Robbing the contents of tombs has been going on for as long as items of value have been enclosed in the tombs. Robbing the actual tombs themselves was not something that happened until the arrival of the English aristocracy in the nineteenth century.

From:
Today’s Zaman

[Digging up Turkey’s past] Tomb Raider: Charles Fellows in Lycia
27 January 2010, Wednesday
TERRY RICHARDSON ANTALYA

Robbing graves is a crime almost as old as the practice that unwittingly encouraged it — the burial of the dead with valuable objects. Gold death masks and other precious items proved too much of a temptation for unscrupulous “get rich quick” thieves in ancient Egypt, who tunneled their way into pyramid tombs in search of forbidden treasures.

Roman and Byzantine tombs were pillaged for their grave goods, and the “art” of grave robbing goes back over 2,000 years in China. Today, professional “tomb raiders” around the globe loot the burial places of past civilizations, from the graves of North American Indians to the tombs of ancient Chinese notables, and the international art market appears ever hungry for such antiquities, no matter how ill-gotten.
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The British Museum insists that their ownership of the Parthenon Sculptures is entirely legal. This focus on legality though avoids considering what is the right, moral or ethical thing to do.

From:
Athens News

Pressure mounts for Marbles’ return
ATHENS NEWS 18/06/2009
Helen Skopis
Issue No. 13342

By now the arguments have been thoroughly aired. The British Museum remains steadfast and insists all was done fair and square even though numerous authorities have made compelling arguments to the contrary.

But despite almost 200 years having passed, the issue will not die, and now with the imminent opening of the New Acropolis Museum, the chorus of those demanding the return to Greece of the infamous Elgin Marbles is bound to grow only louder.
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A summary of the key arguments / points on both sides of the Parthenon Marbles debate.

From:
The First Post

Should Britain return the Elgin Marbles?
FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 13, 2009

THE ARGUMENTS FOR

Cultural treasures from ancient civilisations belong in the places they come from. Museums in Sweden, Germany, America and the Vatican have already acknowledged this and returned items taken from the Acropolis. The British museum should follow suit and put an end to more than two centuries of bad feeling in Greece.
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More coverage of Professor Vassilis Dimitriadis’s study on the validity of the Firman that supposedly allowed Lord Elgin to remove pieces of the Parthenon Sculptures from the Acropolis.

From:
Artinfo

Professor Questions Legality of Elgin Document
By ARTINFO
Published: August 29, 2008

LONDON—A professor from the University of Crete has called into question the sole document that the British Museum has found in recent years to support its legal ownership of the Elgin Marbles, reports the Times of London.
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The Firman was an Ottoman legal document issued to Lord Elgin. It only survives in translation, but is used as the basis of proving the supposed legality of Elgin’s removal of the Parthenon Sculptures from Athens. A historian who has researched this document & other similar documents is now casting doubt over whether the firman actually gave Elgin the permissions that were claimed.

From:
The Times

August 29, 2008
Legality of Earl of Elgin’s acquisition challenged by scholar
Dalya Alberge, Arts Correspondent

The new Acropolis Museum may prove to be the most lavishly appointed white elephant in history. Nothing will change the view of the British Government that the intended centrepiece, the magnificently sculpted Elgin Marbles, must remain permanently in the British Museum.

Not that the museum will be empty. There will be 4,000 exhibits including the remaining Parthenon sculptures. But the crown jewels, the 247ft of the original 524ft frieze, 15 of 92 metopes and 17 figures from the pediments, all dating to the 5th century BC, will remain 1,500 miles away in London.
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Dorothy King has unexpectedly posted on her blog, photos of a number of items from the St Clair Archive at the British Museum. This archive includes amongst other things, the only surviving translation of the firman that it is claimed permitted Elgin to take the marbles and the first letter from Greece requesting the return of marbles.

You can read her own introduction to the items from the archive (& her reasons for posting them online) here.

A full list of all her posts relating to the archive is available here.

Each post contains an overview, followed by additional posts that show more detailed photos, so that in most cases it should be possible to read the text. It is suggested that if you are interested in studying these items, you download them, in case at some later date they become unavailable.