The Marbles Reunited campaign has an associated Facebook group which is open to all who support the campaign for reunification of the Elgin Marbles in Athens.

If you are a supporter & a member of Facebook, then you are encouraged to join the group. (Note that this is not the same as full membership of the Marbles Reunited campaign. Any who join the group are encouraged to become members, but it is not obligatory). If you join, please also encourage any friends you have who might be interested in it to also become members - the more people who join, the greater the awareness of the campaign.

The Facegroup group is located here.

Marbles Reunited’s website is located here.

A follow-up article to Malcolm Brabant’s broadcast about the New Acropolis Museum. The museum has been & in the minds of many people, always will be controversial, due to its proximity to one of the worlds most iconic archaeological sites. Once the building opens however, many perceptions will change & evolve as people finally get a chance to experience the building themselves.

From:
BBC News

Page last updated at 01:05 GMT, Wednesday, 7 May 2008 02:05 UK
New home for Greece’s holy grail
By Malcolm Brabant
BBC News, in Athens

The Acropolis Museum is now just months away from entering service in Greece’s struggle with its most implacable cultural adversary.

Its priceless treasures lie in marble halls, hidden from view in giant removal boxes.

Read the rest of this entry »

BBC reporter Malcolm Brabant has been shown round the New Acropolis Museum in Athens & reports on its progress & how it will act as a powerful argument for the return of the Parthenon Marbles.

You can watch the broadcast online here.

Australia’s Charles Darwin University is hosting a lecture on The global campaign for the return of the Parthenon Marbles.

From:
Charles Darwin University

Battle over ‘Marbles’ spans two centuries
29 April 2008

Charles Darwin University will hold a free public lecture this week presenting, “The global campaign for the return of the Parthenon Marbles”.

The founder and chairman of the International Organising Committee Australia for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, Mr Emanuel J. Comino will speak about his campaign to return the “world’s greatest single collection of classical Greek sculptures” to Greece.

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Some more information on the return of the lekythos to Greece yesterday from Switzerland. Looting Matters also discusses this event in more detail, looking at the secrecy that seems to surround some of the coverage of it.

Greek Culture Minister Mihalis Liapis has also used this event to highlight again the need for the Elgin Marbles to be returned.

From:
MSNBC

Ancient urn returns to Greece
Campaign underway to reclaim illegally exported antiquities
Associated Press

updated 3:41 p.m. ET April 21, 2008ATHENS, Greece - A 2,400-year-old funerary urn has been returned to Greece and put on display, part of a campaign to reclaim illegally exported antiquities from museums and art dealers around the world.

The marble urn was displayed Monday at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

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The International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures currently has fourteen member organisations:

Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, Cyprus, Germany, Italy, New Zealand, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden & USA

If people are aware of other organisations whose main goal is the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, especially national committees who are not already members, could they please let me know (using the contact form - menu at the top right of this page) & the details will be passed on to the relevant people.

Please note that membership of the International Association is only open to organisations - individual membership is not possible.

This is also a good point to remind people that the Marbles Reunited campaign in the UK is looking for a campaign director - see the previous post for more details.

One of the subjects of continual discussion during the construction of the New Acropolis Museum is how the Parthenon Frieze should be displayed in it. More specifically, people are concerned about how the representations of the sculptures in the British Museum are differentiated from the original sculptures that they are interspersed with.

From:
Time Magazine Blogs

March 24, 2008 9:19
Getting Plastered
Posted by Richard Lacayo

I was in Athens last October to get an early look at the New Acropolis Museum, which opens this fall. As you probably know, its chief purpose will be to display the surviving Parthenon marbles, roughly half of which are in Greece. The other half, the Elgin Marbles, are in London at the British Museum, and the Greeks, as you definitely know, want those back.

Last fall the organizers of the museum had an ingenious plan for displaying the Parthenon frieze, which is the scene of the Panathenaic procession that once wrapped around the perimeter of the temple. They would place the portions still in Greece beside plaster copies of the panels in London, but the plaster copies would be covered with a thin fabric scrim. That way it would be possible to suggest how the reunited marbles would appear if only the Brits would give back the Elgins. But the scrims would make it clear that visitors shouldn’t mistake the the copies for real marbles.

Read the rest of this entry »

More information on the remaining sculptures still on the Parthenon. Their potential removal constitutes an ethical issue with strong opinions on both sides of the archaeological world on the best route forward.

From:
Agence France Presse

Last Parthenon marbles threatened by pollution: archaeologist
4 days ago

ATHENS (AFP) — A senior Greek archaeologist warned this week that the last original sculptures still adorning the Parthenon, Athens’ iconic ancient temple, face a major pollution threat and must be removed to a museum.

“There are still 17 original metopes (sculpted plaques) which must be protected because they can no longer endure atmospheric conditions,” Acropolis site supervisor Alexandros Mantis told AFP on Friday.

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The British Museum & British government often argue over the semantics of the lack of formal restitution requests as a reason for avoiding dealing with the Elgin Marbles issue. In reality though, such procrastination & stalling will eventually be overcome, proving that these arguments are delaying tactics rather than valid reasons.

From:
Afrikanet

IS THE ABSENCE OF A FORMAL DEMAND FOR RESTITUTION A GROUND FOR NON-RESTITUTION?
Written by Dr. Kwame Opoku
Sunday, 13 April 2008

“The restitution of those cultural objects which our museums and collections, directly or indirectly, possess thanks to the colonial system and are now being demanded, must also not be postponed with cheap arguments and tricks.”
Gert v. Paczensky and Herbert Ganslmayr, Nofretete will nach Hause. (1)

In a recent report on the Benin exhibition in Berlin, Benin - 600 Years of Royal Arts in Nigeria, an official of the Ethnology Museum Berlin, presumably, the Director of the African Section of the Museum, is reported to have stated that there has been no formal request for restitution from the Benin/Nigerian authorities and therefore the question of restitution did not arise as far as the Ethnology Museum of Berlin was concerned. (2) A reporter who was at the opening of the exhibition has stated that the Nigerian Minister of Culture, Prince Adetokunbo Kayode announced plans of his government to recover the stolen bronzes in “a very diplomatic and civilised way”; but that his government was not primarily concerned with restitution but interested first of all in international scientific co-operation to elaborate an inventory of all the pieces which had been once in the palace in Benin. (3)
Irrespective of what exactly the Nigerian Minister of Culture said at the opening of the Benin exhibition, we have heard this argument before from Austrians, Germans and others with respect to stolen cultural objects in their museums that there has been no formal/official demand and so the question does not arise for them. We would like to comment briefly on what may appear, at first sight, to be a reasonable position from the point of view of a holder of stolen or found property. Certainly it is a useful tactic if an owner does not bother to reclaim lost/stolen property for the holder to remain passive.

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My response to the Evening Standard’s article on Neil MacGregor’s tenure at the British Museum was published in their letters page today.

From:
Evening Standard (London)

Old Issue for the British Museum
Friday 11th April 2008

Fiona Maddock’s interview with Neil MacGregor highlights many great achievements that he has made during his tenure at the British Museum, but manages to skim over other critical issues.

Whilst most artefacts in the museum were acquired through legitimate means, the ownership of a significant minority of items is disputed. MacGregor talks about the functioning of a post colonial collection, making much of prominent ties forged with China, but such integration with other parties happens only when the museum has the upper hand & can dictate the terms.

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The British Museum & other institutions claim that they took artefacts to preserve them & that the artefacts were taken legitimately. Institutions who hold looted artefacts, in many cases hold the copyright on images of the artefact as well - deriving a source of revenue for themselves, whilst denying it from those who are arguably the rightful owners.

From:
African Path

Africa: The Crown Affair
April 09, 2008 11:34 AM
By Melford Ita

A documentary film scheduled for release soon will raise key issues over Article 11 of the UNESCO 1970 Convention on cultural objects taken across borders. Melford Ita reports.

It is a cold winter morning in Germany but I am sitting in the warm comfort of a high-speed train, the Inter City Express (ICE) en-route to Brussels. It is a long trip, so I reach for my laptop and log on. An editorial alluding to Markets and Investments grappling with the interpretation of a copyright law with the British Museum draws my attention. It reads, Article 11 of the UNESCO 1970 Convention on cultural objects declares as illicit, “the export and transfer of ownership of cultural property under compulsion arising directly or indirectly from the occupation of a country by a foreign power.”

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The Marbles Reunited campaign is in the process of searching for a campaign director. This is an important full time role, with the potential to have a significant impact on the campaign for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures.

For more details of this job, please download the outline brief for it here.

Please pass this on to others who you feel might be interested in the role.

If you have further queries on it, please contact Suzannah Ritch at the details given in the specification or contact me directly using the contact link on menus to the right of this page.