The director of the British Museum, Robert Anderson has dismissed suggestions that the Elgin Marbles should be returned to Greece.

Writing in The Times, Anderson criticised calls for the Marbles to be loaned to a museum in Athens in time for the 2004 Olympics, saying the sculptures are 'one of the greatest treasures of the British Museum,' and adding that they are where they will remain, at the heart of the museum's classical collection.

The 56 sculpted friezes, known in Greece as the Parthenon sculptures, were removed from Greece during Ottoman Turkish rule by Lord Elgin, and sent to the British Museum. They depict the Panathenaea procession, the most formal religious ceremonies of ancient Athens.