ATHENS - Greece ramped up pressure on Britain to return priceless statues from antiquity taken over 200 years ago ahead of Saturday's grand opening of the new Acropolis Museum.

According to Greece's culture minister, the giant 130 million euro (S$263.7 million) glass and concrete display case, which dominates the Athens skyline under the Parthenon temple, is the physical embodiment of a campaign dating from 1983.

The building, which had its origins in British jibes that Greece would have nowhere to display what are known in London as the 'Elgin Marbles' if ever they did return, was designed to host the reunified artworks.

Greek Culture Minister Antonis Samaras said late Friday at an advance opening for media that the new museum space 'now demolishes that excuse.'

About half of the Parthenon Marbles - fifth century Greek marble sculptures, inscriptions and architectural columns that originally belonged to the Parthenon and other buildings on the Acropolis - are intact in the museum.

Of the remainder, most are held in London's British Museum after they were hacked away in the early 1800s on the orders of a British aristocrat and diplomat, Lord Elgin, under a deal with the then ruling Ottoman Empire.

Replicas have been erected in the new galleries.

Five years late - it was originally due to open around the Athens Olympic Games - Greece invited heads of state from around the world for the opening.

Turkish premier Recep Tayip Erdogan cancelled at the last minute citing 'health reasons', Greek officials said, leaving UN heritage chief Koichiro Matsuura and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at the top table.

Heads of state or government from Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovakia were joined by cultural emissaries from another 30-odd countries.

The government also invited British Museum officials to attend the opening despite their refusal to return the marbles - and Greece's rejection of an offer to "loan" them back, which Athens said would confer ownership rights it denies.

Stepping up Greece's campaign, Samaras appealed to "everyone around the world who believes in the values and ideas that emerged on the slopes of the Acropolis to join our quest to bring the missing Parthenon marbles home".

Speaking in English, he said their "abduction" and "enforced exile" was "not only an injustice to us Greeks but to everyone in the world, the English included, because they were made to be seen in sequence and in total".

That was "something that cannot happen as long as half of them are held hostage in the British Museum", he added. An international campaigning group said Friday that the 2012 London Olympics would represent the perfect symbolic moment to send the relics home.

The objects were purchased by the British Parliament from Lord Elgin in 1816 and then presented to the British Museum.

According to the museum's website, the London collection includes sculptures from the Parthenon, roughly half of what now survives: 75m of the original 150m of frieze; 15 of 92 metopes; 17 figures from the pediments, and various other pieces of architecture.

Designed by celebrated Franco-Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi, the three-level Athens building offers panoramic views of the stone citadel and showcases sculptures from the golden age of Athenian democracy.

Set out over a total area of 14,000 sqm, it displays more than 350 artefacts and sculptures that were previously held in a small museum atop the Acropolis.

Heavy security was deployed in the Greek capital for the evening ceremonials beginning at 1700 GMT which will be led by Greek President Karolos Papoulias, Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis and Samaras.