More than 6 million people visit the British Museum every year making it London’s most popular attraction. Commonly acknowledged as one of the finest museums in the world, the British Museum is a repository for treasures and antiquities from across the globe with a particularly strong representation of objects taken during the period when the British Empire was dominant. Probably its most famous, and clearly its most controversial exhibit are the so-called Elgin Marbles taken from the Parthenon in Athens by the Earl of Elgin in 1806.