Neeson joins Clooney’s war over ‘theft’ of Elgin Marbles
UnDeTerreD by the outcry after George Clooney called for the elgin Marbles to be returned to Greece, his fellow Hollywood star Liam neeson has gone even further and accused Britain of ‘theft’.
The 62-year- old star of Taken, who was raised in northern Ireland, says that there is no reason why the Parthenon sculptures should stay at the British Museum.
‘The British must return them, full stop,’ neeson told a reporter from a Greek TV channel. ‘Give them back from where they were stolen. They must be returned.’
The comments by neeson, who was awarded an OBe by the Queen in her 1999 new Year Honours, but took u.S. citizenship ten years later, will be music to the ears of Clooney’s wife Amal.
The glamorous human rights lawyer was drafted in by the cash-strapped Greek government as an adviser on a case aimed at securing the marbles’ return to Athens, where they would be housed in the Acropolis Museum.
The 2,500-year- old Ancient Greek collection was taken from the Parthenon in 1801 by Lord elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman empire. It had never left the uK until the British Museum sparked fury last December by announcing part of the elgin Marbles would be lent to a russian museum for an exhibition.
George Clooney told a Greek journalist last year that it would be ‘very nice’ if the marbles, which have been a constant source of conflict between Greece and Britain for decades, were returned.
He later said: ‘I did a little research just to make sure I wasn’t completely out of my mind. even in england the polling is in favour of returning the marbles from the Pantheon [sic], the Pantheon Marbles.’
London mayor Boris Johnson mocked the actor for calling for them to be returned to ‘the Pantheon’, which is, in fact, a temple in rome.