More coverage of the news that traces of original paint have been discovered on the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Parthenon was covered in colourful paint
The Parthenon temple in Athens was once painted with splashes of colour, according to a new study.
By Chris Irvine
Published: 7:00PM BST 17 Jun 2009

New tests on the stone have found that the marble was once covered with shades of blue, while it also thought red, green and gold were used.

By shining red light onto the marble, Dr Giovanni Verri identified an ancient pigment known as Egyptian blue, used until the year 800AD.
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New Acropolis Museum designer Berard Tschumi speaks about his building & why all the surviving Parthenon Sculptures should be reunified within it.

From:
Spiegel

06/16/2009
THE NEW ACROPOLIS MUSEUM
Keeping the Elgin Marbles in London Is Now ‘Untenable’

Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi, 65, designed a new Acropolis Museum for Athens, which will open this weekend. SPIEGEL spoke with him about the end of Great Britain’s argument that Greece has no proper home for the Elgin Marbles.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Tschumi, you’ve designed the new Acropolis Museum, which opens this weekend in Athens about 300 meters from the Parthenon temple, which in turn sits on the Acropolis itself. Your building alludes to the Parthenon. Did the scale of your assignment ever intimidate you?
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A video projection wall may become a solution to the issue of the two buildings that sit between the lower levels of the New Acropolis Museum & the Parthenon.

From:
Reuters

Video wall may save historic Athens buildings
Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:59pm EDT
By Renee Maltezou

ATHENS (Reuters Life!) – A huge video wall may save two historic buildings threatened with demolition for blocking the view of Greece’s new Acropolis Museum, architects say.

Greek architects came up with hundreds of ideas to save the two landmarks, which stand in front of the new museum, due to open this week and expected to give new impetus to Greece’s efforts to bring home the Parthenon marbles from Britain.
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The main inauguration of the New Acropolis Museum is going to be broadcast live from the museum’s website which was launched yesterday.

From:
Athens News Agency

06/16/2009
New Acropolis Museum inauguration live on museum’s portal

The New Acropolis Museum will be inaugurated on Saturday, June 20, by President of the Republic Karolos Papoulias in an official ceremony that will be attended by heads of state and government and noted international figures, and will be broadcast on television throughout the world.

The inauguration ceremony will also be broadcast live on the internet, on the Museum’s website at www.theacropolismuseum.gr, which opened its electronic gates to the public on Monday.
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For Dimitrios Pantermalis who has overseen the New Acropolis Museum project, his goal has been simple – to have the best museum in the world. Whether or not it will truly be the best is a hard question to judge, but there can be littel disputing that it will be the best museum in which to display the sculptures from the Parthenon & Acropolis monuments.

From:
Guardian

‘Our goal is to have the best museum in the world’
Ancient Athens lies at the root of western culture, yet the battles over the marbles that once adorned the Parthenon have been far from civilised. Could the city’s new Acropolis Museum offer a fresh beginning? Stephen Moss gets an exclusive preview
Stephen Moss
The Guardian, Tuesday 16 June 2009

“Forgive me, it is crazy,” says Professor Dimitrios Pandermalis, president of the Organisation for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum, explaining why he has kept me waiting for almost half an hour in the museum’s spacious reception. Pandermalis is the elderly, dignified archaeologist at the centre of the latest – and the Greek government hopes concluding – chapter in the saga of the Parthenon/Elgin Marbles, and the pressure is beginning to tell. “I hate all this publicity,” he says. “This is not my job, but I have to manage it.”

Beware Greeks bearing gifts. An adage I should have borne in mind before accepting an invitation to be the first journalist to be allowed to see the museum’s completed galleries, and the first person to photograph the inside of the airy glass box at the top of the museum which will house the part of the Parthenon Marbles held by the Greeks. This is a rare privilege, but it also means being drawn into the seemingly endless controversy that has raged since Lord Byron savaged the seventh earl of Elgin for removing large chunks of the statuary from the Parthenon in the first decade of the 19th century – a cache that ended up in the British Museum a decade later and has been a source of resentment in Greece ever since. The Greeks may hope their splendid new museum – which has been almost 40 years in the planning (twice as long as it took for their ancient forebears to build the Parthenon) and cost €130m – will bring the issue to a head, but the portents are not good.
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This isn’t really a particularly new discovery, as on some fragments in Athens the original patterning is still clearly visible & numerous other articles have covered it in the past.

From:
Nature

Published online 15 June 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.574
Traces of paint confirmed on Parthenon sculptures
Pristine white marbles were once a riot of colour.
Alison Abbott

Researchers have confirmed that the sculptures on the triangular gables of the Parthenon temple in Athens were originally brightly painted.

Conservation scientists at the British Museum in London used a non-invasive technique to reveal invisible traces of an ancient pigment known as Egyptian blue. The team says that this is the first definitive evidence that the two-metre-high sculptures were not pristine white, as they appear today, but were precisely painted — as most sculptures from antiquity once were.
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Karen Essex’s book; Stealing Athena, is a historical novel revolving around the acquisition of the Parthenon Marbles. Here, the author talks more about the inspiration behind it.

From:
Daily Iowan

Writer Karen Essex brings centuries-old controversy to IC with fiction flair
BY KERY LAWSON | JUNE 15, 2009 7:26 AM

Her text traces a set of statues from ancient Greece to early 19th-century Britain, and Karen Essex’s fourth novel, Stealing Athena, will bring the centuries-old controversy to Iowa City.

Essex will travel from California to Iowa City to share the novel. She will read at Prairie Lights Books, 15 S. Dubuque St., at 7 p.m. today.
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BBC1’s current affairs programme; The Big Question will be discussing the ethical debate surrounding the return of disputed artefacts in next Sunday’s episode (tying in with the opening of the New Acropolis Museum the previous day).

More details about the programe can be found on the BBC’s website.

Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis was today briefed on the final preparations for the opening of the New Acropolis Museum which will begin from Wednesday culminating in the main opening ceremony on Saturday.

From:
Athens News Agency

06/15/2009
PM briefed on New Acropolis Museum opening

Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis on Monday had a meeting with Culture Minister Antonis Samaras and the head of the organisation for construction of the New Acropolis Museum, Prof. Dimitris Pandermalis, who briefed him on the progress of preparations for the official opening of the New Acropolis Museum on Saturday.

“We have carried out all the preparations required and we briefed the prime minister and I am sure that everything will go well on Saturday,” Samaras told reporters as he emerged from the premier’s offices in Maximos Mansion.
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The New Acropolis Museum’s website has been operational for some time, but has now officially launched as part of the build up to the grand opening of the museum later this week.

From:
Athens News Agency

06/15/2009
New Acropolis Museum website

Just a few days before its official inauguration, the New Acropolis Museum will open its electronic “gates” to the public on Monday at the website www.theacropolismuseum.gr.

The website introduces the Museum to online visitors, enabling them to tour the display areas, and to read up on its history and operation.
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More coverage of Greece’s statements that rejected any potential loan deal on the Elgin Marbles if the likely preconditions from the British Museum were part of the package.

From:
The Guardian

Greek fury at Elgin marbles ‘loan deal’
Queen turns down invitation to opening of major new museum in Athens built to house Acropolis treasures
Helena Smith, Athens
The Observer, Sunday 14 June 2009

A bitter new row over ownership of the Elgin marbles has erupted, threatening to eclipse the inauguration this week of a major new museum in Athens designed to house the contested masterpieces.

Just days before the opening of the €130m (£110m) New Acropolis Museum, officials in Athens and London were this weekend engaging in barbed exchanges over the classical treasures.
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With only days before the New Acropolis Museum opens, two former Australian Prime Ministers have reiterated their long-standing support for the reunification of the Elgin Marbles to Athens.

From:
Sydney Morning Herald

Old political foes call for return of lost marbles
Anthony Stavrinos
June 14, 2009

FORMER prime ministers Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser have united behind fresh efforts urging Britain to return the Parthenon sculptures to Greece.

They are co-patrons of Australians For The Return Of The Parthenon Marbles (ARPM), which renewed its call for the artefacts’ return as Greece prepares to officially open the Acropolis Museum.
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