ROME, AUGUST 23 - France has agreed to lend Greece a metope, a carved portion of the lintel of the Parthenon, preserved in the Louvre, for 2021, the year in which the bicentenary of the beginning of the Greek War of Independence is celebrated. The agency Ana-Mpa writes. French President Emmanuel Macron would have accepted the request to this effect by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The metope will be exhibited at the Acropolis museum. In return, Greece will lend numerous bronze antiquities that will be exhibited at the Louvre for the first time.
The Parthenon had 92 metopes: 28 arranged on the eastern and western sides and 32 on each of the other two sides. Most have been destroyed: one is in the Acropolis museum, one in the Louvre and another 14 are in the British Museum in London, along with numerous other finds taken from the building on the Acropolis. For decades, Greece has asked Britain to return what are collectively called 'the Parthenon marbles'.