The Parthenon Sculptures at Center of Row Between Britain, Greece 

An employee views examples of the Parthenon sculptures, sometimes referred to in the UK as the Elgin Marbles, on display at the British Museum in London, Britain, January 25, 2023. (Reuters)
An employee views examples of the Parthenon sculptures, sometimes referred to in the UK as the Elgin Marbles, on display at the British Museum in London, Britain, January 25, 2023. (Reuters)
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The Parthenon Sculptures at Center of Row Between Britain, Greece 

An employee views examples of the Parthenon sculptures, sometimes referred to in the UK as the Elgin Marbles, on display at the British Museum in London, Britain, January 25, 2023. (Reuters)
An employee views examples of the Parthenon sculptures, sometimes referred to in the UK as the Elgin Marbles, on display at the British Museum in London, Britain, January 25, 2023. (Reuters)

Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has cancelled a planned meeting with his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis due to a diplomatic row over the status of the 2,500-year-old Parthenon sculptures housed at the British Museum.

Greece has repeatedly asked for their permanent return to Athens, while Britain and the museum have refused to do so.

WHY THEY ARE IN BRITAIN?

The sculptures, known as the Elgin Marbles in Britain, include part of a frieze, relief panels and other figures that were removed from the Parthenon in the early 19th century by Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin and then-British ambassador to the Ottoman empire.

They were transported to Britain and bought by the British Museum in 1816 and are exhibited as a prized part of its collection in London.

WHAT ARE THEY?

The sculptures at the British Museum make up about half of a 160-metre frieze which adorned the Parthenon temple on the rocky Acropolis hill in Athens. The collection includes 15 sculpted relief panels and figures of gods and heroes from the temple's pediments.

They are original parts of the temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, completed in 432 BC as the crowning glory of Athens' Golden Age.

The largest temple on the Acropolis, the Parthenon has operated as an archaeological site since 1833, surviving wars and natural disasters to become the symbol of modern Greece.

ATHENS' CAMPAIGN FOR THEIR RETURN

While Athens has called for the permanent return of the treasures since its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1832 and accused Elgin of theft, the campaign garnered more attention in the 1980s.

Greek Oscar-nominated actress Melina Mercouri, a vocal supporter of the arts, launched an official campaign for their return when she was culture minister in 1981-1989.

Athens has further stepped up its efforts since it opened a museum in 2009 at the foot of the Acropolis, which holds the sculptures that remain in Greece. With a view of the Parthenon, the layout of the top floor of the museum mimics the temple.

In September 2019, Mitsotakis suggested Athens would be willing to loan antiquities to the British Museum in return for being able to temporarily exhibit them. Greece said the proposal did not alter its long-standing demand for their permanent return.

In December 2022, Greece said it was in talks with Britain over the repatriation of the sculptures to Athens, but a deal was not imminent.

BRITISH MUSEUM'S STANCE

The British Museum, custodian of the sculptures, has refused to return them, saying they were acquired by Elgin under a legal contract with the Ottoman Empire that then ruled Greece.

The trustees of the museum say the public would benefit more from having the sculptures divided between two museums, that bringing them back together into a unified whole is impossible as some parts were lost or destroyed, and that the sculptures could not be safely returned.

The trustees have said they would consider a loan to Greece if Greece acknowledges the British Museum's ownership of the sculptures, which Greek governments have refused in the past. The British Museum in January 2023 called for a new Parthenon Partnership with Greece and said discussions were ongoing.

OTHER RETURNS

In January 2022, a museum in Italy loaned Athens the so-called "Fagan" fragment, depicting the foot of the ancient Greek goddess Artemis. It later said the fragment - part of the temple's eastern frieze - could stay in Greece.

In December, Pope Francis returned to Greece three pieces of the Parthenon that had been in the papal collections of the Vatican Museums for more than a century.



Research Discovers Ancient Egyptian Remains Smell Nice

 In this undated photo provided by Emma Paolin, a view of a selection of the mummified bodies in the exhibition area of the Egyptian museum in Cairo. (Emma Paolin via AP)
In this undated photo provided by Emma Paolin, a view of a selection of the mummified bodies in the exhibition area of the Egyptian museum in Cairo. (Emma Paolin via AP)
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Research Discovers Ancient Egyptian Remains Smell Nice

 In this undated photo provided by Emma Paolin, a view of a selection of the mummified bodies in the exhibition area of the Egyptian museum in Cairo. (Emma Paolin via AP)
In this undated photo provided by Emma Paolin, a view of a selection of the mummified bodies in the exhibition area of the Egyptian museum in Cairo. (Emma Paolin via AP)

At first whiff, it sounds repulsive: sniff the essence of an ancient corpse.

But researchers who indulged their curiosity in the name of science found that well-preserved Egyptian mummies actually smell pretty good.

"In films and books, terrible things happen to those who smell mummified bodies," said Cecilia Bembibre, director of research at University College London's Institute for Sustainable Heritage. "We were surprised at the pleasantness of them."

"Woody,spicy" and "sweet" were the leading descriptions from a mummy sniffing exercise. Floral notes were also detected, which could be from pine and juniper resins used in embalming.

The study published Thursday in the Journal of the American Chemical Society used both chemical analysis and a panel of human sniffers to evaluate the odors from nine mummies as old as 5,000 years that had been either in storage or on display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

The researchers wanted to systematically study the smell of mummies because it has long been a subject of fascination for the public and researchers alike, said Bembibre, one of the report’s authors. Archeologists, historians, conservators and even fiction writers have devoted pages of their work to the subject — for good reason.

Scent was an important consideration in the mummification process that used oils, waxes and balms to preserve the body and its spirit for the afterlife. The practice was largely reserved for pharaohs and nobility and pleasant smells were associated with purity and deities while bad odors were signs of corruption and decay.

Without sampling the mummies themselves, which would be invasive, researchers from UCL and the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia were able to measure whether aromas were coming from the archaeological item, pesticides or other products used to conserve the remains, or from deterioration due to mold, bacteria or microorganisms.

"We were quite worried that we might find notes or hints of decaying bodies, which wasn’t the case," said Matija Strlič, a chemistry professor at the University of Ljubljana. "We were specifically worried that there might be indications of microbial degradation, but that was not the case, which means that the environment in this museum, is actually quite good in terms of preservation."

Using technical instruments to measure and quantify air molecules emitted from sarcophagi to determine the state of preservation without touching the mummies was like the Holy Grail, Strlič said.

"It tells us potentially what social class a mummy was from and therefore reveals a lot of information about the mummified body that is relevant not just to conservators, but to curators and archeologists as well," he said. "We believe that this approach is potentially of huge interest to other types of museum collections."

Barbara Huber, a postdoctoral researcher at Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Germany who was not involved in the study, said the findings provide crucial data on compounds that could preserve or degrade mummified remains. The information could be used to better protect the ancient bodies for future generations.

"However, the research also underscores a key challenge: the smells detected today are not necessarily those from the time of mummification," Huber said. "Over thousands of years, evaporation, oxidation, and even storage conditions have significantly altered the original scent profile."

Huber authored a study two years ago that analyzed residue from a jar that had contained mummified organs of a noblewoman to identify embalming ingredients, their origins and what they revealed about trade routes. She then worked with a perfumer to create an interpretation of the embalming scent, known as "Scent of Eternity," for an exhibition at the Moesgaard Museum in Denmark.

Researchers of the current study hope to do something similar, using their findings to develop "smellscapes" to artificially recreate the scents they detected and enhance the experience for future museumgoers.

"Museums have been called white cubes, where you are prompted to read, to see, to approach everything from a distance with your eyes," Bembibre said. "Observing the mummified bodies through a glass case reduces the experience because we don’t get to smell them. We don’t get to know about the mummification process in an experiential way, which is one of the ways that we understand and engage with the world."