The Parthenon Marbles have been attacked and degraded over 1600 years. But one has only to compare the pieces left at the Acropolis with those preserved in the British Museum to appreciate that Lord Elgin’s removal of the marbles to London has helped preserve them. In this context, the claim that the removal of the Elgin Marbles are is an “object lesson of greed, xenophobia and intransigence” is “in part incomprehensible and in part deeply offensive.”