In ancient times, the citizens of Athens held a festival every year to honor their Goddess Athena. An important part was the procession through Athens and up the hill to the Parthenon carrying a new robe for the sculpture in the temple.

The frieze that runs in a continual sculpture around the Parthenon is a representation of this procession. We saw a good part of it on our trip in October where it is now preserved and on display at the Acropolis Museum. 

Other sections are known as the Elgin Marbles and held at the British Museum. Greece has asked for these back and the British have refused. Here's a story I shared earlier this year about a woman archeologist and the plundering of antiquities.

Greek Culture Minister Myrsini Zorba told Deutsche Welle in an exclusive interview "Greece will never relinquish its ownership rights to the Parthenon marbles." 

Slabs from pediment of the Parthenon which Elgin shipped to England. Photo: DW/A. Carassava

And Alexis Mantheakis, chairman of the International Parthenon Sculptures Action Committee has said the British Museum's stance on the Elgin Marbles plays on "the other child's toy syndrome — a stubbornly petulant refusal to return what is not one's own."

The two marble pieces Pope Francis will return are the head of a young boy and a bearded male head, figures believed to be part of the Panathenaic procession.

Generally, women did not take part in the event, except for a few maidens at the back. But I'm guessing it was the women who embroidered the enormous robe for the forty-foot-tall statue of Athena.

Below: My husband in front of the Parthenon absent the friezes.

Recently, museums in Germany, the United States and France, have agreed to return items acquired from former colonial conquests. You may remember I wrote about antiquities returned from France to Benin, including the doors of King Behanzin's Palace of Abomey. But the issue of plundered treasure is far from resolved.

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