A play on in Victoria, British Columbia, is set during the arrival of the Parthenon Marbles in Britain in 1817, when a young John Keats visits them for the first time.

Intrepid Theatre presents:
‘Influence’
by Janet Munsil

March 4-5 & March 9-12, 8pm
Sunday Matinees + talkback: March 6 + 13, 2 pm
At the Metro Studio (Quadra at Johnson), Victoria BC
TICKETS $25: www.intrepidtheatre.com or call 250 590 6291

“A winner. . .I can’t wait for the day that Janet Munsil’s Influence will extend across the seas to be presented where it’s set, in London.” Vancouver Sun

Audiences in Victoria, BC will get a rare chance to see internationally renowned Victoria playwright Janet Munsil’s latest work, Influence, when the play makes its Victoria premiere at the Metro Studio in March.
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In a new book, The Sword Of Zeus: The Hidden Story Of How Greece Shaped World War II, author N. J. Slabbert argues that the Elgin Marbles ought to be returned to Athens, to honour the efforts made by Greece during the Second World War.

MEDIA RELEASE FROM MONTAGU HOUSE PUBLISHERS
For further information about this release or to request an interview with author N.J. Slabbert, please e-mail Em at infomontagu@gmail.com ; also visit www.theswordofzeus.info/ .
February 1 2011
AUTHOR URGES BRITAIN: RETURN ELGIN MARBLES TO HONOR GREECE’S WWII DEAD

Writer N.J. Slabbert, creator of the Sword Of Zeus Project on Greece’s role in WWII, has urged Britain to return the Elgin Marbles to Athens without further delay to honor Greece’s World War II dead.

While the Marbles’ return on general ethical and cultural grounds has been supported by other public intellectuals including Nobel Prizewinning author Nadine Gordimer and journalist Christopher Hitchens, N.J. Slabbert says Greece’s critical role in WWII provides a very specific historical reason to return the Marbles now. He sets this position out in a forthcoming book, The Sword Of Zeus: The Hidden Story Of How Greece Shaped World War II.
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The Wallace Collection in London holds Asante regalia, that is discovered as the largest gold work from anywhere in Africa outside Egypt. This regalia was however taken, during the course of a British invasion in 1873. Cases such as this highlight that it is not just the larger museums in the UK that hold disputed artefacts, but also many of the smaller ones. One wonders whether if these smaller museums that are less heavily regulated were to agree to return some of the disputed items in their collections, then it would persuade the larger institutions to follow their example.

From:
Modern Ghana

WHEN WILL BRITAIN RETURN LOOTED GOLDEN GHANAIAN ARTEFACTS? A HISTORY OF BRITISH LOOTING OF MORE THAN 100 OBJECTS
Author: Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Wed, 05 Jan 2011

A recent visit to London reminded me that apart from the British Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum many other museums in London and elsewhere in the United Kingdom are still holding onto African cultural artefacts which, to put it very mildly, were removed from the continent under conditions and circumstances which can be considered as questionable. One such museum is the Wallace Collection, London. (2)

Once in the museum, our attention was drawn to the Asante golden trophy head and swords which are displayed in the Wallace Collection. This spectacular piece of the Asante regalia looted by the British has been described by Fagg as “the largest gold work known from Ashanti or indeed from anywhere in Africa outside Egypt”. (3)
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More coverage of the proposed auction of an Queen Idia mask, looted from Benin in 1897. The auction is merely a symptom of a much wider ranging problem though – that museums & collectors pay too little attention to the actual provenance of the artefacts that they are acquiring.

From:
AllAfrica

Nigeria: Between the Country’s Artefacts And Western Iconoclasts
Ovwe Medeme
4 January 2011

Lagos — More controversies have arisen on the legality or otherwise of the refusal of the west to return the artefacts looted from the Benin Empire in 1897. Iconographic nature of the artefacts notwithstanding, foreign museums have continued to flaunt and exhibit the mask and other artefacts without recourse to their origin.

Before now, a lot of people have thought that there was only one Idia mask, the one in the British Museum. A few people realised that there was one in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and another at the Seattle Art Museum as well as another in the Linden Museum, Stuttgart. There is currently the news of a fifth mask that was to have been sold later this year.
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