Excerpts from the film “Lord Elgin and Some Stones of No Value”, 1985 starring the, then young, Hugh Grant and narrating how Lord Elgin took the Parthenon marbles and moved them to London, was hosted on Youtube. It contains rare underwater footage of the point where the ship “Mentor” was sunk, which was transporting some Parthenon marbles, off Kythira island, Greece. Unsurprisingly, the video has gained topical interest due to the renewed effort of returning the Marbles to Athens.

From 1801 to 1804, Elgin’s crews operated in the acropolis, causing significant damage to the Marbles and the monument itself, detaching and dismembering a significant part of the surviving sculptures of the Parthenon, together with some architectural pieces, like a Marbled column. The transfer of these priceless antiquities to England faced difficulties from port to port. The ship “Mentor” sank and the sculptures, after a prolonged stay in the bottom of the sea, were pulled up by Greek divers at Kythira and eventually arrived in Britain in 1804.