Just before the first lockdown, I went to see the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum with a Greek friend. Though I had never been happy about them being in London, it was a visceral shock to see them through Greek eyes. The Parthenon Sculptures (let’s call them as they should be named) seemed diminished in the austere Duveen Gallery on a cold Bloomsbury afternoon, rather than in the light of Attica. The feeling was inescapable. They are in the wrong place.

Of course, the museums created in the colonial era are full of treasures from other countries looted by Europeans. Calls for the return of artefacts are growing everywhere as the world wakes up to what the European powers did during the age of imperialism. Indeed, some of the so-called Benin Bronzes seized during the punitive raid of 1897 have been handed back to Nigeria, with more to follow.

The case of the Parthenon Sculptures, though, is unique. They are bound up with Greek identity. As the Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has said, they are the pre-eminent symbol of the link between the Greek people and their past. Built in the age of Pericles, the Parthenon was the city shrine of Athens – the greatest ancient centre of Greek culture. Later a church, then a mosque, it remained largely intact until it was blown up in a siege in 1687. The sculptures were removed by Lord Elgin between 1801 and 1805, during the period when Greece was occupied by the Turks.

Listen: Bronwen Everill discusses the creation of the Benin Bronzes and current debates over their repatriation, on this episode of the HistoryExtra podcast: