William St Clair, Author of Lord Elgin and the Marbles, is giving the 21st annual Runciman lecture at Kings College London tomorrow.

From:
Kings College, London

21st Annual Runciman Lecture
Thursday 2 February 2012
Great Hall, Strand Campus, 18.00
Looking at the Athenian Acropolis: from modern times to antiquity
Speaker: William St Clair

William St Clair will discuss the ways in which the Acropolis has historically been interpreted by three main constituencies, the people of Athens, visitors from abroad, and those who only saw Athens in their imaginations with the help of pictures. Beginning in modern times when current viewing conventions were invented, and going back through chronological layers, he suggests how his approach can improve our understanding of how the Acropolis was understood in antiquity.

His starting point is that it was the viewers who made the meanings.
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Despite their time on the monument (& the fact that for years, people have perceived them in their pure white form), traces of the original colouring from the sculptures on the Parthenon are still visible.

From:
Athens News Agency

06/14/2011
Traces of the Parthenon’s colourful past

(ANA-MPA) — An inset shows traces of mustard-coloured paint on the eponymous Lion’s Head pediment that was removed from the Parthenon’s northeast side on Friday 9 June 2011. The pediment was removed from atop the celebrated Classical Era ancient temple for restoration. The Parthenon was painted in bright colours during antiquity, as were most ancient temples, a far cry from the ubiquitous sun-baked and bare marble columns and friezes usually associated today with the Greco-Roman era. ANA-MPA/ORESTIS PANAGIOTOU

The Acropolis in Athens is now going to be open for longer. It is already better than it used to be though, as I remember visiting it in the 1990s, when it seemed that it was barely open in the afternoons during the winter months.

From:
The Independent

Longer opening hours for Athens Acropolis
AFP
Saturday, 21 May 2011

Greece is to extend the opening hours of the Acropolis in Athens due to public demand, Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanosin announced Thursday.

The site will open from 8:00 am (0500 GMT) to 19:00 pm (1600 GMT) year-round after staffing changes prompted by a restructure of the country’s public bodies.
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Apostolos Santas became famous in 1941, when he tore down the Nazi flag that had been raised on the Acropolis in Athens.

From:
Athens News Agency

Resistance figure Santas dies
06/13/2011

(ΑΝΑ-ΜPA) — One of the two men who secretly climbed atop the emblematic Acropolis Hill in central Athens and took down the Swastika in the early morning hours of May 31, 1941 – a defiant and extraordinarily symbolic act of resistance at the beginning of the Axis occupation of Greece (1941-44) – died on Saturday at the age of 89.

Apostolos Santas passed away in Athens.
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The Russian Magazine Ellada has an article in it about an exhibition of photos of the Parthenon by Apostolos Papapostolou.

From:
Greek Reporter

Parthenon Photo Exhibition Profiled in “Ellada” Greek-Russian Magazine
Posted on 25 March 2011 by Polina Dimea

A special feature in the Russian magazine “Ellada” (Greece), which is published in Moscow, was dedicated to the “Marbles” photo exhibition and its creator Mr. Apostolos Papapostolou. The above mentioned magazine is the only printed medium in Russia specialized in topics related to Greece and Cyprus.

The article outlines the profile and work of Mr. Papapostolou, who is a professor in the Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Athens. It describes how art and technology are his big loves, and actually a motivation for a remarkable photographic approach of the Parthenon marbles.
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More coverage of the metopes from the Parthenon that have been discovered buried within the walls of the Acropolis.

From:
Agence France Presse

Long-lost marble fragments found in Acropolis walls
(AFP) – Mar 3, 2011

ATHENS — Archaeologists in Greece have located long-lost fragments from the 2,500-year-old Parthenon built into the outer walls of the Athens Acropolis, a supervising official said on Thursday.

The fragments were pinpointed after a vertical scan of the 20-metre (65-foot) walls using a camera mounted on a modified weather balloon, says Mary Ioannidou, head of the Acropolis Restoration Service.
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Five missing metopes from the Parthenon have been rediscovered, buried in the walls of the Acropolis when they were repaired in the past.

From:
Greek Reporter

Archaeologists Discover New Metopes of Parthenon
Posted on 04 March 2011 by Anastasia Brousou

Five metopes of the Parthenon have been discovered in the South wall of Acropolis. According to “Eleftherotypia” daily, the archaeologists claim that the metopes have been placed in the 18th century, when the Acropolis wall was being repaired. The experts discovered the metopes, while processing 2250 photos with modern photographic methods.

The metopes found, are different from the other panels, as they are made of marble from the area of Penteli. Until recently the archaeologists used to believe that those metopes had been destroyed during the Morosini explosion of the Parthenon, in 1678.

Unfortunately, unlike other years, due to issues with large numbers of visitors in previous years, the Acropolis will not have a late night full moon opening this August. Many other Archaeological sites in Greece will be open late however.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Wednesday August 3, 2011
Acropolis closed for full moon night

Officials said on Wednesday that the Acropolis, the most popular ancient monument in the Greek capital, will not open on the night of the August full moon following extensive damage to the site last year.

Fool moon night in August is the only time when archeological sites remain open after sunset.
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Despite the financial crisis facing Greece, work on the Acropolis restoration is continuing as planned.

From:
Agence France Presse

Greece’s Acropolis: no crisis for restoration
By Isabel Malsang (AFP) – Feb 1, 2011

ATHENS — Like the victory goddess it honours, Athens’ ancient Temple of Athena Nike stands free of scaffolding for the first time in nine years in a testament to another triumph — the prolific restoration of the Acropolis.

Greece may be struggling to ward off financial collapse but nothing will crush the ambitious plan — first started in 1975 — to restore Classical glory to the country’s most visited monument.
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Despite coming in for a lot of bad press recently in Germany for economic reasons, the country’s media are being much more supportive to Greece in their appreciation of the efforts being put into restoring the Acropolis.

From:
Greek Reporter

German Media Praises Acropolis Restoration Efforts
Posted on 09 January 2011 by Venetia Aftzigianni

The German media is impressed by the quality of renovations on the Acropolis. Begining in the mid-1970′s, the project has involved painstaking repairs on major monuments, including the Parthenon, the Erechtheion and Athena Nike Temple, and the Acropolis walls. The architectural masterpieces suffered from pollution and a flawed reparation attempt in the 1930′s. Workers used iron clamps in their repairs that eventually rusted and cracked the marble.

German journalists have uncharacteristically praised Greek efforts.
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The New Acropolis Museum, as one of the most recently opened tourist sites in Greece is lucky enough to have high quality facilities for visitors, such as disabled access provisions. Many other sites in Greece are less fortunate however. A new initiative aims to try and solve this problem by upgrading many of the other sites to make them more easily accessible to all visitors.

From:
Athens News Agency

11/26/2010
Plan on sites services

ANa-Mpa/The culture and tourism ministry on Wednesday outlined a plan to improve services at Greek museums and archaeological sites, especially in terms of disabled access and availability of water.

The new programme follows a study that revealing a lack of vital services in some 150 museums around the country, including some of the most important and most popular sites.
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After a brief respite from its cloak of scaffolding, the next phase of restoration works has begun on the Acropolis, with the return of the scaffolding to the Propylaia.

From:
The Independent

Greece’s Acropolis in scaffolds as restoration resumes
AFP
Saturday, 13 November 2010

Scaffolding once again appeared on the Acropolis in Athens Thursday as work resumed after a brief pause on a decades-long restoration project.

“New scaffolding has been constructed on the central part of the Propylaea to restore the original marble,” said Mairi Ioannidou, the head of Acropolis Restoration Service.
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