In what has been described as a “gesture of friendship,” the Vatican has returned three fragments of Parthenon sculptures to Greece.
Pope Francis announced the decision to return the 2,500-year-old marble last year.
One is a horse’s head, another is a bearded man, and the third is a boy’s head.
Greece hopes the move will motivate other international institutions that own Parthenon sculptures to return them.
Around half of the Parthenon’s original sculptures have survived, with nearly half of them housed at the British Museum.
After the marble was returned, dignitaries, including the leader of the Greek Orthodox Church, Archbishop Ieronymous, exchanged handshakes and smiles in front of the cameras.
For centuries, the marble had been housed in the papal collection and the Vatican Museums.
But Greece has been trying to reclaim them from the Vatican and other European collections since the beginning of the 20th century.
On the command of Scottish nobleman Thomas Bruce, known as Lord Elgin, hundreds of marbles were removed from Greece’s Parthenon in the early 1800s.
He then sold the marble to the British government, who eventually displayed them in the British Museum.
According to reports, the British Museum’s chairman, George Osborne, is close to reaching an agreement with Greece.
Michele Donelan, the then-UK culture secretary, stated in January that the statues “belong here.”
The law prohibits the British Museum from permanently returning the artworks to Greece.
Yet, there was conjecture that a deal could be struck in which the sculptures would be loaned to Athens on a rotating basis in exchange for ancient artifacts never previously seen outside of Greece.
