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From the Elgin Collection at The British Museum, a marble of a lapith fighting a centaur, South Metope 31, Parthenon, circa 447-433 B.C. Photographed by Adam Carr, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

New search of Elgin’s sunken ship finds no looted Parthenon art

Catherine Saunders-Watson
Catherine Saunders-Watson
From the Elgin Collection at The British Museum, a marble of a lapith fighting a centaur, South Metope 31, Parthenon, circa 447-433 B.C. Photographed by Adam Carr, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
From the Elgin Collection at The British Museum, a marble of a lapith fighting a centaur, South Metope 31, Parthenon, circa 447-433 B.C. Photographed by Adam Carr, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

ATHENS, Greece (AP) – A British ship that sank off southern Greece 200 years ago carrying sculptures taken from the Parthenon has been searched for a fourth time, but again no ancient art works have been found.

During July’s search Greek Culture Ministry divers did, however, recover 19th-century tableware, firearms, a cannonball and navigational instruments from the wreck of the Mentor, off the island of Kythera, the ministry said Monday.

The ship was loaded with marble art removed from the Acropolis on behalf of Thomas Bruce, the Scottish Earl of Elgin, before it sank in 1802.

Those works were soon salvaged and are now displayed with other Parthenon Marbles in London’s British Museum.

The three previous ship searches also turned up no more sculptures.

Greece has failed to get Britain to return the ones it has.

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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

From the Elgin Collection at The British Museum, a marble of a lapith fighting a centaur, South Metope 31, Parthenon, circa 447-433 B.C. Photographed by Adam Carr, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
From the Elgin Collection at The British Museum, a marble of a lapith fighting a centaur, South Metope 31, Parthenon, circa 447-433 B.C. Photographed by Adam Carr, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.