknowledging that the Parthenon Sculptures belong to the British Museum in perpetuity, with just one small footnote: that they would occasionally be delivered to Greece by a “delivery man”.
It should be noted, however, that delivery riders are very frequently involved in accidents!
(16 October 2026)
Major General (Ret.) Konstantinos Κonstantinidis
Author — Member of the Society of Greek Writers
Amphiktyon Blog: http://www.amphiktyon.blogspot.com
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