The Elgin Marbles belong back in Athens – it's morally right, says Alice Roberts

Artefacts that carry cultural significance in the place where they were made and found not only become divorced from their history but become totems of antagonism and antipathy between different groups – emblems of old power struggles that some seem keen to keep aflame.

There’s not a single answer. Sometimes objects will be gifted – and connections strengthened by that exchange – as they have been through history (and prehistory). An example of art from a distant land may bring us closer – make us more cognisant of our common humanity.

But when the removal, export and effective incarceration of cultural artefacts is carried out in a way that feels unwelcome, unintended or unconsented, it can be very damaging indeed.

I’m not saying that this is how the debate about the Parthenon marbles should be framed. But I don’t think this is a question we should just ignore.

And that’s why, when I was filming my new Channel 4 series Ancient Greece by Train and I was lucky enough to secure an interview to speak with the Greek minister of culture, Lina Mendoni, I grasped the opportunity to ask her what she felt about this issue: about those marbles from the Parthenon that currently reside in the British Museum.

I started the interview asking Mendoni about her own research and interest in ancient Greek inscriptions, as well as the pressures of balancing tourism with protecting heritage – a pressing problem in Greece, which has ample quantities of both. And then I asked her about the Parthenon marbles – dating from the 5th century BC – and she expressed a sincere desire to see them returned to Greece.

I have to agree with her on that: I think they belong back in Athens. It’s not equivalent, but I imagine we might be pretty upset in England if another country had significant bits of Stonehenge and wouldn’t give them back.

But actually, the argument goes deeper than that. There’s a pressing need to recognise some of the questionable practices of the past, which often went hand in hand with the history of colonialism. We can’t undo that history, and we should seek to understand it rather than erase it.

But we can recognise injustices and do something about that today. And for those who say, "But won’t this set a precedent? Will we have anything left in our museums?" I would respond: worrying about "setting a precedent" is never a good argument for not doing what you consider to be morally right.

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