An Austrian museum has handed a Klimt painting looted by the Nazis to a descendent of the original owner.

From:
Agence France Presse

Austrian museum to return Nazi-stolen Klimt
(AFP) – Apr 21, 2011

VIENNA — An Austrian museum announced Thursday it will return a Gustav Klimt painting stolen by the Nazis and worth over 20 million euros, to the Canadian descendant of the previous Jewish owner.

Expert reports backed Georges Jorisch’s claim to the 1915 painting “Litzlberg am Attersee” (“Litzlberg on the Attersee”), which had belonged to his Jewish grandmother Amalie Redlich, according to Salzburg’s Museum of Modern Art.
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The official figures for 2010 show that the New Acropolis Museum was the most popular site for tourists visiting Greece. The British Museum might claim that more people see the Elgin Marbles in London (a fact that is open to some debate), however in the case of the New Acropolis Museum, the figures are for those people purely wanting to see the marbles – not general figures for a museum, which may include the Duveen Gallery, amongst numerous other elements.

From:
Agence France Presse

Acropolis Museum is Greece’s top site: official data
(AFP) – Apr 11, 2011

ATHENS — The Acropolis Museum was Greece’s top tourist draw in 2010, eclipsing for the first time the ancient Athens citadel whose sculptures it showcases, official data showed on Monday.

Over 1.3 million people queued to visit the country’s newest museum between January and December last year, the Greek statistics authority (Esa) said.
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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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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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An Italian policeman on holiday in New York spotted a statue stolen from a museum in Rome in 1980.

From:
Agence France Presse

Italian policeman in New York finds stolen statue
(AFP) – Nov 19, 2010

ROME — The return from the United States of a precious Roman artefact stolen from an Italy museum is thanks to an Italian policeman who strolled through New York on holiday this year, officials said on Friday.

Walking down Madison Avenue, the officer from Italy’s cultural heritage police noticed the marble torso on sale for 350,000 dollars (256,000 euros) in a gallery’s display, they said.
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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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Further coverage of the decision taken by the Metropolitan Museum in New York to return nineteen artefacts to Egypt. The items were all originally located in the tomb of Tutankhamen. Return of two of the artefacts & acknowledgment of Egypt’s ownership of them was first mooted prior to the World War Two.

From:
Wall Street Journal

Egypt Hunts Ancient Artifacts
New York’s Metropolitan Museum Says It Will Give Back 19 Items as Archaeologist Lobbies for Returns
By ASHRAF KHALIL

CAIRO—Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s larger-than-life antiquities chief, is hunting for treasures from some of the richest known troves—the world’s prominent museums.

In an increasingly public campaign, Dr. Hawass is lobbying international museums to return some of Egypt’s most important archaeological artifacts. These include the Rosetta Stone, displayed for more than 200 years in the British Museum, and the Zodiac of Dendera, housed in the Louvre in Paris.
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Visitors familiar with the Acropolis site in Athens who visited since 2004 will have been surprised to see that for a few years, the temple of Athena Nike that overlooks the entrance to the site had completely disappeared.

The entire building was dismantled for restoration & the plinth on which it sat was reinforced to remedy the subsidence that had occurred over the years. The temple parts were gradually assembles piece by piece & this building is now complete once more. These works form a part of the overall restoration on the Acropolis Site that has been ongoing for over thirty years.

From:
Associated Press

AP Interview: Acropolis’ Nike temple rises again
By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS – Sep 7, 2010

ATHENS, Greece — After a decade-long facelift, the ancient Greek temple of Athena Nike is back up, patched up and unfettered on the Acropolis.

The slender marble building first erected in the 5th century B.C. was unburdened of its scaffolding in recent days — 10 years after being completely dismantled for repairs.
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It is probably the most famous diamond in the world, with many parties claiming to be its true owners, but David Cameron has stated that the Koh-i-Noor should remain in the UK, with no likelihood of it being returned to India.

From:
Agence France Presse

India wants Kohinoor diamond back. Cameron says no
(AFP) – 4 days ago

NEW DELHI — The real jewel in Britain’s actual crown will not be returning to India, Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday, as he ruled out any repatriation of the famed Kohinoor diamond.

The 105 carat gemstone set in the coronation crown of the British royals was mined in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.
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It is now nearly a year since the New Acropolis Museum opened in Athens. This museum has led to a big increase for the visitor figures to museums in Greece – hopefully once the newness wears off its popularity will continue.

From:
Agence France Presse

Greece museum visitors increase by 40 percent
(AFP) – Apr 12, 2010

ATHENS — The number of visitors to Greek museums jumped by 41 percent last year compared to 2008, whilst fewer made trips to its archaeological sites, the national statistics service said Monday.

The hike in visitor numbers to 2,813,548 was largely due to the opening of a new Acropolis museum in Athens that brought in over 800,000 people.
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At the conclusion of the conference in Egypt on the restitution of looted artefacts, Zahi Hawass re-iterated a point that he has made in the past, that Museums that he has the power to make life very difficult for institutions that refuse to co-operate to try & resolve cases involving disputed artefacts.

From:
Bloomberg News

Egypt’s Hawass Sees ‘Miserable Life’ for Museums With Relics
By Daniel Williams

April 8 (Bloomberg) — Egypt’s chief antiquities administrator wrapped up a two-day conference among countries that want valuable relics held abroad returned by threatening to make “life miserable” for museums that keep them.

“We will decide together what to do,” said Zahi Hawass, who heads the Supreme Council of Antiquities, at the end of the Cairo conference that attracted 16 delegates and nine observers from abroad. “We will make life miserable for museums that refuse to repatriate.”
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Zahi Hawass is continuing to campaign for the return of Egypt’s cultural treasures, with a clear cut strategy of why he is doing it & of which specific artefacts he is focusing his efforts on.

From:
Agence France Presse

Zahi Hawass, media-savvy guardian of Egypt’s past
By Christophe de Roquefeuil (AFP) – 15th February 20009

CAIRO — Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass, at 62, still bubbles with excitement whenever he announces the latest discovery of a tomb or relic, his eyes lighting up under the brim of his trademark Indiana Jones-style hat.

Aside from his love of the media limelight, Hawass is locked in battle to assert Egypt’s sovereignty over its heritage, even if that means crossing swords with the world’s most prestigious museums.
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