Showing 5 results for the month of August, 2014.

August 29, 2014

The meaning of the Parthenon Frieze

Posted at 12:58 pm in Elgin Marbles

A few years ago, the commonly accepted theory was that the Parthenon Frieze depicted the Panathenaic Procesion. Recently though, various alternative theories have been put forward that possibly it is illustrating some completely different event.

Joan Breton Connelly’s book, the Parthenon Enigma bases a fictional story around another possible meaning of the frieze.

From:
Weekly Standard

Deep Frieze Meaning
What is the Parthenon telling us?
Sep 8, 2014, Vol. 19, No. 48 • By A. E. STALLINGS

The Parthenon represents, for many, a golden age in human achievement: the 5th-century b.c. Greek flowering of democracy, sciences, and the arts. But what if its chief ornament, the Parthenon frieze, turned out to be not an embodiment of reason and proportion—of stillness at the heart of motion, quiet piety, and enlightened civic responsibility—but (or, rather, also) something darker, more primitive: a representation of the critical moment in an ancient story of a king at war, a human sacrifice, and a goddess’s demand for virgin blood?

That’s the argument at the heart of The Parthenon Engima. The plot involves not only ritual murder and burial, but fragments of a lost play of Euripides found on mummy wrappings. Even the title suggests a Dan Brown thriller.
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August 28, 2014

Ancient coins returned to Greece after New York investigation

Posted at 12:59 pm in Similar cases

As part of a plea bargain, during an investigation into black market trading of rare coins, the collector Arnold-Peter Weiss has agreed to return some of the disputed coins to GReece.

Ancient Greek coins returned after investigations into illicit trading

Ancient Greek coins returned after investigations into illicit trading

From:
Reuters

Ancient coins returned to Greece as part of New York plea deal
05/08/14 12:14 CET

A collection of ancient silver pieces forfeited during an undercover investigation into black-market coin trading in New York City was handed over to the Greek government at a ceremony on Monday, city officials said.

The repatriation of the five coins dating back to 515 BC resulted from a plea agreement by a Rhode Island orthopedic surgeon and longtime coin collector who was convicted of attempted criminal possession of rare stolen coins in 2012.
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Parthenon Marbles should return, because of their beauty

Posted at 12:43 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles

Jonathan Jones argues persuasively in the Guardian, that the Marbles should eb returned. Key to his reasoning is the matter of context, something that I have often argued about previously. No matter what the British Msueum says, it is impossible to see the Marbles in the same way in the British Museum as it would be in the Acropolis Museum, within sight of the Parthenon.

Parthenon Marbles in British Museum

Parthenon Marbles in British Museum

From:
Guardian

18th August 2014
Jonathan Jones
The Parthenon marbles are the world’s most beautiful art – and that’s why we should give them back
These consummately beautiful sculptures demand a proper setting – and a trip to Athens has convinced me the Acropolis Museum is that place

What can you do with the world’s most beautiful art? Where does it belong? How should it be cared for and displayed?

The art in question is the array of sculpture created in Athens in the 5th century BC to decorate the Parthenon, the temple to Athena that still, today, dominates the skyline of the Greek capital.
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August 12, 2014

Encasing the Parthenon Marbles in sand as bomb protection considered during first World War

Posted at 8:00 am in British Museum, Elgin Marbles

Newly released information reveals that one of the way that the British Museum considerd protecting the Parthenon Marbles during the First World War was to fill the room where they were housed with sand. The idea was ditched, because of worries that the walls of the room would not be able to hold the weight of the sand. In the end, the sculptures were instead protected with sandbags in the gallers.

Not that many years later, in the Second World War, when the risk of bombing was far greater, they were instead transferred to disused London Underground tunnels for safety.

Parthenon Marbles being removed from the London Underground in 1948

Parthenon Marbles being removed from the London Underground in 1948

From:
Art Newspaper

British Museum’s battle on the home front during the First World War
Archive reveals how air raids threatened the collection and King George V intervened to stop the building being requisitioned
By Martin Bailey. Museums, Issue 259, July-August 2014
Published online: 30 July 2014

The British Museum’s curator of Oriental prints and drawings wrote what became one of most famous war poems in the English language. Laurence Binyon penned the lines of “For the Fallen” in September 1914 that are inscribed on thousands of memorials: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old / Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn / At the going down of the sun and in the morning / We will remember them.”

Binyon volunteered for military service in 1915. He told the museum’s director: “I know I am not the best material [he was 45], but it does seem as if every man would be wanted before the end.” Binyon worked as a hospital orderly in eastern France in 1916.
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August 7, 2014

Riding from Athens to London for the Parthenon Marbles

Posted at 12:48 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles

I wrote last year about the Italian Dr Luca Lo Sico, who planned to cycle from London to Athens in support of the Parthenon Marbles.

He has now arrived in Athens, and been welcomed by Deputy Culture and Sports Minister Angela Gerekou.

He follows in the pedals of Dr Chris Stockdale, who undertook a similar cycle ride in 2005 for the same reason.

Deputy Culture and Sports Minister Angela Gerekou with Salvatore Lo Sicco

Deputy Culture and Sports Minister Angela Gerekou with Salvatore Lo Sicco

From:
Greek Reporter

London to Athens on a Bike for the Parthenon Marbles Return
Ioanna Zikakou
Aug 7, 2014

Salvatore Lo Sicco, a British-Italian professor who works in the UK, traveled from London to Athens on his bike to rally for the repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles.

Lo Sicco started his route outside the British Museum, which houses the Marbles that Lord Elgin removed from Athens in the 1800′s, and finished in front of the steps of the Acropolis Museum.
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