Return the Elgin Marbles? To What?

It’s a romantic notion, the idea that the Parthenon Marbles could be returned to the Acropolis, writes Richard Dorment. “Credulous, idealistic or simply out of touch with reality, many are romantics smitten with the idea that the marbles can somehow be “returned” to the Parthenon, which is in fact a total ruin. Not perhaps realising that half of the Parthenon sculptures have been lost for ever, and that surviving sections are now in 10 museums in eight countries, they imagine that, if only Britain would co-operate with Greece, the frieze could somehow be reconstructed.” They are wrong.