More information on the death of Jules Dassin. He had been in poor health for some time, so the death was not entirely unexpected. I tried to meet with him a couple of years ago whilst in Athens, but confusion over the date of the meeting unfortunately prevented this.

From:
The Guardian

Film Director Jules Dassin Dies at 96
* AP foreign
* Monday March 31 2008

ATHENS, Greece (AP) – American director Jules Dassin, whose Greek wife Melina Mercouri starred in his hit movie “Never on Sunday” and six more of his films, died late Monday at an Athens hospital, officials said. He was 96.

The cause of death was not made public. A spokeswoman for Hygeia hospital said only that he had been treated there the past two weeks.
Read the rest of this entry »

Jules Dassin, husband of Melina Mercouri & long time supporter of her campaign to secure the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece has died, aged ninety six. After Melina’s death, he continued to support the campaigns around the world, offering help & encouragement wherever he could. His death is a great los to Greece & the end of an era.

From:
Reuters

Film director Dassin dies in Athens aged 96
Mon Mar 31, 2008 4:31pm EDT

ATHENS (Reuters) – Jules Dassin, the American who directed the film “Never on Sunday” and was married to the late Greek actress and culture minister Melina Mercouri, died in an Athens hospital after a short illness on Monday aged 96.

“Greece grieves the loss of a rare human being, an important creator and a true friend,” Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said in a statement. “His passion, energy, fighting spirit and nobility will never be forgotten.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Whilst Britain talks about rebuilding a British identity & constructing museums of Britishness, the British Museum continues to hang onto huge numbers of disputed African Artefacts.

From:
Ligali

Me2We News
Retrospective: British Museum and Africas stolen artefacts
Sun 30 March 2008

A year ago, British Prime Minster Gordon Brown pledged support for the UK’s first ‘Museum of Britishness’. Meanwhile the British Museum still refuses to return the artefacts raided and pillaged from Africa as recent as a hundred years ago.

The proposal for what would be the first National Museum of British History was reported by the Telegraph newspaper as part of their ‘Call yourself British’ campaign. Writing for the paper, Gordon Brown commented ‘while so many other countries have a museum dedicated to their history we in Britain…still do not’.
Read the rest of this entry »

Despite various other museums around the world returning artefacts to their rightful owners, the British Museum still insists that the Parthenon Sculptures should remain part of their collection, displaying mankind’s shared cultural heritage

From:
USA Today

Greece to Britain: Hand over artwork
By Jeffrey Stinson, USA TODAY

LONDON — Greece is stepping up the pressure on Britain to return one of the ancient world’s most valued treasures: the Elgin Marbles, sculptures removed from the Parthenon in the early 1800s and housed in the British Museum.

Greece announced earlier this month that, after years of delays, it would open its new Acropolis Museum in Athens in September. The modern structure would allow it to properly display and preserve the sculptures from the fifth century B.C.
Read the rest of this entry »

A decision was taken yesterday by the Greece’s Central Archaeological Council, voting 18:5 for the demolition of the two buildings on the New Acropolis Museum site.

It is thought that amongst other reasons, the requirement to excavate the archaeological remains believed to be underneath these buildings played a part in the eventual decision.

Note that these are not the two buildings in front of the museum that have stirred up significant controversy, but that they are on another part of the site. It is thought though that this decision will pave the way for the demolition of the two buildings at the front off the site.

Articles from the Greek pres detailing this decision are here & here (no English articles yet).

Athens has been undergoing a cultural renaissance in recent years, largely brought about by the 2004 Olympics. The opening of the New Acropolis Museum later this year is seen by many in the tourism industry as something that will help make the city more popular as a destination in its own right rather than a stop off on the way to the islands.

From:
Travel Weekly

Greece operators predict cultural tourism boost from New Acropolis Museum
(25 March 2008)

Specialist tour operators to Greece are considering increasing the number of properties they offer in Athens in anticipation of the opening of the New Acropolis Museum.

As cultural tourism becomes more popular, Planet Holidays managing director Mathilde Robert said the opening of the new museum in the autumn should increase the number of visits to the city where currently the operator features a “handful” of luxury properties.
Read the rest of this entry »

Kwame Opoku looks again at some of the African artefacts that have ended up in European Museums, in particular, how they got there in the first place.

From:
Modern Ghana

NEFERTITI, IDIA AND OTHER AFRICAN ICONS IN EUROPEAN MUSEUMS: THE THIN EDGE OF EUROPEAN MORALITY
By Dr. Kwame Opoku
Mon, 24 Mar 2008
Feature Article

I was once asked by someone, who was aware of my view that African art objects in European museums should in principle be returned to Africa, which of the African queens in European museums, Nefertiti or Ida was the most beautiful. My answer, not surprising for him, was that I could only really appreciate the full beauty of the ladies now kept in European captivity when they are released and freely return to their home countries; that for me beauty was more than the physical appearance. I need to see these persons in their social and cultural environment and to appreciate the respect and the veneration their people bring to them. Surely, their charisma can only be understood when they are with people who regard them as part of themselves and their history. I need to hear the songs of praise that the existence and the activities of these persons have generated. I know this is perhaps difficult for many Europeans who attach great importance to physical appearance and have no use for the spiritual attributes of such persons.
Read the rest of this entry »

Many exhibitions relating to the Benin Bronzes have been criticized for avoiding dealing with the issues of ownership & restitution that surround the artefacts. A new temporary exhibition at Berlin’s Museum of Ethnolology though, manages far better to deal with these issues.

From:
Modern Ghana

BENIN IN BERLIN: A SUCCESSFUL RECONCILIATION OF THE AESTHETIC AND THE ETHNOLOGICAL
By Dr. Kwame Opoku
Wed, 19 Mar 2008
Feature Article

The exhibition, BENIN, 600 YEARS OF COURTLY ART FROM NIGERIA, Museum of Ethnology, Berlin, 7 February 2008-25 May 2008, has demonstrated beyond all reasonable doubt that there are no unbridgeable obstacles to presenting an exhibition which fulfils the
demands of a good ethnological presentation of art works and artefacts and also takes into account modern aesthetic requirements of the public that visits such exhibitions. To this extent, the curator, Dr. Paola Ivanov and her colleagues at the Ethnology Museum, Berlin must be congratulated for their excellent work.
Read the rest of this entry »

Lee Rosenbaum was one of the Participants on the second day of the UNESCO conference in Athens. She’s done a writeup of her experiences at the conference here.

The Illicit Cultural Property Blog also analyses the slightly unpopular viewpoint that she took.

Following the opening of the Athens UNESCO conference on the Return of Stolen Artefacts to their Countries of Origin, Greek President Karolos Papoulias was taken on a tour of the New Acropolis Museum by Culture Minister Mihalis Liapis.

From:
Athens News Agency

03/20/2008
Return of cultural property con’f

An international 2-day conference on the timely issue of “Return of Cultural Property to its Country of Origin” began at the New Acropolis Museum of Athens on Monday.

Culture Minister Mihalis Liapis welcomed delegates — which include attorneys, museum curators, archaeologists, academics and art experts — to the conference, organised by the Greek culture ministry in cooperation with UNESCO.
Read the rest of this entry »

More coverage of the conference organised by UNESCO held in the New Acropolis Museum earlier this week. Many delegates who were speaking there on other restitution issues also used the conference as a platform to explain their own views why the Elgin Marbles should be returned. The conference was notable for many reasons, not least the fact that despite its location, it was attended by two representatives of the British Museum, one of who was speaking there about the return of a mask to Canadian First Nations people.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Tuesday March 18, 2008 – Archive
NEWS
Greek push for return of Marbles

Changes in museum policies and an increase in instances of cooperation between different countries for the repatriation of looted artifacts could pave the way for the return of the Parthenon Marbles, Culture Minister Michalis Liapis told an international conference in Athens yesterday.

“More and more museums are adopting tighter ethics codes and governments are promoting cooperation, so the ideal momentum is being created for clear solutions,” Liapis told the UNESCO event at the New Acropolis Museum.
Read the rest of this entry »

A photo exhibition & DVD presentation on the Elgin Marbles is touring various locations in the San Francisco area over the course of the next week.
From:
MMD Newswire

GREEK CULTURAL WEEK CELEBRATION AND PARADE IN SAN FRANCISCO
March 17, 2008

[…]

PARTHENON MARBLES EXHIBIT/LECTURE SCHEDULE:

www.hellenicfederation.org/marbles08.pdf

The Photo Exhibition entitled MARBLES by Professor Apostolos Papapostolou of the Technological Educational Institution of Athens is a unique work of art that presents some of the masterpieces of the Parthenon Marbles in a way that excites the imagination. Similar events have been presented with great success in New York and Los Angeles in 2005 and 2007 respectively. This impressive photo exhibit is also accompanied by a 35 minute DVD presentation on the Parthenon Marbles by Dr. Christos Konstantopoulos. This presentation brings a wealth of information about the history and repatriation efforts of the Marbles. Read the rest of this entry »