A slew of foreign galleries are hoping to acquire invaluable but ‘contested’ cultural treasures that take pride of place in British insтιтutions.

Labour has hinted it could support a plan to send the Elgin Marbles on a long-term loan to Greece as part of Sir Keir Starmer‘s wooing of the EU for closer ties.

The dispute has been running for centuries, with Rishi Sunak and his Greek counterpart clashing bitterly on the issue last year.

Elgin Marbles

The fifth-century BC Parthenon sculptures were moved from Athens between 1801 to 1812 by the Earl of Elgin, when it was still part of the Ottoman Empire.

The peer, who was the British ambᴀssador, planned to set up a private museum before transferring them to the British Museum.

Greece insists the artefacts were obtained illegally by Lord Elgin, but the UK is adamant that they were legally obtained by Lord Elgin with the permission of the Ottoman authorities.

A 1963 law prevents the British Museum from permanently disposing of key items from its collection, although it would not stop a loan deal.

In November last year, a diplomatic spat broke out between the UK and Greece with the Elgin Marbles at the centre.

Mr Sunak cancelled a meeting with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in London after he said Britain keeping the marbles was like ‘cutting the Mona Lisa in half.’ 

The UK insisted that had broken a commitment from the Greeks not to use the visit for ‘grandstanding’ on the long-running spat.

In March 2023 Mr Sunak underlined his stance that such relics should stay in Britain.

Rosetta Stone

Egypt has long called for the Rosetta Stone to be returned.

Those who argue against repatriation say historic objects are better cared for by major insтιтutions in the West.

The Rosetta Stone, which dates back to 196 BC, is one of the British Museum’s most treasured exhibits.

It was discovered by accident by Napoleon’s Army as they were digging in the foundations of an addition to a fort near the town of Rashid (Rosetta) in the Nile Delta in July 1799.

After Napoleon’s defeat, the stone was handed over to Britain under the terms of the Treaty of Alexandria in 1801 along with other antiquities the French found.

It was shipped to England and arrived in Portsmouth in February 1802 and was soon put on display at the British Museum.

The knowledge of how to read and write hieroglyphs had long been forgotten – but in the years of the 19th century, scholars used the Greek inscription on the Rosetta stone to decipher them.

Benin Bronzes from Nigeria

The British Museum holds more than 900 Benin Bronzes, decorative plaques taken during a colonial conflict in the late 19th century.

The artefacts were taken by British armed forces during the sacking of Benin City, Nigeria, in 1897.

During the attack, British armed forces burned the city’s palace and exiled Benin’s Oba, or king, with thousands of brᴀsses and other works – collectively known as the ‘Benin bronzes’ – taken and later sold off in London to recoup the costs of the military mission.

The artefacts, which are considered to be of exceptional artistic quality and significance, ended up in museums in the UK, Europe and US, with claims for their resтιтution dating back to the mid-20th century.

About 5,000 Benin bronzes are currently ‘scattered’ around the world.

Koh-i-Noor

Ownership of the 105-carat Koh-i-Noor diamond is H๏τly disputed, with India among several nations claiming it as their own.

An exhibition in 2023 that was supported by Buckingham Palace said that in 1849, British soldiers coerced the Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, who was only 10 years old, to surrender the 105-carat stone.

Queen Victoria was presented with the Diamond a year later by the British-owned East India Company, and it has stayed in the Royal Family’s possession ever since.

Today, the Koh-i-Noor diamond sits in the Queen Mother’s Crown, where it is kept on display, in the Tower of London.

The Koh-i-Noor did not appear at the Coronation. Instead, Camilla wore Queen Mary’s crown, featuring the Cullinan III, IV and V diamonds (originally part of the biggest single diamond in the world), which were part of Queen Elizabeth II’s personal collection.

Moai stones from Easter Island

The museum has two moai statues which were taken from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) by British surveyors in 1868.

There have been long-standing demands for the statues to be returned to the Chilean territory.

The British Museum has two moai statues, including the Hoa Hakananai’a, which holds particular significance to Rapa Nui.

Each of the figures is said to embody tribal leaders or deified ancestors.

It was taken from the island, which lies in the Pacific more than 2,100 miles off the coast of Chile, in 1868 by Commodore Richard Powell, captain of HMS Topaze, who gave it to Queen Victoria.

She donated it in 1869 to the British Museum, where it now stands at the entrance to Wellcome Trust Gallery. But Easter Island’s indigenous community, the Rapa Nui, want Britain to give back the spiritually ‘unique’ effigy.

The Ashurbanipal reliefs from Iraq

The Iraqi government has demanded that the British Museum returns the remarkable Ashurbanipal reliefs mde for the ᴀssyrian North Palace of Nineveh (current-day Mosul) in 645–635 BC.

It is unclear how secure these artefacts — including an intricate frieze known as the Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal — would be in Baghdad.

Iraq remains extremely volatile and the Foreign Office currently advises against almost all travel there.

The reliefs were excavated by archaeologists including the British explorer William Loftus in the 1950s and sent to the British Museum.