An Oxford-based organization that uses digital imaging technologies to catalogue, preserve, and reconstruct cultural heritage may take legal action against the British Museum in London after the museum rebuffed its request to 3D scan the Parthenon marbles1.

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The IDA’s request to 3D scan the marbles was denied via email more than a month after it was submitted. IDA executive director Roger Michel called the letter refusing the request “bizarre.”2

Although permission had been denied, a team from the IDA brought an iPad-sized scanner to the British Museum and began to make scans. The museum said in a statement at the time that it “was deeply concerned to hear suggestions that unauthorized scanning took place in our galleries,” declaring the move a “breach of our visitor regulations.”

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• 1. The Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA), which previously made a copy of Palmyra’s destroyed Triumphal Arch, had hoped to digitally scan a metope from the Parthenon’s south façade as “proof of concept.” Its ultimate goal was to create an exact replica of the Parthenon marbles, chiseled into Pentelic marble by carving robots. Beyond its possibilities as an educational resource, a highly accurate reproduction could offer a potential solution to the longstanding dispute over the marbles between the British Museum and Greece, the IDA has suggested.
• 2. “Everything at the British Museum is publicly owned; the marbles were purchased with tax dollars. As the British Museum Act of 1963 states, it is the duty of museum trustees to make these objects available to the public,” Michel told Hyperallergic. “The fact that the vast majority of objects held in the British Museum are not on public view is all the more reason to have a liberal access policy.”