The official response by the Government to the DCMS Select Committee Enquiry “Caring for Our Collections”, has just been released. Regarding the case of the Elgin Marbles, it (predictably) agrees with the comments by the committee.

From:
British Parliament website

[…]

22. Parthenon marbles We were moved by the passion expressed by our Greek hosts and we acknowledge the special place which the Parthenon holds in the Greek national identity. We recognise the strength of feeling both for and against returning the Elgin Marbles. However, we note that it is not proposed to restore the Parthenon to its original glory, bringing together all the fragmented parts, wherever they might now be. We congratulate the British Museum on their efforts to ensure that the Marbles are accessible to both the public and researchers from around the world. We also recognise their argument that the display of the Marbles in the Museum adds to the understanding of the influence and spread of culture between civilisations. We note that the British Museum has made casts of the sculptures available to the Acropolis Museum and are disappointed that it appears that visitors to the Acropolis and its new museum will not be able to enjoy these. We note that the decision as to whether the originals should be returned remains one for the Trustees of the British Museum.

We very much welcome the Committee’s balanced view on the issue of the Parthenon Sculptures and agree that this matter is the responsibility of the Trustees of the British Museum.

[…]

No longer does Greece have no where to display the Parthenon Marbles. But does this mean that they are now more likely to return?

From:
Guardian blogs

Should London finally lose the Parthenon marbles?
A specially designed museum in Athens has reawakened the debate over the Acropolis sculptures. But will this be its final phase?
October 16, 2007 2:51 PM

The days when the Greeks played hardball with the British Museum over the Parthenon marbles ended long ago. Today, it is with an air of conciliation and collaboration that they approach Europe’s longest running cultural row. In fact, for the contemporary Greek lobby, actions now speak much louder than words.

It was in this spirit that the new Acropolis Museum opened its doors to dignitaries on Sunday. Officially, the excuse was the inaugural transfer of antiquities from the rocky hill to the glass-walled behemoth that forms their new home. Unofficially, however, this rendezvous with history (no sculpture has formally left the site in 2,500 years) allowed the Greeks to show off a spectacular exhibition space that has been on the drawing board for more than 30 years.
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Monuments of antiquity might have become part of the history of their new homes. This doesn’t necessarily mean that this new history is now more important than their orriginal history however.

From:
Courrier International

15/10/2007
REFLECTIONS
Johan Schloemann on the restitution of works of art

Greece has repeatedly demanded that Great Britain return works of art. Johan Schloemann reflects on what would happen if all the looted works of art – some of which were taken in Antique times – had to be returned to their county of origin. “The monuments of antiquity that used to pass from country to country have become part of the history of their new homes. The same goes for the famous sculptures of the Parthenon temple at the Acropolis in Athens, which have been on show at the British Museum since 1916. This is an act of barbarism which would be illegal today, because nowadays each country has laws to protect its archaeological treasures. Still, this doesn’t mean you can turn back history like you turn back a clock. After all, this would mean all the other museums in which the art of humankind is now distributed would also have to be emptied.”
Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany)

Yet again there is a security breach at the British Museum – making a mockery of their statements that they are protecting artefacts better than they would be had they remained in their countries of origin.

From:
Reuters

Climate protester muzzles terracotta army
Mon Oct 15, 2007 3:03pm BST

LONDON (Reuters) – A climate campaigner breached security at the British Museum in London at the weekend to place masks on two of the terracotta warriors in an exhibition there in protest at China’s booming carbon dioxide emissions.

Martin Wyness, a father of two young daughters, said he made the protest on Sunday to draw attention to the lack of international action on global warming and specifically China’s growing role in the climate crisis.
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More coverage on the relay of cranes moving artefacts from the Acropolis to the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
Spiegel (Germany)

October 15, 2007
ANTIQUITIES IN MOTION
Athens Makes Room (and Another Request) for Acropolis Marbles

Huge cranes began moving antiquities off Athens’ Acropolis down to a new museum built to hold them at the base of the citadel. In a not-so-subtle challenge to London, space has been set aside for the Parthenon marbles still held by the British Museum.

Ancient sculptures began making their way down from Athens’ Acropolis via a series of cranes to a new museum built specifically to hold them and the so-called Elgin Marbles, housed in the British Museum. The only problem now is to get the museum in London to give the treasures back.
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Prompted by the move of the first sculptures to the New Acropolis Museum, the Guardian revisits the question of whether or not the British Museum should return those held in their collection.

From:
The Guardian

Should we give the Parthenon marbles back?
Stephen Moss
Tuesday October 16, 2007

If only we’d listened to Byron, what a lot of trouble over the Elgin/Parthenon marbles would have been saved. “Dull is the eye that will not weep to see/Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed/By British hands …” he wrote in Childe Harold. Two centuries on, the Parthenonites are still weeping, the Elginites still clinging on to the sculptures that Lord Elgin took from the Parthenon in the first decade of the 19th century.

The Parthenonites reckon the opening of the Acropolis Museum will clinch the argument. “There can no longer be any question about where or how the marbles should be displayed,” says Eleni Cubitt, secretary of the British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles. The new museum, she says, will allow the sculptures to be seen as they were intended – as a single work of art.
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In this Interview, the architect of the New Acropolis Museum, Bernard Tschumi talks about his intentions for the building.

From:
Christian Science Monitor

Acropolis Museum: missing the marbles
The Parthenon, or Elgin, Marbles are in Britain. Greeks see the new museum as further reason for their return.
By Nicole Itano | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the October 16, 2007 edition

“I’m probably one of the only architects who realized that they are a narrative, a story,” says Mr. Tschumi. “My hope and probably my goal is that one day the marbles will be reunited and people can know the story all at once, in one single place, within the architecture.”

The British Museum says that there is still an important reason to keep some of the marbles in England. Only there, it argues, can the marbles be shown in a global context, next to artifacts from other contemporary civilizations as well as those that were inspired by Athenian democracy and Greek civilization.
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Following an article on the museum, an intterview with the reporter who wrote it reveals what he found out about the attitude towards the New Acropolis Museum of people living in Athens.

From:
Christian Science Monitor

Reporters on the Job
from the October 16, 2007 edition

[…]

• Better With Age? Reporter Nicole Itano, who lives just a few blocks from the new Acropolis Museum, has been taking an informal poll among residents of Athens about the new museum (see story). While everyone is happy that the museum is finally nearing completion, not everyone is happy with the design. “The response has definitely been mixed,” she says. Some Greeks say the design is too modern or too dominant for the neighborhood. “But they usually add that Greeks don’t like new things. They just need time to get used to it.” Nicole was impressed by the spaciousness of the museum when she was allowed in for the first time on Sunday. “Of course, it was a little weird to be inside a museum that doesn’t have anything on display yet.”

More on the decision by National Museums Liverpool to return some artefacts involving human remains, after requests by Australian Aboriginal groups.

From:
Adelaide Now

UK museum to return Aboriginal remains
October 16, 2007 08:54pm

A BRITISH museum has agreed to unconditionally return Aboriginal remains, including a skull, to Australia.

National Museums Liverpool agreed to repatriate the remains of three individuals following a request from the Australian Government in January last year.
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National Museums Liverpool has made a decision to repatriate some (but not all) of the Aboriginal remains in their collection.

From:
24 Hour Museum

NATIONAL MUSEUMS LIVERPOOL TO REPATRIATE ABORIGINAL REMAINS
By Graham Spicer
15/10/2007

National Museums Liverpool has agreed to return three sets of human remains from its collection to Australia.

The museum’s group was asked by the Australian government to return all Australian human remains in its possession in January 2006 and it was decided to repatriate the three sets of remains because of their cultural, spiritual and religious significance to Australian aboriginal communities.
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More coverage in the international press of the historic moving of sculptures into the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
The Independent

15 October 2007 14:02
Ancient treasures begin move from Acropolis to antiquities museum
By Claire Ellicott
Published: 15 October 2007

The movement of hundreds of ancient masterpieces from the Acropolis hillside to an ultra-modern museum at the foot of the Athens citadel has begun.

Three giant cranes successfully transferred yesterday the first of the antiquities, a 2.3-ton block of sculpted marble depicting an ancient religious procession held in honour of the goddess Athena, from the northern end of the Parthenon to its new home.
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Continuing coverage highlights the successful operation to move the sculptures off the Acropolis rock for the first time since they were originally created.

From:
Athens News Agency

10/15/2007
Transfer of antiquities from old to new Acropolis Museum begins

The first transfer of antiquities from the old Acropolis museum to the new ultra-modern facility took place on Sunday, with the relay of a 2.3-ton section of the Parthenon’s northern frieze via a system of three gigantic cranes set up on the site and its placement on the top floor of the new Museum, in the Parthenon Hall.

The sculpture, one of the heaviest exhibits to be transferred from the small outdated facility to the new Museum some 400 metres away on Makrygianni street, depicts a procession in an animal sacrifice, was packed in a specially-designed metal container that was successfully conveyed by the three cranes to its final destination in the Parthenon Hall.
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