A marble fragment from the Acropolis of Athens has been found in the remains of a ship that sank in 1802, according to Greece’s Ministry of Culture.
The ship is the Mentor, a brig that went down southeast of the island of Kythira (also spelled Cythera and Kythera) in the Aegean Sea. The ship was used by Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, to move sculptures from the ruins of the Acropolis to the United Kingdom, Greece’s Ministry of Culture said in a translated statement.
The Acropolis is a high-ground area in Athens that contains some of the city’s most important buildings — most notably, the Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena, the patron goddess of the city. The sculptures that Lord Elgin was removing depict scenes from Greek mythology, especially the birth of Athena. It’s not certain if the newly found fragment is from the Parthenon itself or from elsewhere on the Acropolis.
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After the ship sank, Elgin had sponge divers dive down to the wreck. They salvaged many of the sculptures, which were sold to the British Museum in 1816, where they remain to the present day.
Modern-day archaeologists have been excavating the remains of the ship since 2009. The ship itself is mostly disintegrated, but remains from the 19th century, such as a chess set, have been found. The most recent excavations found remains of the ship’s copper plating and of a clay hearth that would have been used by the ship’s crewmembers.
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The ancient sculpture found in the ship is a triangular, marble block with what looks like a peg at the bottom. Modern-day scholars refer to pieces like this as a “drop,” Greek Ministry of Culture representatives said in the statement. It’s about 3.7 inches by 1.9 inches (9.3 by 4.7 cm) in size and would have been attached to other blocks somewhere in the Acropolis, possibly on the Parthenon itself.
At the time Lord Elgin was removing the sculptures, now known as the Elgin Marbles or the Parthenon Marbles, Greece was under the control of the Ottoman Empire. Elgin claimed that he was given proper authorization from Ottoman officials to move the sculptures. Greece has requested the return of the sculptures from the British Museum, claiming that Elgin did not have the required permission and noting that Greece was being occupied by the Ottoman Empire at the time.
The museum has refused, but starting in 2021, the museum reportedly had talks about returning the Elgin Marbles to the Greek government. So far, an agreement has not been reached. One challenge is that the laws of the United Kingdom prevent the British Museum from deaccessioning any artifacts. This makes it more difficult to return them to Greece.
Conservation and analysis of the recently discovered remains from the shipwreck are ongoing.
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