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Over the next century, the golden patina of the Elgin Marbles was scrubbed whiter and whiter until the final desecration, by order of Sir Joseph (later Baron) Duveen. The picture dealer had made millions of dollars selling often dubious and touched-up old masters to the new rich of the United States, and was now busily buying honors for himself. In 1928 he offered to build a new gallery for the British Museum to house the Elgin Marbles -- on condition that they were made more attractive to the public (and reflected more glory on himself).

On his orders, paid masons attacked the marbles with metal tools and Carborundum, leaving them whiter than white but -- according to the modern Greeks -- irreparably harmed. Dr. R.D. Barnett, then the museum's keeper of Western Asiatic antiquities, wrote a suppressed memo detailing his shock at seeing a laborer "day after day using hammer and chisel and wire brushes."

So damaged were the Elgin Marbles that they were placed behind barriers -- still there today -- so that the public could not get close enough to see the ravages. And serious scholars have always resented the way Duveen arranged them around the sides of his gallery, when they were meant to be seen as a continuous narrative as they were approached and circled.

In Elgin's day, the marbles were exhaustively studied by working artists, who had the benefit of naked models in poses echoing those of the statues. Today they are high on tourist lists and are, indeed, the very best value in London, as entry to the museum is free.

To get to the Duveen Gallery, turn left at the entrance and go through the stunning Egyptian collection. You won't see "Elgin" or "Marbles" written anywhere -- the collection is neutrally described as "Sculptures of the Parthenon."

Once inside, there is no sense of anticlimax. These really are what critics have praised for 200 years as simply the most magnificent sculptures in the world. Despite their incompleteness, despite their unnatural color, despite the poor arrangement, the sculptures come alive at a glance. You swear you can see the rippling of muscles and the sway of materials. Grace and beauty are meaningful terms here. The centerpiece of a family sacrifice is restrained and moving. The long parade of horses and riders is magnificent.

Oddly, for a noncommercial institution, the British Museum allows champagne and gourmet food parties in the gallery in return for high rental fees. The marbles have become a prized setting for corporate hospitality parties. These parties have got the Museum into more hot water, as guests are even permitted to be photographed in Ancient Greek fancy dress with the Elgin Marbles as a decorative background.

Sir Kenneth Alexander, a former trustee of the National Museum of Scotland, describes this as a "crass misuse of one of the world's greatest antiquities." Andrew Dismore, a Greek-speaking member of Parliament, says: "I am frankly dismayed at the attitude of the museum. What are we going to have next? Themed orgies in the Roman galleries?"

A museum publicist shrugs: "I am amazed that there should be any reaction to the museum holding dinners and receptions there. Everybody does it now."

At a symposium arranged by the museum to placate Greek activists in December, an official confessed for the first time that, "The way Duveen went about cleaning the sculptures was a scandal, and the way the museum tried and failed to cover it up was a scandal."

"The British Museum is not infallible; it is not the pope," admitted Dr. Ian Jenkins, deputy keeper of Greek and Roman antiquities. "Its history has been a series of good intentions marred by the occasional cock-up: The cleaning was such a cock-up."

But almost identical techniques, he said, including wire brushing and scraping with metal chisels, had been used in Athens in the 1950s on the Hephaesteum Temple. "And while people moralize about bribes paid by Lord Elgin 200 years ago, and protest about cleaning that happened 60 years ago, South Metope 1 and North Metope 32, two of the finest sculptures that ever there were, still rot on the Parthenon as I speak."

Ah, but if you let us have them back, we would conserve all the marbles in a new 30-billion drachma ($109 million) Acropolis Museum, retorts the Greek government. And it would be very nice if they -- along with the other bits in Paris, Copenhagen, Palermo, the Vatican, Heidelberg, Munich, Würzburg, Strasbourg and Vienna -- were returned by 2004, when Athens hosts the Olympic Games.

President Clinton wants Britain to hand them back, according to Elisavet Papazoe, the Greek government minister who showed the U.S. president and daughter Chelsea around the Parthenon last year.

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