Culture Shock

Britain Loans Out Elgin Marbles

Disputed artifacts en route to Russia.

The British Museum has lent one of the Elgin Marbles for the first time. A headless depiction of the river god Ilissos has been sent to Russia—despite tensions over Ukraine—to go on display until mid-January in St. Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum, which is celebrating its 250th anniversary. It is one of a number of relics acquired by Lord Elgin in Athens in the early 19th century, now known collectively as the Elgin Marbles. Ownership of the artifacts, once part of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon temple, is disputed by Greece, which maintains that Elgin removed them illegally while the country was under Turkish occupation as part of the Ottoman Empire. The items have remained in the British Museum ever since.