As in other years, the New Acropolis Museum is going to have free admission & various special events to celebrate International Museums Day on May 18th.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Friday May 17, 2013
Celebrating International Museum Day around Greece

Museums around the country celebrate their past, present and future this weekend as a number of local cultural institutions take part in festivities marking this year’s International Museum Day.

The International Council of Museums (ICOM) established International Museum Day back in 1977 in an effort to raise public awareness with regard to the key role played by cultural organizations in societies. The annual celebration usually takes place around May 18.
Read the rest of this entry »

Annmarie Fitzmaurice has written an essay on the New Acropolis Museum. She looks at how the building combines the past with the present, including the controversy that surrounded the construction of the building on such a sensitive site.

You can view the whole essay online here.

This article gives quite a convenient summary of what the Parthenon Marbles are & some of the key issues surrounding the case.

From:
Live Science

Elgin Marbles & the Parthenon
Owen Jarus, LiveScience Contributor
Date: 14 January 2013 Time: 04:33 PM ET

The Elgin Marbles, sometimes referred to as the Parthenon sculptures, are a collection of marble sculptures that originally adorned the top of the exterior of the Parthenon in Athens, Greece, and are now in London, England.

They are currently exhibited, free to the public, in the Duveen Gallery in the British Museum. Although today the sculptures appear white, originally they were painted in vivid colors, something that new research is revealing.
Read the rest of this entry »

Like a lot of the recent posts I’ve made, this was meant to be posted ages ago, but wasn’t.

Anyway – its interesting, as it indicates that the current Greek government wants to deal seriously with the issue of the Parthenon Marbles. However, it shoudl be noted that this is not an independent committee such as Marbles Reunited or the Australian Committee or many others around the world. This committee is instead more of a steering group – of special advisors to the Minister of culture.

I still believe that there is a need for a Greek Committee – that can get involved with raising the profile of the issue as people, rather than politicians – although I understand that the Greek Government want dealing with the issue within Greece to be seen as an issue entirely handled by the government.

From:
Athens News Agency

>New committee established to press for return of Parthenon Marbles
Last Updated Thursday, 20 September 2012

The culture ministry on Wednesday announced that it will re-establish a special advisory committee to coordinate actions aimed at securing the repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles.

The president of the Melina Mercouri Foundation, Christoforos Argyropoulos, archaeologist Eleni Korka, attorney Irini Stamatoudi, who heads the Intellectual Property Organisation, and foreign ministry representative Panos Kalogeropoulos were listed as members of the committee, announced by Alternate Culture Minister Costas Tzavaras.
Read the rest of this entry »

This sounds like it was going to be an interesting lecture – unfortunately, I only discovered about it the day after it had taken place though.

Hopefully, they will put it on youtube at some point in the future.

From:
The Athens Centre

Lecture “Returning Lost Marbles’, by Ira Kaliampetsos

The Athens Centre would like to invite you to a guest lecture,
by Ira Kaliampetsos
Director of the Hellenic Society for Law and Archaeology

“Returning Lost Marbles:
Antiquities Restitution and the Law”

Tuesday, March 5, 2013, at 7:00pm

At The Athens Centre

Archimidous 48, Pangrati (Mets)

Wine and conversation follows the event. The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, please call 210-7015242 or 210-7012268.

Ira Kaliampetsos works as a lawyer in Athens. She earned her law degree from the Ruhr-University Bochum in Germany and continued her postgraduate studies on ‘Art and Law’ at the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz, Austria. Her professional experience includes working for the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs (a position she still holds), the Delegation of the European Union to Turkey and several assignments for election observation. In 2006 she co-founded the Hellenic Society for Law and Archaeology (www.law-archaeology.gr), a non- profit organization dealing with all aspects of antiquities law – a field in which her law office specializes in. She is also a founding member of the Hellenic Wildlife Care Association, ANIMA (www.wild-anima.gr).

Event information is also available on our Facebook page.

Pictures of the event are available here.

Costas Tzavaras, Greece’s minister responsible for cultural affairs has responded to David Cameron’s comments that he does not support the return of the Elgin Marbles.

From:
Athens Macedonian News Agency

Athens Macedonian News Agency: News in English, 13-02-21
Culture minister on Parthenon Marbles issue

AMNA — Greece and the United Kingdom have a different approach on the issue of the Parthenon Marbles, alternate Education Minister responsible for cultural affairs Costas Tzavaras said on Thursday in reply to statements by British Prime Minister David Cameron.

There is a clear “difference in approach and conception separating us (Greece) from the United Kingdom on the issue of the Parthenon Marbles”, he said.
Read the rest of this entry »

The New Acropolis Museum represents a high point in Greece’s recent history – finally, after years of arguments, political wranglings & archaeological digs, a new home had been constructed to house the Parthenon Marbles. for once, a building was able to tell a story of a modern country that was still deeply in touch with its rich cultural heritage – it was not using moernity to turn its back on the old, but instead using it as a framework to re-evaluate it & re-discover it.

From:
Modern Diplomacy

The Acropolis Museum: a paradigm of Nations Branding in the Making
Peggy Kapellou, Maria Kyriacopoulou Hellenic Foreign Policy

In the gloomy after crisis general ambience in Greece, how many of us still take the time to review major achievements of the country’s reputation to the International Community? And still, it was only three years ago, on June 20, 2009, the whole world witnessed the opening ceremony of what has been characterized by the New York Times as «one of the highest-profile cultural projects undertaken in Europe in the last decade»: the new Acropolis museum.

The inauguration day and the week of various festivities and parallel events, was the culmination of a long run project, carefully planned and implemented as part of an integrated approach.
Read the rest of this entry »

Since the opening of the New Acropolis Museum in 2009, the old museum has sat there next to the the Parthenon, unused & half forgotten.

While it pales in comparison to the new museum, for a long time, it was the showcase for many of the amazing finds from the site. Now it appears that its future is uncertain.

I’m in two minds about this – they should never really have built a permanent structure right in the middle of a historic site in the first place – however, if it is there & in good repair, surely it would make more sense to utilise it in some way that enhances the visitor experience, rather than just abandoning it? Particularly considering the cash strapped situation of the Greek state at present.

From:
Archaeology & Arts (Greece)

Greek archaeologists concerned about the old Acropolis Museum
The Central Archaeological Council decided not to declare it a preservable monument
Friday, 1 February 2013

Regarding the recent decision of the Central Archaeological Council not to declare the old museum as a preservable monument, the Association of Greek Archaeologists issued a press release expressing their concern about the old museum’s fate.

In particular, the press release starts with a brief description of the history of the Museum, which is more or less known. Its construction started in mid-19th century. It was designed by architect Panages Kalkos. After various expansions, it took its final form in mid-20th century, as it has been designed by Patroklos Karantinos. It is the first building that was constructed in Greece in order to house a museum. For 150 years it hosted not only the finds of the Acropolis’ excavations but also innumerable visitors: by telling the story of the movable finds it added to the breathtaking experience of an archaeological site with monuments of great significance.
Read the rest of this entry »

Starting from January, the Acropolis Museum in Athens will be organising various workshops on ancient technology, with the first on on the way museum replicas are made due to take place today.

From:
Greek Reporter

The Acropolis Museum Organizes Art Courses
By Christina Flora on January 5, 2013

The Acropolis Museum is organizing workshops on ancient technology, modern preservation and production of replicas. Courses will start in January to entertain and inform those interested in learning these arts.

On Jan. 15, the first scheduled course on the ways museum replicas are made will begin. This course will be taught from Tuesday to Sunday twice a day, at 11:00 a.m., and 12:00 noon. Classes will include 20 people with admission using the same-day ticket to the museum on a first-come, first-served basis.

Those who want to visit the museum should bear in mind that from Jan. 8, it will be operating on its winter program. Its restaurant will operate the same hours, except for Friday evening, when it will stay open until 12 midnight.

Some of the most famous photos of the Acropolis are those taken by the Greek Photographer Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari AKA Nelly, of the nude ballerina Mona Paeva.

A new exhibition shows these, along with other works by the photographer and runs until 12th January in Athens’s AlphaDelta gallery.

You can see more information about the exhibition at the Gallery’s website.

From:
Greek Reporter

Nude on the Parthenon: Nelly’s Picture Show
By Marianna Tsatsou on November 27, 2012 in Culture, News

The Athens-based AlphaDelta gallery is presenting a solo show-tribute to the photographer Nelly (also known as Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari, 1899 Aydin, Asia Minor – 1998 Athens, Greece) entitled Un nouveau regard (A new glance).

At the exhibit, which runs from Nov. 10 this year to Jan. 12, 2013, a series of works of the famed Greek photographer will be shown, including New York Easter Parade. She was known for her work in what was called New Objectivity.
Read the rest of this entry »

The story of the Parthenon & how it ended up in the partially ruined state we see today fascinates many people. Lord Elgin played a clear part in the destruction of the building, but the British Museum continues to ignore any invitations to discuss the issue of the return of the sculptures seriously.

From:
San Diego Daily Transcript

Will Elgin lose his marbles?
By Larry Stirling
Monday, November 19, 2012

(ATHENS, Greece) — Wealthy Englishman Thomas Bruce, aka the Seventh Earl of Elgin, was appointed ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in 1798.

Athens, indeed all of Greece, was then a part of it.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Parthenon frieze today, whether you look at it in the New Acropolis Museum or the British Museum, is on full display, easily observed by any visitors who stand in front of it. When it was on the Parthenon though, it was a much harder entity to observe – hidden high up, inside the outer columns & thus blocked by the outer beam containing the metopes.

Because it is hard to get access close to the Parthenon because of the restoration works, it is not so easy to see today, just how obscured the sculptures actually were in ancient times. I first looked at this as part of my university thesis, twelve years ago, when I noticed this issue from looking at sectional drawings through the building & then later on a 3D CAD model that I constructed.

It was not a completely unplanned problem though, as the depth of the relief of the carving of the frieze is carefully graded from top to bottom, to enable them to be ore clearly seen from below.

At the time that I was researching the issue, I came up with possible theories on why they might have created such a large amount of sculpture that was almost hidden in this way – but was unable to prove any of them & reached no firm conclusions on the subject. I’m very interested to see what other ideas come up as a result of this new research project into this aspect of the Parthenon’s sculptures.

You can find out more about Emory University’s Parthenon Project here. As with the Caryatid Hairstyles Project, that I mentioned a few days ago, its great to see that so much research is being made into the art & architecture of ancient Greece – and that even with sites as intensively studied as the Parthenon, it is still possible to rediscover many more new things from its ruins.

From:
The Tenessean

Parthenon puzzle is doozy
Art students try to solve mystery behind frieze
3:06 AM, Nov 11, 2012

It’s one of the mysteries of the ancient world, an architectural enigma that has puzzled art historians for centuries.

And one that a group of students were trying to solve on Saturday in Centennial Park.

The original Parthenon in Athens, Greece, was an architectural triumph devoted to the goddess Athena. And in spite of being held up as a masterpiece of the Classical Era, art historians for centuries have wondered why its designers hoisted an immaculately sculpted frieze to a spot partially obscured by the Parthenon’s iconic columns.
Read the rest of this entry »