Divers find marble treasure possibly taken from Parthenon at Aegean shipwreck

Archaeologists have discovered a piece of marble treasure among the remains of a shipwreck off the coast of the Greek island of Kythira, which could be tied to an infamous robbery at the Parthenon, Greek officials said.

Crews uncovered the marble slab while excavating the site of the Mentor, a brig owned by Thomas Bruce, the British soldier and diplomat known as Lord Elgin, according to Greece's Ministry of Culture and BBC News, a CBS News partner.

Elgin had used the vessel to transport artifacts from Greece to Britain, including relics taken from the Parthenon and other monuments on the Greek Acropolis, the ministry said.

His shipments from the ancient citadel have become the focus of controversy in recent years, as Greece sought to recover some of the "Elgin Marbles" — stone sculptures dating back more than 2,000 years, mostly from the Parthenon — which Elgin took from the Acropolis back to Britain in the early 1800s. They have since ended up in various museums, BBC News reported. Although Elgin insisted that he had permission to remove the sculptures by rulers of the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Athens when he took them, Greek officials have accused him of looting, according to the outlet.

The Mentor sank in September 1802, falling to the bottom of the Aegean Sea in a spot off the fishing port of Avlemonas in southeastern Kythira, according to the culture ministry.

The ministry described the marble fragment recently unearthed from the shipwreck as decorative, and noted that it includes a sculptural feature resembling a water droplet, similar to the architectural style for which the Parthenon is known. Additional conservation efforts at the wreck site and further research into the fragment itself will help identify where the marble originally came from, the ministry said. The fragment measures just 3.6 and 1.85 inches at its longest and widest points.

Most cargo aboard the Mentor has already been raised, the ministry said. Discoveries made during previous excavations of the wreck site include fragments of utensils, fragments of the external copper plating once attached to the ship's hull and a clay slab that officials say likely helped with some kind of insulation.

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