UK - London - Young boys play near Elgin Marbles

Yoiung boys in London's British Museum play near the Ancient Greek Parthenon Metopes also knows as the Elgin Marbles. 92 Metopes were rectangular slabs placed over the columns of the Athens Parthenon temple depicting scenes from Greek mythology. The Elgin Marbles are a collection of classical Greek marble sculptures (mostly by Phidias and his pupils), inscriptions and architectural members that originally were part of the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis of Athens. Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799�1803, obtained a controversial permit from the Ottoman authorities to remove pieces from the Acropolis. From 1801 to 1812 Elgin's agents removed about half of the surviving sculptures of the Parthenon (Photo by Richard Baker/In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images)