Marble (toy) in Codd-neck bottles, which were often collected for play. In the early twentieth century, small balls of stone, identified by archaeologists as marbles, were found on excavation near Mohenjo-daro. Marbles are often mentioned in Roman literature, as in Ovid's poem "Nux" (which mentions playing the game with walnuts), and there are many examples of marbles from excavations of sites associated with Chaldeans of Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt. They were commonly made of clay, stone or glass. Marbles arrived in Britain, imported from the Low Countries, during the medieval era. In 1503 the town council of Nuremberg, Germany, limited the playing
Elgin Marbles for public exhibition overseas, which is provided for in the 1963 Act. Another argument for keeping the Elgin Marbles within the UK has been made by J. H. Merryman, Sweitzer Professor of Law at Stanford University and co-operating professor in the Stanford Art Department. He has argued that the Marbles are now established as a significant element of Britain's own cultural history, as "the Elgin Marbles have been in England since 1821 and in that time have become a part of the British cultural heritage." He has also argued that if the Parthenon were actually being restored, there would be