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The World Ahead | Culture in 2025

The restitution of cultural heritage will race ahead in 2025

Britain could end up losing its marbles

The Elgin Marbles at the British Museum
Photograph: Alamy

By Max Norman, Culture correspondent, The Economist

The Parthenon Marbles have not budged from the literal and figurative centre of the British Museum in London since they were purchased from Lord Elgin in 1816. The sculptures—about half of the marbles that survive from the temple in Athens—have also been at the centre of the world’s most famous dispute over cultural property since Greece formally demanded their return in 1983.

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This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition of The World Ahead 2025 under the headline “Losing your marbles”

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