The New Acropolis Museum celebrated its first birthday on 20th June. With over two million visitors in this time, it has rapidly become one of the destinations on the must see list for tourists in Athens. It has raised awareness of the Parthenon Marbles significantly, as the casts of them in the Parthenon Gallery now make it very clear how many of the sculptures are in the British Museum.

From:
Athens News Agency

06/23/2010
New Acropolis Museum celebrates first anniversary

More than two million people have visited the new Museum of the Acropolis during its first year of operation, according to figures presented by the museum to mark the first anniversary since it first opened to the public on June 20, 2009.

The museum’s board chairman Prof. Demetris Pandermalis said the museum received a total of 2,010,641 visitors in that time, had set research and scientific goals, made progress in the area of conservation and also in educational programmes.
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The new edition of Mary Beard’s Book – The Parthenon, has various changes, particularly in relation to the New Acropolis Museum which was still in the early stages of construction when the first edition was published.

The Parthenon (Wonders of the World)
Author: Mary Beard
Publisher: Profile Books Ltd
ISBN: 1861973012

From:
Lancashire Evening Post

Book review: The Parthenon by Mary Beard
By Pam Norfolk
Published on Fri May 28 15:07:23 BST 2010

Travellers have braved wars and bandits to see it, politicians and superstars have competed to be photographed in front of it and some of the world’s greatest artists and designers have been inspired by it…

The ancient Parthenon in Athens has been a centre of pilgrimage since it was built over 2,500 years ago and its stunning architectural beauty has never failed to disappoint the millions of visitors.
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The British Museum comes up with many reasons to try & prove that the Parthenon Sculptures are an integral part of their collection that can not now be removed from it & that this is an entirely legitimate position. Large amounts of information suggest that many of their arguments are far less robust than they claim though.

From:
Truthout

Is the Parthenon Sculpture a Permanent Hostage at the British Museum?
Thursday 27 May 2010
by: Evaggelos Vallianatos, truthout | Op-Ed

On March 8, 2010, Dyfri Williams, Research Keeper of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum, delivered a lecture on “The Parthenon Sculptures” at the University of Southern California.

Williams justified the holding by the British Museum of the plundered Parthenon treasures.
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The Bring Them Back campaign for the return of the Elgin Marbles, sponsored by Metaxa has already achieved quite a bit of media attention – no doubt due in part to the clever yet amusing video that they have produced.

From;
Heritage Key

Bring Them Back Campaign Takes Big Ben Clock Hostage in Exchange for Elgin Marbles
Submitted by Ann on Tue, 05/25/2010 – 09:48

I you go sightseeing in London after a night out, stare up at Big Ben to find its clock missing, you might conclude you’ve overdone it on the Metaxa. But no: according to the new campaign video from bringthemback.org, Britain’s best-known clock was taken by Greek multi-millionaire Aristotle Elginiadis. In a month’s time the video – a call for the return of the Elgin Marbles (what else) – has amassed nearly half a million YouTube views, with little sign of its popularity waning.

The campaign video kicks off with a breaking news report: Big Ben’s clock has been stolen! Avid reporter Elena Katritsi quickly traces the timepiece to the Mediterranean villa of multi-millionaire Elginiadis, who isn’t shy to confess his ‘art theft’. Elginiadis says he took the Big Ben clock to protect it from London’s worsening pollution problems. The clock is a world-famous monument, it should be treated as such, and surely there’s less air pollution in a seaside village in Greece? That the ‘thief’ is taking good care of the clock is quickly demonstrated, with the cutest house-maid cleaning the clock in the background (Detail you won’t want to miss!).
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Matthew Parris in The Times has (although I am still hoping the remarks were made tongue in cheek) sadly descended to the level of many other commentators in the past, who claim that London is a far safer location for the display of the Parthenon Marbles. Notwithstanding any other issues associated with this argument, the fact remains that even the supposedly safe places can become unsafe – meaning that there is no form of guarantee that London is any safer than Athens for the display of artefacts. This fact is evidence by such things as the huge number of artworks destroyed in the collapse of New York’s World Trade Center in 2001.

If the argument is taken to its logical conclusion, then surely all artefacts should be located in secure underground vaults – perhaps only viewable by video cameras. If this was the case though, it should be determined by some sort of international body, by the voluntary consent of the parties concerned, not post-rationalised bay a single party without any sort of real consent from the original owners.

From:
The Times

May 20, 2010
Never mind the oil slick, just watch our carpet
BP should take a wider view when it comes to health and safety
Matthew Parris

[...]

Losing their Marbles

Speaking of mayhem, I see a silver lining to the cloud of rioting and destruction in Athens. I’ve always felt that there was merit in the argument that, as the Elgin Marbles were part of the Parthenon, they should be reunited with it, but I’m equally impressed with the argument that they were brought to Britain for safekeeping, and are ours now. It is at last clear how these two may be reconciled. Bring the Parthenon to London, too, for safekeeping.

[...]

Michael Kimmelman’s recent comments about the Elgin Marbles in the New York Times have provoked numerous responses – both in other publications & in the letters page of the newspaper.

From:
New York Times

Letters
Elgin Marbles: A Different Patrimony
Published: May 11, 2010

Re “Who Draws the Borders of Culture” by Michael Kimmelman [May 9]:

Mr. Kimmelman makes a thoughtful and persuasive case that ancient art contains multiple and shifting meanings and belongs to the world, not the current occupants of the country it came from. I found it odd, however, that he denies that the United States has cultural patrimony and argues that Americans would have difficulty understanding the concept.
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Kwame Opoku looks at the somewhat peculiar assertions made by Michael Kimmelman, about the Parthenon Sculptures being split between different countries that: The effect of this vandalism on the education and enlightenment of people in all the various places where the dismembered works have landed has been in many ways democratizing.

From:
Modern Ghana

DEMOCRATIZATION THROUGH VANDALISM: NEW ANSWER TO DEMANDS FOR RESTITUTION OF CULTURAL ARTEFACTS?
Columnist: Kwame Opoku, Dr.

“You must understand what the Parthenon Marbles mean to us. They are our pride. They are our sacrifices. They are the supreme symbol of nobility. They are a tribute to democratic philosophy. They are our aspiration and our name. They are the essence of Greekness”.
Melina Mercouri (1)

After a long period of studying the question of restitution of cultural artefacts, I thought I had heard all the arguments that could be advanced for or against restitution. However, I received a jolt of surprise when I saw an article by Michael Kimmelman entitled “Who Draws the Borders of Culture?” in which, among other contestable statements, he wrote concerning the dismemberment of the Parthenon and its scattering outside Greece, the following:
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The Parthenon Sculptures are an issue that is seen as important by many people who take all possible opportunities to try & raise awareness of it. This is in direct contract to the approach taken by the British Museum that the issue will go away if they just ignore it.

From:
Greek Reporter

Formula 1 drivers in the “race” for Parthenon Marbles return
Posted on 11 May 2010 by Apostolos Papapostolou

The drivers of this year’s Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix race, also known as the Natiole Piloti and headed by the Michail Schumacher will participate in a friendly soccer match that will send out two messages: the first being safe driving and the second and most important for Greece-the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece, their homeland. With this special event to take place before the lavish opening of the Monaco Grand Prix, the drivers aim to sensitize many of the dignitaries and officials as well as the people attending this spectacular sporting event. Among the expected celebrities to be attending the event will be Greek-French television personality, Nikos Aliagas, who spearheads the drive for the Parthenon Marbles to Greece.

Many who are against the restitution of various artefacts to their countries of origin, argue that the countries today are completely different ones (in many cases with different names) to those from which the artefacts originated. To argue this though it to lose track of the geographical connection itself – artefacts are a product of a time & place. Even if the times have changed, the place is still where it always was.

From:
Egypt Today

May 2010
Whose Heritage?
Repatriating ancient treasures seems like a noble cause, but history might end up the loser
By Michael Kaput

Forget bailouts. Part of the possible solution to Greece’s economic woes is 2,500 years old and sits in the British Museum.

It makes sense to Daniel Korski, who wrote a March 4 article, “Why we should give the Elgin Marbles back to Greece,” in the British magazine The Spectator. Korski was referring to the sculptures and friezes originally mounted on the Parthenon, which were removed from Ottoman-administered Greece by Lord Thomas Elgin from 1801 to 1812. Currently in the British Museum, the marbles have been a long-standing slight to Greek national pride. Finally returning them, suggests Korski, could give Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou the political capital he needs to sustain unpopular economic reforms in his bankrupt country.

The suggestion is not as crazy as you might think. Antiquities are an effective weapon in any country’s political arsenal. But the furor generated over who owns which antiquities is swiftly superseding the appreciation of their cultural and historical value.
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I’m fairly unconvinced by the viewpoint represented in this article. The argument is never about where the impact of the Parthenon Marbles is greater, but about where they actually belong & who they belong to.

From:
New York Times

Abroad
Who Draws the Borders of Culture?

Swarms of visitors see the Elgin marbles daily in the British Museum. The Greeks want them moved to a new museum near the Parthenon, but would their impact be greater there?
By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN
Published: May 4, 2010

IT was gridlock in the British Museum the other morning as South African teenagers, Japanese businessmen toting Harrods bags, and a busload of German tourists — the usual crane-necked, camera-flashing babel of visitors — formed scrums before the Rosetta Stone, which Egyptian authorities just lately have again demanded that Britain return to Egypt. From the Egyptian rooms the crowds shuffled past the Assyrian gates from Balawat (Iraq is another country pleading for lost antiquities) and past the Roman statue of the crouching Aphrodite (ditto Italy), then headed toward the galleries containing what are known in Britain as the Elgin marbles (but in Greece as the Parthenon marbles, or simply booty), where passers-by plucked pamphlets from a rack.
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Vasiliki Savvidou-Mihalarea, an English teacher from Rhodes, has sent me a poem that she has written about the Elgin Marbles.

SILENT AWAITING

Marble pieces lie about
burdened with century- old dust
and great deeds of the past,
polished with sweat and labour
AWAIT the return of
their counterparts, lost and gone
to faraway lands.
Handicapped the Parthenon stands
with a bright amputated sun
casting its light, always bright
on this axed colossal cradle.
The great Greek spirit immortal,
hovers restlessly above, seeking
the pieces of this great monument.
The parade of life-depicting figures,
so elaborately carved on marble,
are now sad, a vehicle of the past
they have now become.
The pilgrims to the gentle spirit
stand in awe before the Parthenon
and a sudden sadness fills their heart
when they see the Temple
handicapped and so brutally attacked.

Vasiliki Savvidou-Mihalarea
Teacher of English
Translator/Interpreter
Rhodes, Greece.

Further coverage of the recent conference in Cairo on the restitution of looted antiquities.

From:
BBC News

Page last updated at 23:31 GMT, Wednesday, 7 April 2010 00:31 UK
Egypt calls for antiquities unity

States which say artefacts have been stolen and displayed overseas should unite to recover their stolen heritage, Egypt’s top archaeologist has said.

Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), urged culture officials from around the world to draw up lists of missing items.
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