The Parthenon Sculptures – now that the British Museum has lost its charm

By Angelos Chaniotis, Professor in the School of Historical Studies: 

"In the 1937 movie 'A Damsel in Distress,' Fred Astaire sang for the first time Gershwin’s song 'A Foggy Day (in London Town).' Two lines in the lyrics, 'I viewed the morning, with much alarm / the British Museum had lost its charm,' suddenly became very timely when, in late August, it became known that more than 2,000 items had been stolen from the British Museum over a long period of time. As early as 2021, the Danish scholar and antiquities dealer Ittai Gradel had warned the British Museum about items from its collections being sold by private persons, but the museum chose not to view the matter 'with much alarm.' A rude awakening came two years later. To make the museum’s public humiliation complete, it became known that, in the weeks that followed the discovery of the theft, the museum was unable to determine how many and which objects had been stolen."

Read more at eKathimerini or listen to Chaniotis discuss this topic on The Greek Current podcast.