More feedback from the talk given at the Royal Institute of British Architects on the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
Building Design

Bernard Tschumi’s New Acropolis Museum
12 December 2008
By Stephen Phillips

Bernard Tschumi presented his New Acropolis Museum at the RIBA last week, and took Greece’s bid to win back the Elgin Marbles to the next level.

In the early eighties, I covered the Elgin Marbles story for Channel 4 News. Actress Melina Mercouri was Greece’s culture minister, and we filmed her touring the British Museum to inspect “her” treasures, under the guidance of its then director, David Wilson. He played a courteous, stiff upper-lipped straight bat, while she deployed all the emotive powers of a tragic actress. It made good television. There was no meeting of minds. Nonetheless, her eighties offensive made an impact, persuading at least one party leader, Neil Kinnock, to declare for their return.
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A letter in the Times from John Huntley corrects some misconceptions in the previous coverage of Professor Francesco Buranelli’s proposal on how the sculptures could be reunited.

From:
The Times

From The Times
December 9, 2008
Forgotten Marbles?
Tug-of-war over the Parthenon Marbles

Sir, The suggestion by Professor Buranelli that the Parthenon Marbles “belong to mankind” is aspirational (“Call to unite Parthenon Marbles”, Dec 4); that they “lay forgotten on the ground” until Lord Elgin appropriated them is untrue.
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Following Ethiopia’s demands for the return of looted artefacts currently in Britain, Kwame Opoku loks at what this demand means for Ethiopia & other countries.

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 05.12.08 11:15
Kategorie: Kultur-Kunst
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
Ethiopia: The Way in Demand for Restitution of African Artefacts
Ethiopian President shows the Way in Demand for Restitution of African Artefacts

According to a report in The Independent of 23 November, 2008, the Ethiopian President, Girma Wolde-Giorgis, has requested British museums holding stolen/looted Ethiopian cultural treasures to return them.

This is not surprising considering the enormous amount of Ethiopian cultural and historical objects that are in several British museums and universities. The real wonder is that these venerable institutions, including the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh and others, have not found it necessary in all these years to return the objects which were not made for the British but for the Ethiopians. What kind of message are these learned institutions sending to their students and the rest of the world? They do not seem to be worried that by holding on to these stolen goods they are not only violating the proprietary rights of others but also their religious rights and their right to cultural development. How can they properly practice their religion when their religious objects and symbols are kept by others with whom they have no cultural affinities, thousands of miles away? We have not found an explanation for how those who consider themselves as Christians can steal the religious symbols and objects such as Christian crosses from other Christians? Where is their morality in holding on to stolen religious symbols and objects?
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Although the article title says that it is the Parthenon, it should say Propylaea – which still represents a hugej step forward in the overall Acropolis restoration programme.

From:
Athens News Agency

04/12/2008
Parthenon restoration completed

Scaffolding will be removed from the Parthenon Facade during the next few days and visitors will be able to view the restored largest part of the marble roof with its friezes that made the monument, the work of the architect Mnisiklis, renowned in ancient times.
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Further coverage of the proposal by Professor Francesco Buranelli that the formation of a pan-European museum is the best way to facilitate the reunification of all the surviving Parthenon sculpture fragments.

From:
Artinfo

Pan-European Museum Would Solve Parthenon Problem, Says Vatican Official
Published: December 4, 2008

ROME—Francesco Buranelli, a Vatican official, says he has a solution to end the longstanding Elgin Marbles problem once and for all, reports the Times (London): to build an extraterritorial, pan-European museum in Athens in which all the known parts of the Parthenon could be united.

Greece has been trying to get the set of marble sculptures back from England for decades, and has stepped up its efforts as of late in anticipation of the completion of its new Museum of the Acropolis in Athens.
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Kwame Opoku gives some thoughts on Colin Renfrew’s review of James Cuno’s book.

From:
Afrikanet

Datum: 04.12.08 14:54
Kategorie: Kolumnen
Von: Dr. Kwame Opoku
COMMENTS ON LORD RENFREW’S STATEMENTS ON LOOTED ARTEFACTS
CAN WE CONDEMN CONTEMPORARY LOOTING OF ARTEFACTS WITHOUT CONDEMNING COLONIAL LOOT AND PLUNDER? COMMENTS ON LORD RENFREW’S STATEMENTS ON LOOTED ARTEFACTS

In his review of Cuno’s Who owns Antiquities?, (www.savingantiquities.org) Lord Renfrew sees as a weakness in Cuno’s argument a confusion between antiquities looted in recent times and plunder by imperial powers and declares:

“But the issues in the two cases – modern, clandestine looting, versus colonial or imperial appropriation, mainly during the nineteenth century and by the leading world powers of the day – are not the same”.
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Colin Renfrew has published his review of James Cuno’s book in The Burlington Magazine, reproduced here by SAFE.

From:
The Burlington Magazine

Who Owns Antiquity? Museums and the Battle over our Ancient Heritage. By James Cuno.
228 pp. incl. 6 b. & w. ills. (Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford, 2008), £14.95. ISBN 978–0–691–13712–4.
Reviewed by COLIN RENFREW
McDonald Institute, University of Cambridge

THE POLEMIC OVER what antiquities should be acquired by museums, and which ones they should decline in order to discourage the illicit traffic in them, has become much louder in recent months, with the reluctant return to Italy of antiquities, worth many millions of dollars, by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. These, it was claimed, had been illicitly excavated and illegally exported in recent decades, a charge tacitly accepted by the museums which agreed to their return. In this readable and lucidly argued book James Cuno sets out what might, ten years ago, have been described as the art museum director’s case on the proprieties of ownership and acquisition. His position is still indeed held by the collection of which he is Director (the Art Institute of Chicago) along with such other influential institutions as the Metropolitan Museum or the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. But the times have moved on, and other museums, including now the Getty itself, have shown themselves willing to adopt more careful acquisition policies and to avoid buying antiquities which might have been the product of looting. Cuno here, thoughtfully and with well-chosen examples, reasserts the traditional view.
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Professor Francesco Buranelli of the Vatican suggests that forming the New Acropolis Museum as a pan-European museum may be the best way for Greece to secure the return of the Parthenon Marbles. His idea was first proposed in the Greek language press a few weeks ago & was received with interest by many involved in the issue.

From:
The Times

December 4, 2008
Call to unite Parthenon marbles
Richard Owen

The never-ending tussle between Britain and Greece over the Elgin Marbles should be resolved by creating a pan-European museum in Athens at which all the fragments from the Parthenon would be brought together under a British director, a Vatican offical says.

Professor Francesco Buranelli, the head of the Pontifical Commission for the Cultural Heritage of the Church, said: “The moment has come to set up the first European museum, with the same kind of extraterritorial status accorded to embassies.”
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Sharon Waxman’s book Loot continues to receive large numbers of reviews in the US. Even if people only read the review & do not buy the book, this will still increase awareness on the issues of looted artefacts & help to keep the subject on the radar.

From:
The Payson Roundup (Arizona)

Loot: The Battle Over the Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World
Reviewed by Larry Cox
December 3, 2008

For the past two centuries, the treasures of the ancient world have been shamelessly plundered. One of the most graphic examples involves the tomb of Amenophis III in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings. Looters in the 19th century hacked the head out of the pharaoh in three murals. Those fragments are now on display in the Louvre, leaving behind the original mural, which is permanently defaced.

Other ancient treasures also were looted and are now scattered throughout the world. The Elgin marbles originally crafted for the Acropolis are in London, dozens of Etruscan masterworks now reside in American collections, and there are now almost as many mummies in France as in Egypt.
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Coverage of the talk at RIBA on the New Acropolis Museum. Almost everyone who has seen it is impressed by the museum itself – will this be enough to make the British Museum enter into serious negotiations with Greece on the Marbles?

From:
The Guardian

The New Acropolis Museum: A home fit for the Elgin Marbles?
The soon-to-open museum for the Acropolis sculptures looks fantastic. But will it convince the British Museum to send the Parthenon frieze home?

Last night the president, Dimitrios Pandermalis, and the architect, Bernard Tschumi, of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens were in London to present their plans for the building, which opens sometime in early spring. They gave a clear sense of this impressive-looking museum, which is built in the shadow of the Parthenon atop ruins of late-antique buildings (which can be perceived through the glass floors of the museum’s ground floor). The plan echoes that of the Acropolis itself – the visitor will ascend through the building as if climbing the steep slopes of the hill, passing through halls filled with sculpture from the archaic temple to Athene, before reaching the very apex, where the Parthenon sculptures themselves will be displayed in a large glass-walled hall from which visitors will be able to enjoy wonderful views of Pheidias’s great temple.
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Greece is minting a limited edition ten Euro commemorative coin featuring an image of the New Acropolis Museum on one side & panel from the Parthenon frieze on the other side.

From:
Wikipedia

[…]

Euro gold and silver commemorative coins (Greece)
2008 coinage

The Acropolis Museum is an archaeological museum located in Athens, Greece, on the archeological site of Acropolis. It is considered one of the major archaeological museums in Athens and ranks among the most important museums of the world. Due to its limited size, the Greek Government decided in the late 1980s to build a new museum. The New Acropolis Museum is now being built at the base of the Acropolis. In June 2007 the old museum closed its doors so that its antiquities could be moved to their new home. The new museum is expected to open in early 2009.[41]
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More coverage of the return of a fragment from the Parthenon (note that whilst this is a decorative element of the building, it is not a part of what is normally described as the Parthenon Sculptures (frieze, metopes & pediment). Nonetheless, it still represents yet another significant return within a single year).

From:
Press TV (Iran)

Greece retrieves Parthenon marble piece
Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:49:18 GMT

Greece has retrieved a marble fragment belonging to a Parthenon temple, which was removed by an Austrian soldier during World War II.

The piece, which was part of a frieze decorating the temple’s inner colonnade, bears an inscription saying it was taken from the Acropolis in Athens on February 16, 1943, when Greece was occupied by the Germany-led Axis powers.
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