Although the article title says that it is the Parthenon, it should say Propylaea - which still represents a hugej step forward in the overall Acropolis restoration programme.

From:
Athens News Agency

04/12/2008
Parthenon restoration completed

Scaffolding will be removed from the Parthenon Facade during the next few days and visitors will be able to view the restored largest part of the marble roof with its friezes that made the monument, the work of the architect Mnisiklis, renowned in ancient times.

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More coverage of the return of a fragment from the Parthenon (note that whilst this is a decorative element of the building, it is not a part of what is normally described as the Parthenon Sculptures (frieze, metopes & pediment). Nonetheless, it still represents yet another significant return within a single year).

From:
Press TV (Iran)

Greece retrieves Parthenon marble piece
Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:49:18 GMT

Greece has retrieved a marble fragment belonging to a Parthenon temple, which was removed by an Austrian soldier during World War II.

The piece, which was part of a frieze decorating the temple’s inner colonnade, bears an inscription saying it was taken from the Acropolis in Athens on February 16, 1943, when Greece was occupied by the Germany-led Axis powers.

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Three academics who have helped in the restitution of Parthenon fragments to Greece have been honoured at a ceremony at the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
Athens News Agency

02/12/2008
Parthenon Marbles

Culture Minister Mihalis Liapis on Tuesday addressed an event held at the new Acropolis Museum in honour of three academics who have made great contributions to the effort for the return of the Parthenon Marbles currently held at the British Museum in London.

The three are Prof. Tonio Holscher, professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, Prof. Louis Godart, advisor to the Italian President for the Conservation of Artistic Patrimony and professor of Mycenean Philology at Federico II University of Naples, and Prof. Antonia Sofikitou, who is chair of the Italian Committee for the Return of the Parthenon Marbles and teaches Modern Greek Literature at the University of Palermo.

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A fragment from the Acropolis taken from Athens during World War Two has been returned.

From:
Reuters

Acropolis marble taken by soldier is returned
Tue Dec 2, 2008 2:45pm EST

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greece welcomed back on Tuesday a marble fragment from a frieze decorating the Parthenon temple which an Austrian soldier removed during World War Two, but renewed a call for all its stolen treasures to be returned.

An inscription on the fragment, measuring 7-by-30 cm (2.8 by 12 inches), says it was taken from the Acropolis in Athens on February 16, 1943 — in the midst of the three-year occupation of Greece by the Axis powers, led by Germany.

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As part of the Acropolis restoration, research is being done into the use of lasers for cleaning the structural elements of the building in a similar way to the sculptures.

From:
Russia Today

Features
November 6, 2008, 17:05
Athens’ Acropolis to shine again

One of the world’s most cherished monuments is undergoing a long-overdue and well-deserved pampering.

Decades of pollution from cars and industry wreaked upon on the Greek capital have caused a dense, black coating encrusting the marble of the temples of the Acropolis.

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Edinburgh’s copy of the Parthenon is going to undergo restoration. It is interesting, that what starts as a mere copy can become a monument important enough to be seen as an entity to be restored in its own right - what started as a clone attains an identity of its own. The works will be on a somewhat smaller scale though the Acropolis restoration in Athens.

From:
Scotsman

‘Athens of the North’ icon to undergo a Greek revival
Published Date: 01 November 2008
By CHRIS MARSHALL

IT’S the iconic monument which helped cement Edinburgh’s reputation as the “Athens of the North” and looms large over the city’s skyline.

Now the National Monument on Calton Hill is to get a Greek revival as part of a £1 million project to breath new life into the Capital’s most prized monuments.

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Works on the Acropolis Restoration will include the installation of new sensors to measure the effects of earthquakes on the monuments.

From:
Associated Press

Scientists to measure quake effect on Acropolis
By ELENA BECATOROS – 58 minutes ago

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — For thousands of years the Acropolis has withstood earthquakes, weathered storms and endured temperature extremes, from scorching summers to winter snow.

Now scientists are drawing on the latest technology to install a system that will record just how much nature is affecting the 2,500-year-old site. They hope their findings will help identify areas that could be vulnerable, allowing them to target restoration and maintenance.

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Some parts of the restoration works on the Acropolis will be completed in the coming months, allowing visitors their first sight of parts of the building for some years without scaffolding in the foreground. As part of the project, a virtual reality presentation on the history of the restoration work is planned for the New Acropolis Museum, so that visitors can get a better understanding of what is one of the most complex projects of its kind ever undertaken.

From:
Athens News Agency

10/31/2008
Acropolis restoration works

Culture Minister Mihalis Liapis on Thursday inspected works for the restoration of the Athens Acropolis, after which he praised the effort underway.

“The work to preserve and highlight the monuments provides a unique experience for visitors to the Sacred Rock, since a more comprehensive image of the Acropolis is formed that allows the monuments to be better recognised and understood,” he said.

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Despite attempts to publicise the fact that most classical Greek sculptures were originally coloured, in the eyes of the public, they are still very much perceived as pristine & white. Nowhere has this problem of misconstrued opinion been more apparent, than in the 1930s cleaning of the Elgin Marbles under the instruction of Lord Duveen.

A new exhibition in Germany hopes to change people’s understandings of the sculptures, with numerous coloured reconstructions to give people a better idea of how they might have originally looked.

From:
Artdaily

Friday, October 24, 2008
Gods in Color Opens at Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung

FRANKFURT.- Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung presents Gods in Color, on view through February 15, 2009. Antique marble sculpture was not white, but colored. This is amply and overwhelmingly attested to by ancient literary sources. Whereas the incontestable fact that ancient sculpture was colored was suppressed during the Italian Renaissance, it was recalled in the nineteenth century; in the twentieth century, it once again paled into insignificance, giving way to an aestheticism directed at clarity. Numerous traces of the original polychromy in antique sculpture have survived. They bear testimony to Greek and Roman statues having worn elaborately ornamented garments painted with precious pigments.

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Following the use of laser cleaning techniques on the Greek Parthenon Sculptures, similar techniques are now going to be used on some of the buildings on the Acropolis site. The restoration of the Acropolis is probably the most technically advanced large scale projects of its type anywhere in the world - showing that although mistakes may have been made in the past, Greece is now very serious about preserving its most important monument.

From:
International Herald Tribune

Greek scientists use lasers to clean Acropolis
Reuters
Published: October 17, 2008
By Deborah Kyvrikosaios

In the past two and a half thousand years, the temples of the Acropolis have suffered fire, bombing and earthquake. Now, scientists are trying to save them from a new modern enemy: pollution.

Standing on a hilltop at the centre of Athens, a city of 4 million people, the Acropolis’ elaborately sculptured stones have fallen prey to a film of black crust from car exhaust fumes, industrial pollution, acid rain and fires.

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Mary Beard, author of a book on the Parthenon who has regularly voiced her views on the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, is to lecture on Saturday 1st November in Chicago as part of their Humanities Festival.

From:
Chicago Tribune

Originally posted: October 16, 2008
Making no little ideas: Five architecture-related programs you shouldn’t miss at the Chicago Humanities Festival

With the Chicago Humanities Festival fast approaching–it’s titled “Thinking Big” in honor of next year’s 100th anniversary of Daniel Burnham’s 1909 Plan of Chicago–here are five recommendations for architecture-related programs. The number in parentheses is the program number in the festival.

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Dr Alexandros Mantis is lecturing at King’s College, London on New finds from the sculptures of the Parthenon

From:
Apokrisi

New Finds from the Sculpture of the Parthenon
On: Wed 22 October 2008 - 19:00

Lecture by Dr Alexandros Mantis, Director of the Acropolis Ephorate on the new finds from the Sculpture of the Parthenon. Organised by the Greek Archaeological Committee (UK) this event is open to the public. Further information and bookings on 020 7935 2020. Venue: King’s College London, Strand, London, WC2R