May 12, 2009
New home for the Parthenon Marbles unveiled
The New Acropolis Museum opens next month, but opinion is divided on whether the Elgin Marbles should be returned from the British Museum to complete its main exhibit.
From:
Daily Telegraph (UK)
Greek government unveils new home for Elgin Marbles
Fresh demands for the return of the Elgin Marbles are accompanying the launch next month of the £115 million Acropolis Museum, which has a reserved space for the world’s most famous piece of classical statuary.
By Andrew Pierce in Athens
Last Updated: 12:02PM BST 11 May 2009The 270,000 sq ft museum is being established as a home for the 160-metre long strip of marble that adorned the Parthenon until 1801. The museum, which stands just 400 metres from the Parthenon, opens in June – three decades after the building was first proposed.
Antonis Samaras, the minister for culture and Athletics said: “The opening of the Acropolis Museum is a major world event. June 20th will be a day of celebration for all civilised people, not for Greeks alone. I want the Britons especially to consider the Acropolis Museum as the most hospitable place for them.”
Greeks hopes have been emboldened by the return to Athens from Germany and Sweden of a host of treasures, including some taken from the Acropolis itself. The frieze adorned the Parthenon until 1801 when Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, removed it, along with a host of other treasures when Athens was under enemy occupation.They were sold by Lord Elgin to the British Museum for £35,000 after Parliament voted in 1816 to acquire them for the nation and were vested “in perpetuity” in the trustees of the British Museum. The Greek Government disagrees.
Mr Samaras is the successor to the late Melina Mercouri, whose strident claims for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles made headlines more than 20 years ago.
The language today is more restrained, yet more confident. “I, along with every other Greek, wants the marbles reunited, just as Melina did,” he said. “The argument against was that there was no deserving museum in Greece to house them. Now, this argument is off the table – it cannot stand anymore. The Acropolis Museum was Melina’s dream, and now we see it standing.”
Greece retains 36 of the 115 panels in the Parthenon frieze. With the reproduction in its glass-walled upper gallery of the exact dimensions of the Parthenon temple, the building allows the marbles to be represented in their original configuration and context, in a way that could never be done in the British Museum.
The Greeks have also taken heart from polls that have shown that the majority of Britons support the return of the Marbles.
The fight for the return of the Marbles has led to committees being set up in 14 countries to lobby for their return.
The gallery offers a simultaneous view of the Parthenon itself, the extraordinary temple to the goddess Athena and, in the view of many, the greatest classical building in the world.
Constructing a vast new museum in one of the world’s most ancient cities was not easy. When archaeologists began work they uncovered a 5th century BC settlement. The response of the architectural team of Bernard Tschumi from New York and Michael Photiadis from Greece was to build the elegant modern structure above the archaeological diggings. The site, which is still being excavated, can be seen by visitors through the museum’s glass floor.
Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum, has rejected overtures from Athens and said that it is the museum’s duty to “preserve the universality of the marbles, and to protect them from being appropriated as a nationalistic political symbol”.
If the British Museum, which says it is barred by its constitution from handing back its treasures, were obliged to return the marbles, the floodgates might open on other restitution claims. Nigeria, for instance, wants the return of the Benin bronzes, looted by Britain in 1897. The 270,000 sq ft museum is being established as a home for the 160-metre long strip of marble that adorned the Parthenon until 1801. The museum, which stands just 400 metres from the Parthenon, opens in June – three decades after the building was first proposed.
Greeks hopes have been emboldened by the return to Athens from Germany and Sweden of a host of treasures, including some taken from the Acropolis itself. The frieze adorned the Parthenon until 1801 when Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, removed it, along with a host of other treasures when Athens was under enemy occupation.
They were sold by Lord Elgin to the British Museum for £35,000 after Parliament voted in 1816 to acquire them for the nation and were vested “in perpetuity” in the trustees of the British Museum. The Greek Government disagrees.
Mr Samaras is the successor to the late Melina Mercouri, whose strident claims for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles made headlines more than 20 years ago.
The language today is more restrained, yet more confident. “I, along with every other Greek, wants the marbles reunited, just as Melina did,” he said. “The argument against was that there was no deserving museum in Greece to house them. Now, this argument is off the table – it cannot stand anymore. The Acropolis Museum was Melina’s dream, and now we see it standing.”
Greece retains 36 of the 115 panels in the Parthenon frieze. With the reproduction in its glass-walled upper gallery of the exact dimensions of the Parthenon temple, the building allows the marbles to be represented in their original configuration and context, in a way that could never be done in the British Museum.
The Greeks have also taken heart from polls that have shown that the majority of Britons support the return of the Marbles.
The fight for the return of the Marbles has led to committees being set up in 14 countries to lobby for their return.
The gallery offers a simultaneous view of the Parthenon itself, the extraordinary temple to the goddess Athena and, in the view of many, the greatest classical building in the world.
Constructing a vast new museum in one of the world’s most ancient cities was not easy. When archaeologists began work they uncovered a 5th century BC settlement. The response of the architectural team of Bernard Tschumi from New York and Michael Photiadis from Greece was to build the elegant modern structure above the archaeological diggings. The site, which is still being excavated, can be seen by visitors through the museum’s glass floor.
Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum, has rejected overtures from Athens and said that it is the museum’s duty to “preserve the universality of the marbles, and to protect them from being appropriated as a nationalistic political symbol”.
If the British Museum, which says it is barred by its constitution from handing back its treasures, were obliged to return the marbles, the floodgates might open on other restitution claims. Nigeria, for instance, wants the return of the Benin bronzes, looted by Britain in 1897.
- Greece steps up efforts to secure Elgin Marbles return : May 12, 2009
- Greece will step up efforts to reunify Elgin Marbles when New Acropolis Museum opens : May 21, 2009
- June opening date set for the New Acropolis Museum : February 14, 2009
- Low admission charges for New Acropolis Museum : May 21, 2009
- New home for the Parthenon Sculptures unveiled in Athens : June 21, 2009
- British Museum refutes Parthenon Marbles loan reports : June 12, 2009
- June opening planned for the New Acropolis Museum : April 26, 2009
- New Acropolis Museum opening budget cut : May 25, 2009
Victor Theofilopoulos said,
06.22.09 at 11:01 am
To Whom It May Concern:
The least you could have done to save face, was to send your Ambassador Dr David Landsmam or other chief of staff or at least, the Head of Antiquities of the British Museum to the inauguration ceremony of the Acropolis Museum. Your absence and purposeful arrogance, conceipt and pompous British stiff upper lip mentality shows not only that you abhor Greece’s achievement in creating a museum for the entire world – a worthy sanctuary for the display of the very aesthetic beauty of the Parthenon’s friezes in their entirety – but that also through your absence, you condone the continued criminal vandalism, theft and abuse of the Parthenon Marbles by refusing to even understand why it is important for humanity that these be returned to their birthplace.
It’s high time you get over your brutal and grotesque vanity and your complexes associated with the “Britannia Rules the Waves syndrome” and your distorted beliefs that you were the saviours of the world rescuing “right” from wrong and wise up. How long can the British authorities cling jealously to the loot of their former ambassador to a long-vanished Turkish empire? (Greece was a vassal state when Lord Elgin’s men showed up in all their pomp and ignorant glory with their crowbars and cranes.)
Isn’t it time that the British did something good for this world and for world culture rather than inserting their dirty finger and noses into other people’s business while at the same time considering giving up their hobby of looting the culture of countries who “have something to show”? Moreover, wouldn’t it be a simple goodwill gesture if Britain returned just one of the friezes in the illegal possession of the British Museum to the new Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece creating thus, a new beginning and a new more promising bond in the Greco-Anglo relationship something which would at least go a long way in helping Greeks to view the British in a better and more favourable light and helping us simultaneously of overcoming the idea that the British are just a bunch of drunk and half naked louts who go around reaking havoc in the Greek islands every year? – (Although, I cannot imagine for one moment, where we could have gotten that idea about the British?)
Yours sincerely,
Victor Theofilopoulos, a well-informed and deeply conscientious free-minded, free-willed and democratic citizen of the world.
P.S. and according to the Daily Telegraph, the argument by Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum, who has rejected overtures from Athens and said that it is the museum’s duty to “preserve the universality of the marbles, and to protect them from being appropriated as a nationalistic political symbol” is entirely void who goes on to say that: “If the British Museum, which says it is barred by its constitution from handing back its treasures, were obliged to return the marbles, the floodgates might open on other restitution claims. Nigeria, for instance, wants the return of the Benin bronzes, looted by Britain in 1897.”
– seemingly forgetting that the Parthenon’s marbles are the only resounding global testimony of the light, harmony, beauty, simple austerity, eros, ethos and pathos which adorned Classical Greece and that these same values still adorn, still emanate, still radiate and still resonate beyond the Parthenon and Greece to the rest of the world and for the whole of humanity. Light, harmony, beauty, simple austerity, eros, ethos and pathos can only radiate from Athens and Greece where the Parthenon still stands despite the distorted sight and sick wishes of several people who for some bizarre reason see the Parthenon as a derelict ruin and its ever-continuing legacy as non-existent.
Again sincerely yours,
Victor Theofilopoulos
Tony Vuccino said,
10.16.09 at 10:38 pm
Dear Mr. Samaras,
I know that in the past you have advocated of an “orthodox axis” on the Balkans….TO MEGALO KRATOS THS ORTHODOXIAS!!!
In my opinion:
Any politician, in any Country,in any Democracy, that advocates and supports one State Religion…the Religion of the majority …is either an opportunist or Racist or both!
I am a Roman Catholic from Greece and I am terrified, that someone like you, could get Elected, as the Leader of one of the 2 Main political parties, of our Country. The Party of Nea Dimocratia .
Antonios Ioannis Kapodistrias ( Antonio Giovanni Capo D’Istria ) The First President of the New Republic of Greece, a Roman Catholic himself …must be rolling in his grave listening to your Racist Ideas.
Please,come clean and denounce your insane ideas!
Thanks,
Tony V.