With the opening of the New Acropolis Museum, the campaigns for the return of the Parthenon Marbles will make a huge leap forward. What was previously one of the major (yet spurious) arguments against reunification (that Greece had nowhere to put the sculptures) is completely obliterated – but moreover, the British Museum is now on the wrong foot, as few could now argue that the Duveen Gallery represents a better location for the display of the Marbles.

From:
The Star (Canada)

ANTIQUITIES
They want to take their marbles and go home
Now that Greece has a museum for Elgin’s booty the question must be asked: Who owns the past?
Jun 20, 2009 04:30 AM
Lynda Hurst – Feature Writer

They are known as the Parthenon marbles in Greece, the Elgin marbles in Britain, those “bloody stones” to the current Lord Elgin, who’s sorry his great-great-grandfather ever clapped eyes on them.

And the controversy long surrounding them is about to take another jolt.
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Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has unfortunately cancelled his official visit to Athens for the opening of the New Acropolis Museum due to health problems.

From:
Haber (Turkey)

20/06/2009 14:45
(DIP) TURKISH PRIME MINISTER CANCELS HIS VISIT TI GREECE

ATHENS (A.A) – 20.06.2009 – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cancelled his scheduled visit to Athens, Greece.

Erdogan called his Greek counterpart Kostas Karamanlis on phone and told him that he could not come to Athens due to some health problems.

Prime Minister Erdogan was set to meet with Prime Minister Karamanlis of Greece and attend opening of the new Acropolis Museum in Athens. (UK)

Greece has built the New Acropolis Museum to re-house artefacts that there was no space for in the old museum on the Acropolis itself. It is no secret though that the key reason for the museum was to help secure the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum.

From:
The Australian

Athens builds a home for Parthenon’s marbles
Helen Vatsikopoulos | June 20, 2009

THE New Acropolis Museum in Athens will never become a landmark building. It will not be like Joern Utzon’s Sydney Opera House, its towering tiled sails reaching over the harbour, or Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, with colossal steel whorls dominating the landscape.

But the city of Athens already has such a building, Phidias’s Parthenon. He designed it in the mid-5th century BC, funded by a hefty stimulus package to rebuild the archaic temples destroyed by the Persians; it’s still standing. The temple atop the Acropolis hill overlooking central Athens survived virtually unscathed for almost 2000 years, only to suffer its worst damage in the past 400: Venetian cannon balls, Ottoman dynamite, a bad restoration and acid rain have all taken their toll, along with an act of vandalism perpetrated by one man, a British diplomat. More on Lord Elgin later.
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Invites for the opening of the New Acropolis Museum include the heads of state of many countries. More interestingly, many of these dignitaries are from countries that do not normally have good relations with Greece – yet are still apparently united in their support for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (within the New Acropolis Museum).

From:
Standart (Bulgaria)

BG President Attends New Acropolis Museum Official Opening

Bulgaria’s first couple will attend today the New Acropolis Museum official opening, Presidential press secretariat officials announced. Bulgaria’s President Georgi Parvanov and First Lady Zorka Parvanova are at a working visit to Athens at the invitation of Greece’s President Karolos Papoulias. President Parvanov’s agenda includes a bilateral meeting with their host. The need of coordinated action and mutual cooperation based on solidarity should be the major priority of the efforts at downgrading the consequences of the global crisis, Bulgaria’s Head of State underscored in front of his colleagues at 16th Summit of Central and East European Heads of State held at Novi Sad, Serbia. To President Parvanov’s words, energy and energy security are key factors in overcoming the economic crisis.

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Coverage of the New Acropolis Museum in the lead up to the official opening on 20th June.

From:
ERT (Greece)

19 Jun 2009
The New Acropolis Museum: Vision Becomes Reality

A lifelong vision, a bet that was finally won, a political pledge, a cultural duty, but above all “the need and duty of a Nation towards its legacy,” the New Acropolis Museum that houses invaluable finds dating from the 4th Millennium BC to the 5th century AD found on the Sacred Hill of the Acropolis has finally come into being.

A Modern Museum Is Born

Squeezed between modern buildings and an imposing building constructed by Bavarian architect Wilhelm von Weiler, a few metres away from the Acropolis entrance and the Ancient Theatre of Dionysos, the New Acropolis Museum, built on pedestrian walkway of Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, looks like hanging between the past and the present of Athens.
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Many of the press in Greece have been producing special features in supplements in the run up to the opening of the New Acropolis Museum. Athens Plus has produced one in English, that gives an overview of many aspects of the museum from its inception & aims to it current realisation. I encourage people to view the original article in PDF form at the web address given below to see the numerous photos that accompany the text.

From:
Athens Plus

Friday, June 19, 2009
New Acropolis Museum opens its doors
Modern building housing thousands of antiquities is finally ready to welcome visitors

After a long wait, the New Acropolis Museum, the most significant landmark to grace the cultural landscape of Athens in years, will open its doors following its inauguration on Saturday.

Priceless artifacts, some of which have been hidden away for years, will be displayed in surroundings especially designed to showcase their splendor. Athens Plus examines the impact of the new museum on the city, the debate about its design, what visitors can expect to see and whether it strengthens Greece’s case for the return of the Parthenon Marbles.

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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 selection of photo gallery articles that showcase the New Acropolis Museum can be seen at the following websites.

From:
Financial Times

Slideshow: The new Acropolis Museum
Published: June 19 2009 15:12 | Last updated: June 19 2009 15:12

The new Acropolis Museum in Athens, containing the world’s finest collection of ancient Greek sculpture, opens to the public on Monday.

The Greek government hopes its opening will help revive an international campaign to bring back the Elgin marbles – sculptures from the Acropolis temples displayed in the British Museum in London.
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The opening of the New Acropolis Museum is proceeding towards the main event on 20th June. Although Greece is waiting until after the opening before announcing any new initiatives for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures, most press reports are still (rightly) observing that the buildings raison d’etre is the creation of a new home for the marbles.

From:
Xinhua

New Acropolis Museum to showcase complete Parthenon sculptures
2009-06-19 12:20:41
by Liang Yeqian

ATHENS, June 19 (Xinhua) — Visitors from across the world will admire the complete sculptures of the famous Parthenon Temple for the first time when the new Acropolis Museum officially opens on June 20.

Dimitros Pantermalis, director of the new museum, told Xinhua that all of the Parthenon Temple sculptures owned by Greece will be displayed on the third floor of the new museum.
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Christopher Hitchens writes about the reasons why the New Acropolis Museum will be the most suitable location for the display of all surviving fragments of the Parthenon Sculptures.

From:
New York Times

Op-Ed Contributor
A Home for the Marbles
By CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
Published: June 18, 2009

LONDON — This weekend, the new museum of the Acropolis will open its doors in Athens, in a striking modern building situated at the foot of the rock itself.

For a long time, it has not really been possible for a visitor to Greece to visit the buildings on that most famous of all hills, and also the sculpture that used to adorn them in the days of the cult of Pallas Athena.
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When the New Acropolis Museum is mentioned, people’s first thought is of the Elgin Marbles. It does however contain many other artefacts – some previously displayed in the old museum on the Acropolis, others never publicly on show before. Their are artefacts from well before & well after the construction of the Periclean Acropolis – as well as the finds from the site of the museum itself which are retained beneath the building.

From:
Athens News Agency

06/25/2009
Tour of the permanent collections of the New Acropolis Museum

The New Acropolis Museum, which will be officially inaugurated on Saturday, contains five Permanent Collections: The Acropolis Slopes, divided into sub-categories on The Settlement, and The Sanctuary; The Acropolis during the Archaic Period, with sub-categories on The Hekatompedon, The Ancient Temple, abd The Votives; The Parthenon, with sub-categories on The Monument, The Metopes, The Pediments, and The Frieze; Other Monuments of the Classical Acropolis, with sub-categories on The Propylaia, The Temple of Athena Nike, and The Erectheion; and Other Collections, with sub-categories on The Sanctuary of Artemis Vravronia, The Votives of the Classical and Hellenist Periods, and The Votives of the Roman Period. ANA-MPA takes its readers on a tour of the collections, in three parts, leading up to the official opening. The Museum opened its electronic gates (www.theacropolismuseum.gr) on Monday.
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Coverage of the opening of the New Acropolis Museum has now started, with the first opening events beginning yesterday.

From:
Deutsche Presse-Agentur

New Acropolis Museum opens – worthy rival to British Museum (Feature)
Europe Features
By Christine Pirovolakis Jun 17, 2009, 23:56 GMT

Athens – To design a museum that is accessible and welcoming is a daunting task for any architect. To create one to stand at the foot of the Acropolis, revered as one of the great achievements of man, could be considered a nightmare.

In accepting the challenge, Swiss-born architect Bernard Tschumi pulled off an impressive accomplishment – a building that is majestic, while complementing the architectural grandeur of the Parthenon.
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