The Cyprus House of Representatives has called for “all countries as well as UNESCO to renew and intensify their efforts for the return of the Parthenon sculptures to Greece”.

From:
Athens News Agency

07/03/2009
Cyprus House call for Marbles

The Cyprus House of Representatives has called for the return of Parthenon sculptures to Greece. In a resolution which the House plenary adopted unanimously on Thursday, Cypriot MPs called on the British government and every other competent authority of the United Kingdom to give a definite end to the adventure of the Marbles, by returning them to their natural space.

Having debated the issue of the return of the Parthenon sculptures to Greece and taking into consideration the opening of the New Acropolis Museum, the House called on all countries as well as UNESCO to renew and intensify their efforts for the return of the Parthenon sculptures to Greece ”and for the reintegration of this unique element of the global cultural heritage to the natural space where it belongs”.
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More coverage of the successful first few days since the opening of the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
GRReporter

Successful first days for the Acropolis Museum
01 July 2009

The new Acropolis Museum, which was officially opened on June 20th, is finding itself a fundamental place in the Athenian life. The dozed off neighborhood around the streets “Makriyanni,” “Hadzihristou,” and “Mitzeon,” which were suffering the long construction period, are now turning into the liveliest part of the Greek capital. The patience of shop and coffee house owners, whose patience was running out because of the construction, is finally going to pay off. Long lines of tourists from all over the world are formed in front of the elegant building of the museum. 120 000 people have visited the museum for the first 10 days of its opening, which means that there were 12 000 people per day!

During the first five days, tickets could be bought only online and daily, 11 000 tickets were sold. Many people prefer to reserve their tickets over the phone and others – through a tourist agency. Right now, the Acropolis Museum is working on a longer day – from 08:00AM until 08:00PM but the lines start forming long before the opening hour. All celebrities, who come to Athens, also visit the museum. The mentioned stretched working times will remain until the end of 2009.
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The Parthenon Marbles have been displayed in London for nearly two hundred years & many people have benefited from them being there during that time. Now though, it is time for the British Museum to re-asses the situation & consider whether they would be better displayed in Greece.

From:
New York Times

Majestic in Exile
By NIKOS KONSTANDARAS
Published: June 18, 2009

As a Greek, I have to visit the Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum whenever I am in London.

I understand the strong feelings of my compatriots who want to see these unsurpassed sculptures returned home, ending the wrong done by Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, two centuries ago. I feel the sense of dislocation — the incongruity — of the brilliance of Classical Athens at its peak trapped in a dull northern light, carried off by a foreign aristocrat and sold at a time when Greece itself was enslaved and its people unable to prevent the looting of their treasures.
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Hans-Gert Pöttering, the president of the European Parliament has been shown around the New Acropolis Museum & spoke positively about it whilst on a visit to Greece.

From:
ERT

01 Jul 2009
Karamanlis-Pöttering Meeting

Greek Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis met Wednesday with Hans-Gert Pöttering, President of the European Parliament, at Maximos Mansion. The two men discussed the developments in the European Union after the June European elections, the financial turmoil and the Lisbon Treaty. The Greek Premier thanked Pöttering, whose term is about to expire, for the excellent level of cooperation they had. Pöttering, on his part, praised Greece for its contribution to the strengthening of the institutions of the European Union with the ratification of the Treaty. After the meeting, the President of the European Parliament toured the New Acropolis Museum.

The two men exchanged views on the implementation of the Lisbon Treaty and the enhancement of the European Parliament’s role. Karamanlis assured Pöttering that Greece will support the work and initiatives of the European Parliament.
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Richard Dorment’s article in the Daily Telegraph unsurprisingly provoked many angry responses on the newspaper’s comments page. Not least, were the claims that the sculptures have been, & would continue to be, better displayed & looked after in the British Museum than in the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
London Daily News

01 July, 2009 12:03 (GMT +01:00)
“Greeks should build a statue to Lord Elgin in Athens”, Telegraph editorial
International News

In what is becoming an increasingly protracted debate, the issue of the reunification of the stolen marbles of the Parthenon took a new dynamic with a highly provocative editorial by Richard Dorment the arts editor of the Daily Telegraph calling for the Greeks to “erect a statue of Lord Elgin near the Parthenon to express their nation’s gratitude to him for saving the marbles”.

Ironically an extensive report published in 1999 by world archeological experts found that the “Elgin marbles” morphology had suffered as a result of the “misguided efforts to make them whiter than white”. The report went onto to say :
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The New Acropolis Museum is a building that has been beset by many delays, but since it has opened, many people have noticed that it has already started to transform the surrounding area. It is only the first prong of attack however, & now that it is completed it leaves the route opening for concerted efforts by Greece to secure the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum.

From:
Guardian

The battle for the Parthenon marbles
Following the success of the newly opened Acropolis Museum, Greek officials are more determined than ever to retrieve their missing heritage. Helena Smith reports from Athens
Tuesday 30 June 2009 17.43 BST

For as long as most Athenians can remember, the intersection of Makriyianni and Dionysiou Areopagitou streets was a nondescript place, the preserve of those bent on illicitly parking their cars on the narrow alleys of the historic Plaka district.

Nine days after the opening of the New Acropolis Museum, this little slice of Athens at the foot of the Acropolis rock is a place transformed. Where vehicles once clogged the streets, there are street cafes, people and performance artists – Greeks such as Anita Papachristou who, like a modern-day pilgrim, makes a point of dropping in to behold the behemoth that looks set to become Greece’s 21st-century shrine. “We waited for it long enough,” she says, looking up at the honey-coloured Parthenon marble, illuminated along the length and breadth of the museum’s upper floor. “And now that it’s here, I can say it’s been worth waiting for.”
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For many Greeks, the New Acropolis Museum is more than just a building – it has become a symbol of their pride in their country & their aspirations for their country.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Acropolis Museum: Athens unveils its bid for the Marbles
Greece’s New Acropolis Museum is a formidable rival to the British Museum and has renewed debate about the Elgin Marbles.
By Teresa Levonian Cole
Published: 5:00PM BST 30 Jun 2009

‘The opening of the New Acropolis Museum was one of the most emotional experiences of my life” says Tina Daskalantonakis, a Greek hotelier. “It is more than a museum – it is a symbol of national pride and hope for the future.”

The museum in question crouches 300 metres below the Acropolis. An angular behemoth of glass, steel, concrete and marble housing some 4,000 artefacts, it is the culmination of an idea first mooted by Konstantinos Karamanlis’s Conservative government in 1976 and, since the early 1980s, passionately advocated by the Socialist minister of culture Melina Mercouri: the creation of a home in which the Parthenon Marbles can be reunited and displayed to the world.
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The author of this article from the Daily Telegraph clearly seen no reason to congratulate the Greeks on the opening of the New Acropolis Museum. Instead, there arguments fall back on old tired incorrect statements about the Parthenon Sculptures.

To correct a few of the most heinous inaccuracies.

1. Far more than one or two British journalists have written positive articles having seen the New Acropolis Museum – in some cases those who previously objected strongly to the return of the Parthenon Marbles. Whether or not these trips were subsidised is irrelevant – some journalists have a level of integrity that the author of this piece clearly does not understand.
2. Elgin paid only very small amounts to acquire the Elgin Marbles – most of the cost was in shipping them back to Britain once they had been removed.
3. As Lord Elgin’s acquisition of the Marbls had dubious legal standing, then it follows that this liability is passed on to Parliament when they purchased the artefacts
4. The British Government purchased the Marbles through an Acto of Parliament – if there as the political will to do so, then returning them using a similar method should not present a major challenge
5. Lord Elgin did not act to save the Marbles – from letters he sent, it is clear that his original intention was to use them as decoration on his new home that was being built at Broomhall
6. It is unclear to anyone apart from the British Museum why the number of visitors who see something & the cost that they pay to see it should be the two most important factors in deciding an artefacts location. These facts are regularly stated, but I have never seen any real justification behind them to suggest how they actually back up the argument for restitution in any way.

These are but a few of the errors.

For a major newspaper to publish an article so full of inaccuracies merely damages its own reputation.

From:
Daily Telegraph

The Elgin Marbles will never return to Athens – the British Museum is their rightful home
The Greeks should erect a statue of Lord Elgin near the Parthenon to express their nation’s gratitude to him for saving the Marbles.
By Richard Dorment
Published: 4:39PM BST 30 Jun 2009

Having built this new museum for the Elgin Marbles, the Greeks have managed to rustle up one or two British journalists credulous or naïve enough to write articles calling for their return. But if anyone thinks the building is ever going to house anything other than the plaster casts that are on display there now, they are hopelessly out of touch with reality. There is virtually no chance that the director or trustees of the British Museum, now or in the future, will comply with this outlandish demand.

Let’s review the facts. Lord Elgin paid the enormous sum of £39,000 to acquire the marbles, and was careful to obtain documents from the Turkish Government approving their removal from Greece, which had then been part of the Ottoman Empire for 350 years. Since Parliament legally purchased the marbles from Lord Elgin in 1816, the British Museum’s title to them is unassailable. The Greeks know this perfectly well – otherwise, instead of pulling this PR stunt, they would be suing Britain in the European courts.
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Hugh O’Donnell, a Liberal Democrat MSP has tabled a motion supporting the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles in the New Acropolis Museum. This is the second expression of support on the issue to come from the Scottish Parliament in the last week.

From:
Scottish Parliament

Motion Search
S3M-04498
Hugh O’Donnell (Central Scotland) (Scottish Liberal Democrats)

The Opening of the Acropolis Museum in Athens— That the Parliament congratulates the Greek people and Government on the opening of the eagerly awaited Acropolis Museum in Athens, which will house artefacts covering the Greek bronze age and Roman and Byzantine time periods; notes that part of the space is specifically designed to accommodate the Parthenon Marbles, and urges the British Museum to enter into negotiations with the Acropolis Museum with a view to returning the Parthenon Marbles to their original home.
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In the seven days since its official opening, the New Acropolis Museum has already received ninety thousand visitors.

From:
Athens News Agency

06/30/2009
New Acropolis Museum visitors

The New Acropolis Museum received 90,000 visitors in the first seven days since its official inauguration on June 20, Culture Minister Antonis Samaras disclosed on Monday.

Speaking during a press conference, the minister said that the cost of the inauguration events, which were attended by several foreign heads of state and government, did not exceed the anticipated sum of 3 million euros, adding that the targets his ministry had set regarding the ceremony were met, especially the coverage from international mass media.
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The New Acropolis Museum is not just a museum housing finds from the Athenian Acropolis. Beneath the raised structure of the building, is another exhibit – the archaeological remains discovered on the site during construction & now displayed in-situ.

From:
Wall Street Journal

EUROPE NEWS – JUNE 30, 2009
At the Foot of the Acropolis
By CHRISTINE PIROVOLAKIS
Athens

What could present more of a challenge than designing a major new building to stand at the foot of the Acropolis, revered as one of the great architectural achievements of Western civilization? That new structure is the €130 million ($182.9 million) Acropolis Museum, which, after more than 30 years in the making, finally opened to the public on June 20. Braving the blazing sun and heat, crowds by the thousands thronged its gates eager to be among the first to explore the museum’s vast collection of sculptures and artifacts from ancient Greece.

Efforts to create the museum began as far back as the 1970s. The last attempt, launched in 2003 under the Swiss-born architect Bernard Tschumi’s leadership, was dogged by years of delays caused by archaeologists and local residents. At first there was public resistance to the design of the museum — whose three-level glass and steel structure was deemed far too modern to complement the classical style of the ancient temple. More delays were caused by the difficulties of transporting delicate exhibits from the old museum atop the Acropolis to the new one below. Now visitors enter the new building by climbing a ramp that faintly echoes the slope up to the Acropolis.
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In articles published today, Greek Culture Minister Antonis Samaras appears to have ruled out that any form of legal action will form part of the government’s strategy to reclaim the Parthenon Marbles. It is not clear from this whether or not it is an option that they have seriously considered.

Having seen the success of legal action by Italy in securing the return of disputed artefacts, ignoring this option completely seems like a mistake. Whilst it is clearly not an appropriate solution in every instance, it was only once the Italian Government began proceedings involving various institutions that the restitution claims were taken seriously. If there is no pressure in a claim, it is all to easy for institutions such as the British Museum to hang on to artefacts whilst making little effort to even respond properly to return requests.

From:
The Press Association

Legal fight over marbles ruled out
11 hours ago

Greece’s culture minister said he is not planning to go to court to get back the Elgin Marbles from Britain.

Antonis Samaras says the new Acropolis Museum will boost Greece’s bid for the Parthenon sculptures, which British diplomat Lord Elgin took from the site 200 years ago.
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