The British Museum is working with the Indian Ministry of Culture, to help to improve their country’s museums. This is a great idea, & shows a useful way that museums can collaborate with one another abroad. During an interview about this, MacGregor was also asked about the Parthenon Marbles & stated that they had been offered to Greece as a loan. In much the same way though, as the British Museum claims that Greece has never in recent years made an official restitution request, it could be argued that the British Museum has never really made any sort of official offer to Greece. There have been statements in the press, but as far as I’m aware, no sort of proper discussions with high level Greek officials. The British Museum seems instead to rely on previous assertions of ownership by Greece as rejections of such as loan offer, allowing them to assume that the loan would be unacceptable on this basis & therefore never even make a proper offer…

From:
Times of India

‘Get people into your museums’
TNN Jan 15, 2012, 06.20AM IST

Indian museums badly need overhauling and who better than the director of British Museum, Neil MacGregor, to help do it. In Delhi recently on an ambitious project in collaboration with the ministry of culture to train Indian professionals, he tells Archana Khare Ghose that exchange between all parts of the world has to go up.

Your team will be training Indian museum professionals. What do you think are the disadvantages that Indian museums suffer from but could improve upon? Fortunately for India, it has two of the hardest things to acquire in a museum – scholarship and great collections. All you need now is to get people into the museums. I think Indian museums are right now focused on their collections but it would be of immense interest for the public if they were to get opportunities to see collections from say, Mexico, China, Iran, etc., in their own museums through loaned exhibitions. The collection of the British Museum is available to see for free to all those who are “curious or studious, native or foreign” and we could loan them for exhibitions.
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The Elgin Marbles have become famous for being famous – often, this means that people forget their significance as works of sculpture in their own right.

From:
The Epoch Times

The Parthenon Marbles at the British Museum
By Michael Paraskos Created: January 17, 2012 Last Updated: January 18, 2012

The Parthenon Marbles are one of the great treasures of the British Museum. Taken from the Parthenon in Athens by Thomas Bruce in the first decade of the 19th century, these wonderful sculptures have been a bone of contention between Britain and Greece ever since.

For my part I am not worked up about the Marbles being sent home. But I am also not indifferent to them, and go to see them a couple of times each year. That probably makes me a more frequent visitor to the Marbles than almost all the Britons who insist they stay in London, or Greeks who demand they go home. In fact my stock reply to people who ask what I think should happen to the Marbles is they should be sent to Shanghai or Tokyo as almost all the visitors I encounter in the gallery are not British or Greek, but East Asian.
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As part of the Antipodes Festival, the Greek Community in Melbourne is organising a lecture on the Parthenon Marbles, which will take place on 1st April.

From:
neoskosmos.com

Lecture on the restitution of the Parthenon Marbles
28 Mar 2012

The Greek Community of Melbourne together with the Antipodes Festival invites you to attend A Lecture on the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles.

The issue of the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles continues to be the world’s most celebrated cultural property dispute. Since Lord Elgin took them, their history has been the subject of both neglect and controversy.
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Following the death of Christopher Hitchens, an article on the Malathronas blog looks particularly at how strongly he put forward the arguments for the reunification of all the surviving Parthenon Sculptures in Athens.

You can view this article here.

Unfortunately, I only spotted this one today, but it appears that the lecture took place yesterday.

See original flyer for the event here.

From:
City Press

Lecture for the return of the Parthenon Marbles
Post: 26-03-2012 13:30 | City Press Newsroom

The Arcadian Centre for Greek, Mediterranean and Balkan Studies hosts at 19.30 archaeologist and Ph.D. Candidate University of Cambridge, Ms. Venus Chatzoglou, which will give a lecture entitled:

The politics of Archaeological Heritage: The case study of the Parthenon Marbles and the New Acropolis Museum
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More coverage of Stephen Fry’s article on why he believes that the Parthenon Sculptures should be returned to Greece.

From:
Greek Reporter

Stephen Fry Supports the Return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece
By Stella Tsolakidou on December 24, 2011

Stephen Fry is known for his philhellenic ideas. His latest demonstration of those was his December 19 article, in which he asked from the British PM to return the Parthenon Marbles to their rightful owner: Greece.

Fry begins his article with the title “A moderate proposal” and introduces his idea both as a tribute to life for the also known philhellene Christopher Hitchens, who passed away one week ago, and as a supportive action towards Britain’s good friends (the Greeks) who are currently going through harsh times.
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Another review of the children’s book, Scorpia Rising, that revolves around a (fictional) plot to steal the Parthenon Sculptures from the British Museum.

Scorpia Rising (Alex Rider)
Author: Anthony Horowitz
Publisher: Walker
ISBN: 1406310492

From:
Guardian

Scorpia Rising by Anthony Horowitz – review
Krazy Kesh
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 December 2011 09.00 GMT

‘I think that this book is unlike any other and brings out the dark side of Anthony Horowitz’s writing mind’

Alex Rider is back with his notorious foes: Scorpia. Although he doesn’t know it, this time they are pulling the strings.
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The new manga book set in the British Museum has an uncanny plot resemblance (entirely coincidentally), to MP Andrew George’s failed April 1st EDM from 2009.

Professor Munakata’s British Museum Adventure
Author: Hoshino Yukinobu
Publisher: British Museum Press
ISBN: 0714124656

From:
Londonist

>Manga Preview: Professor Munakata’s British Museum Adventure
By M@ · November 21, 2011 at 15:30 pm

We’re not going to pretend some deep-seated knowledge of manga that we don’t possess, but this new release looks intriguing whether you’re a fan of the artform or not. Hoshino Yukinobu’s latest Professor Munakata adventure has the eponymous ethnologist unravelling the ‘mystery of the missing Stonehenge megaliths and the threats to the British Museum’s treasured holdings’.

This Friday (25 November) the Museum holds a special event to mark the novel’s release in English. Nicole Rousmaniere will describe the Museum’s role in the creation of the story (excerpts were displayed there two years ago), while Paul Gravett, Director of Comica Festival, places the book into a wider context.

The discussion about Professor Munakata’s British Museum Adventure takes place at 6.30pm on 25 November at the British Museum. Tickets are £5/£3. The story can be purchased here.

For some artefacts, museums hold onto the excuse that at the time, it was accepted practice. But for many more recent artefacts that are looted, that excuse holds no water. Who should be blamed for this though – the dealers or the collectors? Are too many people / institutions willing to accept items with fairly questionable provenances that if investigated properly would clearly not be valid?

From:
Financial Times

December 2, 2011 12:02 am
Lost treasures
By Feargus O’Sullivan

In March this year, a statue of Aphrodite, the ancient Greek goddess of love and beauty, left the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, its home since 1988, to return to the Sicilian town of Aidone, where it was discovered.

Six months later, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts returned the Weary Herakles to Turkey, so the torso of the mythological Greek hero could be reunited with the legs and pelvis of a statue discovered near Antalya in the early 1980s.
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Greek culture minister, Pavlos Geroulanos, has met with the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles while on a visit to London.

From:
Greek Reporter

Greek Culture Minister Meets with British Committee for Restitution of Parthenon Marbles
Posted on 08 November 2011

A meeting was held among representatives of the British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles and the Greek Minister of Culture and Tourism Pavlos Geroulanos, who travelled to the United Kingdom in order to attend the London Tourism Exhibition.

The meeting’s attendees included the British Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament, Andrew George, who promotes the restitution of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece.
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More coverage of the newly published letters relating to the history of the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum. The letters are particularly interesting, as they reveal how long standing Greece’s attempts to secure the return of the sculptures have been.

From:
GR Reporter

21 Documents About the Return of the Parthenon Marbles Revealed after 200 Years
By Areti Kotseli on March 22, 2012

Since its establishment in 1821, the Greek state has declared its intentions to return to Athens the sculptures from the Parthenon held by the British Museum. This is what twenty-one documents, under the title “The Acropolis of Athens”, revealing the correspondence between the ministers of education and foreign affairs, and reports of the Greek Ambassador in London at that time, have proved. The publishing house “Alitia” has published the documents for the first time and the luxury collection is available only in the souvenir shop of the Acropolis Museum.

“This record is a great weapon in the hands of the Greek state in the negotiations with the British Museum, because it shows the earliest efforts to restore and protect the Athenian Acropolis and to clear it of any foreign intervention,” said the publisher Kostas Tsaruhas.
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More coverage of the new Manga comic book, with a storyline involving the Elgin Marbles in the British Museum.

Professor Munakata’s British Museum Adventure
Author: Hoshino Yukinobu
Publisher: British Museum Press
ISBN: 0714124656

From:
New Scientist

British Museum gets the manga treatment
17:17 1 November 2011
Cian O’Luanaigh, contributor

Missing artefacts, a 200-year-old conspiracy, and a mysterious airship over London. Oh, and someone’s nicked Stonehenge…

Folklore and ethnology expert Professor Munakata Tadakusa certainly has his work cut out in Professor Munakata’s British Museum Adventure, the latest collection of comics from acclaimed manga artist Hoshino Yukinobu. Invited to give a talk at London’s British Museum, he soon finds himself investigating a plot to steal museum artefacts and return them to their “rightful” owners.
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