Why is the British Museum always in trouble?

“The Essex Antiquities” doesn’t have quite the same ring. The sculptures that were hacked from the Parthenon in the early 19th century go by many names. They are called the “Parthenon Sculptures”, the “Parthenon Marbles” and, by traditionalists, “the Elgin Marbles” but never known by the name of the county in the south-east of England. Yet in 1902 part of the frieze from the Acropolis turned up in a rockery in a charming garden in Essex. Quite how it got there, as Mary Beard, a classicist, puts it, “we have no idea.”The gets in trouble precisely because people do know how it acquired its bits of the Parthenon, and much else besides. This week’s drama was a spat between the visiting Greek prime minister, who likened the to cutting “the Mona Lisa in half”, and the British prime minister, who threw a tantrum in response and cancelled a planned meeting with his counterpart.