A controversial exhibition that ‘reunites’ the Parthenon Marbles for the first time in 200 years, opens at the University of Cambridge on Monday (10 November 2003).

‘Marbles Reunited: A Cultural Imperative’ brings to the Faculty of Law spectacular images of the 2,500-year-old sculptures as they have never been seen before in this country.

The exhibition, supported by the British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM), uses the latest digital technology to blend photographs of the ancient sculptural fragments. The resultant virtual images provide a unique glimpse of what could be achieved if the Marbles, currently split between collections in London and Athens, were reassembled.

The show presents a fresh contribution to the ongoing debate as to whether or not the Marbles, separated since Lord Elgin brought some of them from Athens at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, should be reunited and, if so, where?

A new museum is already being built at the foot of the Acropolis in Athens in the hope that the complete set of Marbles will be returned to Greece in time for the 2004 Olympics, but the British Museum have not yet agreed to relinquish their share of the collection.

Professor Anthony Snodgrass, Emeritus Professor in Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and Chairman of the BCRPM, said:

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