Professor Paul Cartledge's letter to the Times, was published on Saturday 01 December.
Sir
It is good to know that Louis de Bernières (letter, Nov 30) is a philhellene, but his assertion that Lord Elgin took the marbles with Ottoman permission is doubly untrue. There is no verifiable documentary evidence to support the claim that what Elgin did was officially authorised nor did he merely take what he had removed and sold to the British government. Your headline 'Surrendering the Elgin Marbles to Athens' is also unfortunate: this is not a matter of war but diplomacy, and the only Marbles in question are those removed from the Parthenon, not the entirety of the Elgin collection of marble sculptures now in the BM.
Paul Cartledge
(Vice-Chair, British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles)
And on Sunday with Michael Portillo, fast forward to 1:07:30 to catch the discussion on the Parthenon Marbles. Paul wore a Thalassa tie, the same creators of the tie worn by King Charles III at COP28. Paul's tie isn't woven with the motif of the Greek flag but has the letters of the Greek alphabet.
Earlier in the week Paul also spoke on NTD, a New York-based, global television network as well as Ta Nea: "Britain is isolated on the issue of the Parthenon Marbles. Greece's request for reunification will remain on the table, as it has been for more than four decades since it was submitted to UNESCO. We will continue our campaign and urge Greece to continue to ask the trustees of the British Museum to do what is right: return the sculptures, but not as loans, to their natural environment, the Acropolis Museum."
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