On December 21, 2021, Europe and Greece prepared to celebrate Christmas in the shadow of a pandemic that once again showed its teeth with the Omicron variant. On that day, however, Acropolis Museum he began his written communication with the Vatican for one purpose: repatriation of three fragments which he had in his collections since the 19th century. “Since then, we have started a long correspondence with the cardinals, who are also ministers of the Vatican,” the museum’s general director, Nikos Stambolidis, tells us before it was all over, a year later, in a statement from Pope Francis to “donate” the antiquities to Archbishop Jerome and upon their arrival V Athena a few days ago.

Entering the high-ceiling sculpture maintenance workshop at the Acropolis Museum, the first thing you notice about the space is the silence. The noisy museum with schools and visitors disappeared as soon as Professor Nikos Stampolidis and I went down to its basement. After opening and closing a series of protective doors, we found ourselves with the general director of the museum in a large conservation hall with a high ceiling. Arranged neatly on the central workbench are three new museum acquisitions, fragments of the Parthenon sculptural decoration that returned a few days ago from the Vatican to be reunited with the monument.

This is the head of a boatman, a man in a mantle who was carrying a boat, that is, a tray, with sweets and offerings to the goddess Athena. The sculpture belonged to the north frieze of the monument and was the same one that traveled for a year to Athens in 2008 but was returned to the Vatican. The second head belongs to a bearded man from the southern metope, whose subject is the Battle of the Centaurs. The third fragment, and perhaps the most interesting from an archaeological point of view, is the head of a horse, the origin of which, however, seems to be a mystery.

“There are scientific objections as to whether the head refers to the western or eastern pediment,” Mr. Stampolidis tells us. If the fragment belongs to the west, then it “most likely” will be part of the chariot of the goddess Athena, and if it belongs to the east, then its place will be in the chariot of the Moon as the fourth lost horse.

The professor examines the particular style of the head. Mr. Stampolidis shows us some of the technical details of the horse, such as the square buttress that appears under the mane for the tip of the ear or whatever, the protrusions and indentations in the musculature of the head, the veins and the eyes. As a general image, he says, the head from the Vatican corresponds to the horses of Helios from the eastern pediment. “But those four exist,” he adds.

On fragments, mainly on two heads, we observe traces of red color. “Perhaps this is some old numbering of the first owners,” says Nikos Stampolidis.

Another impressive element is the treatment of the inside of the horse’s head. As he shows us, the removal of marble in the first and second cuts indicates that the horse’s mouth was open. However, under the horse’s mane, additional processing to remove the marble “thickened with needles” can be seen, but the reasons why this was done remain unknown. Until the scientific study of the head is completed and certain conclusions are made, the fragment in question will be placed in a display case.

On fragments, mainly on two heads, we observe traces of red color. “This is probably some old numbering of the first owners,” says Mr. Stampolidis, who intends to preserve it as evidence of the antiquity and order of the Parthenon’s architectural elements. The restorers still do not know either the composition or the origin of the paint. However, before taking their place in the museum, they will undergo a formal cleaning. Until recently, the three antiquities were displayed prominently for visitors to the Vatican, as the professor shows us in a mobile phone photo.

The fragments are considered “victims” of the Venetian bombardment by Francesco Morosini in 1687, but traces of them have since been lost. According to the Vatican Museums, three antiquities fell into their collections at the beginning of the 19th century. The men’s heads were bought by museums in 1803 from the sculptor Ferdinando Lissandroni – how they fell into his hands is unknown, and the horse’s head was removed from the Parthenon a year after Morosini’s bombardment and ended up in the Vatican in 1823 through the Venetian Doge Marcantonio Giustiniani. However, for all three fragments and their journey from the Parthenon to the Vatican, additional evidence will be obtained from the archives of the Italian independent state and Venice.

The countdown to the return of antiquities to Greece began with a statement from the Vatican about three months ago. Pope Francis announced on 16 December 2022 that he was returning the fragments to Archbishop Jerome as “a tangible sign of his sincere desire to follow the ecumenical path of truth”, and words of thanks from the archbishop followed. The pope’s gesture was made in his capacity as a religious leader, not as head of an independent state, and this, according to Mr. Stampolidis, is of particular significance. “In this way, the Pope is addressing the approximately 1 billion Catholics in the world, and therefore his statement embraces the universal truth about the Parthenon, the unity of the monument,” Mr. Stampolidis notes, and points out that the Vatican did not ask for compensation for the gesture. March 7 in the Vatican between Cardinal Fernando Verges Alzaga, President of the Vatican City Government, Archbishop’s Representative Archpriest Emmanuel Papamikroulis, Minister of Culture Linas Mendoni and Director of the Vatican Museums Barbara Zata. The agreement on the return of antiquities from the Greek Church to the Acropolis Museum was signed the day before by Archbishop Jerome and Gen. director N. Stampolidis (March 6) and on the same day (March 7) the transfer of their materials was signed “with a view to their reunification with the rest of the ancient monument” by the representative of the Archdiocese and the Acropolis Museum. The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also involved in this whole process.

A few days later, namely on March 24, a ceremony is planned for receiving the fragments at the Acropolis Museum in the presence of the Greek authorities and high-ranking representatives of the Vatican. The Vatican fragments follow the deposit of the Fagan fragment from Palermo, Sicily, and are the second intergovernmental agreement reached by the Foreign Office to repatriate the Parthenon sculptures and another leverage on the British Museum. Fragments and parts of the monument naturally exist in many European museums and institutions, apart from the British one. But they also exist in Greece, as Mr. Stampolidis pointedly mentions and reminds us that the archaeologist Alexandros Mantis (1947-2019) identified some parts of the Parthenon metopes built into the wall of the Acropolis. “I am preparing a request that they be attributed to us.”