Marbles Reunited is running a competition to create images that promote the return of the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece.

On offer as prizes are two tickets to the opera in Athens about the Elgin Marbles: “Opus Elgin: The destruction of the Parthenon”

So – if you have great ideas for images, or if you have already produced images that might be suitable, make sure you enter the competition.

From:
Marbles Reunited

Win two tickets to the upcoming event “Opus Elgin: The destruction of the Parthenon”

In recent months, a number of activities have occurred, all with the aim of raising the public’s awareness with regards to the matter of the reunification of the Parthenon sculptures. A noteworthy effort, and an event which promises to be memorable is the upcoming opera in two acts “Opus Elgin: The destruction of the Parthenon”.

Raising public awareness is paramount to the cause and Marbles Reunited wholeheartedly support noteworthy efforts in doing so. In aid of this event, and with the cooperation of Imeros for Culture, we have decided to both inspire people further and encourage them to attend this event.
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More coverage of the free admission to the New Acropolis Museum on 18th May for International Museums Day.

From:
Greek Reporter

Acropolis Museum Celebrates International Museum Day
By Marianna Tsatsou on May 10, 2012

There will be concerts and free entrance for everyone at the Acropolis Museum to celebrate the International Museum Day and the European Night of Museums.

Friday, May 18 at 11 pm, on the second floor of the Museum, Marios Strofalis will play solo piano. His recital will be dedicated to famous Greek composers Manos Hadjidakis and Mikis Theodorakis.
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Notwithstanding my earlier comments on certain campaigns linking the return of the Elgin Marbles to the Olympics, I think it would be great if the British government / British Museum would make some sort of commitment prior to the Olympics to return the Parthenon Sculptures. The petition organised by the HALC is requezsting just such a thing.

Make sure you go to their website to sign the petition, after you have read the article.

From:
HALC

Take Action
Return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece before the London 2012 Olympics

Over 200 years ago, the Ottomans granted British ambassador Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, a controversial permit to pillage the Parthenon. By the time the Earl of Elgin was done, half of the Parthenon’s sculptures and other pieces of Greece’s cultural history were shipped off to Britain.

The time has come for this injustice to be remedied and for the Parthenon Marbles to be sent home to Greece.
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The Olympics in Athens in 2004 was seen as a key milestone for the return of the Parthenon Marbles. At that point in time, it was intended that the New Acropolis Museum would be finished by the time the Olympics arrived in the city. I myself was one of the original members of the Parthenon 2004 (now re-branded as Marbles Reunited) campaign, which wanted a commitment from the British government by the time of the Olympics that the sculptures would be returned.

Alas, it was not to be. Greek politics got in the way of the issue, with the PASOK government being replaced by Nea Dimokratia, only a few months before the Olympics. This has the knock on effects of cancelling pre-planned spending for publicity for the campaign for the return of the marbles, before it was able to make the desired impact. A further problem at this stage was that the ND government, while in opposition had been vehement opponents of the building of the New Acropolis Museum in the first place, which ran on into arguments well after change of government, as they were forced to reverse their policy, in an attempt to re-claim the building project as their own.

As the 2012 Olympics approaches in London & the election season has well & truly hit Greece, we get a sense of history repeating, as similar moves are afoot to connect the event to the return of the Parthenon Sculptures from the British Museum. There is a logical connection to be made here – the case regarding the marbles is one between Greece & the UK – and in a similar way, the Olympics represent a strong tie in of ideas that originate from Greek culture, coming to the UK. As such, it represents an ideal time to highlight the issue – magazines want to run Greek related features & the intertwined history of the two countries is at the forefront of people’s minds for a few weeks.

However, there are other campaigns that want to take a more destructive approach to it – blocking the Olympic flame from being handed over to Britain, unless the Parthenon Marbles are returned.

I can see a number of flaws to this approach – not least the fact, that current events mean that the planned handover later this week are riding on the back of events, that with hindsight are unlikely to be seen as one of the high-points in Greece’s history. I don’t claim to fully understand Greek politics (although I try my hardest), but I have had a lot of insights into how British politics and the British press work.

As with the events disrupting the Olympic torch relay before the Beijing Olympics, mixing politics with a sporting event which is meant to unite countries is unlikely to be a good combination. People are meant to be looking at how the countries set aside their differences for the sake of the competition, rather than antagonising each other.

Within the UK, some of the newspapers are already in support of the Parthenon Marbles return campaigns, but others are strongly against it. Such antagonistic actions as disrupting the lead up to the Olympics, will not be portrayed well by these papers (that point I am willing to stake money on) and these papers are read by many who believe everything they read in those papers. As such, the open minded people who support the return of the Marbles might hold their existing point of views, but many of those against restitution will use this as another point to shore up their arguments, that keeping them in the British Museum is the best option. A move to return the Marbles is only ever in the end likely to come from the British Government (although they might claim otherwise), and one thing about governments is that they like to be re-elected. If their constituents are all seen to be against the return of the sculptures, then British MPs are unlikely to see it as a key issue to support.

As such, the British Government is more likely to support maintaining the status quo regarding their policy on the marbles, when subjected to such demands. Campaigns for the return of the marbles are far more likely to succeed, when they manage to put the issue in such a way that the government can see the eventual return as their decision, not one they have been forced into taking. Governments and politicians like to gain public attention in a positive light – the magnanimous gesture of taking the decision to return the sculptures, in front of the international press could be seen as a vote winner, while being portrayed as supine whipping boys to the demands of foreign nationalistic campaigns (for this is how the press would portray it) would not be thought of as a vote winning exercise by many.

For these reasons, I can’t see the No Marbles – No Flame aspect of certain current campaigns as being likely to succeed in its aims of returning the marbles, although like other current events in Greece, it may well a way to grab a few minutes of fame for a few people.

In some ways, this has been a long running theme of campaigns from within Greece for the return of the Marbles. Greek politicians see the event as a vote winner domestically (which it nearly always is), yet they are afraid to actually deal with it internationally – because such actions inevitably would lead to some form of compromise or negotiated deal – which could well be reported in a bad light by the Greek press as their having given up more of the country’s heritage in return for what was rightfully theirs in the first place. Greek politicians all know this and are generally great at playing the Greek press – but few seem to think in as much detail about how to work with the British Press – despite the fact that the UK’s media are in many ways the ones that could decide the eventual fate of the sculptures.

As it happens, the timing of current events surrounding Greece’s general election & the Eurozone crisis are likely to completely overshadow any attempts to bloc the handover of the flame, limiting the amount of reporting it will get in the press – particularly as it is now predicted by many, that it will happen on the same day as a new general election is going to be called.

On the other hand, I could be completely wrong & David Cameron may be already writing his speech for Thursday evening’s surprise decision to return the Parthenon Sculptures – I’ve been wrong about many things in the past – but I have a feeling that I probably won’t be this time.

Campaigning for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures is an admirable cause, which I am fully behind, but it should be done in a way that aims to move the issue forwards rather than pushing back much of the progress that has already been made. A lot like Greek elections really…

From:
Athens News

Parthenon Marbles campaigners fired up by flame handover
by George White
9 May 2012

Campaigners seeking the return of the Parthenon Marbles – also known as the Elgin Marbles – to Greece are hoping that attention on the London Olympics and the torch relay will further their effort.

Alexis Mantheakis, chairman of the International Parthenon Sculptures Action Committee spoke to the Athens News ahead of Thursday’s ceremony at Ancient Olympia to light the flame for the July 27–August 12 London Olympics.
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ICOMOS and ICAHM are organising a conference in Athens, looking at way that archaeological heritage can be protected during the current economic crisis. The discussion is not restricted to Greece however, and I imagine will be of interest to many other countries, whose museums and culture departments face massive spending cuts as governments try to balance their budgets.

From:
ICOMOS

ICOMOS Hellenic and ICAHM REGIONAL CONFERENCE: From past experience to new approaches and synergies: the Future of Protection Heritage Management for Archaeological Heritage in Times of Economic Crisis
23.05.2012 – 25.05.2012
Athens, Greece

A regional conference on the future and new challenges facing the Protection and Management of Archaeological Heritage.

The scope of this conference is to present and use past experience with a view to contribute as a think tank to new ways of managing the protection and preservation of our archaeological heritage in times of economic crisis. The challenges are now greater than ever, as the cultural society needs to regroup its forces, reinforce its role, create new synergies and undertake fresh initiatives in order to maintain standards and offer sustainable solutions. The conference will function as a platform for discussion and exchange of ideas by all professionals involved in protection management in these difficult times.

As there are many sectors of occupation which play an important role in protection management and which face serious challenges and threats in the present days but also in view of the future, we have identified 15 topics for distinctive panel discussions during the conference sessions.
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In part, Greece’s financial crisis is connected to the huge size of the country’s state sector – many departments that in other countries are private operations receive large government subsidies. However, the New Acropolis Museum, whilst it is run by the Greek government, is managed independently – and surprisingly (to many) successfully. Perhaps other departments should take more note of the example it sets.

Perhaps more could also be made of this, when the British Museum re-iterates its regular point that the Elgin Marbles are seen there free of charge. Certainly, the museum is free to visit, but it is heavily funded by money from British tax payers – something that is starting to look increasingly problematic as all government spending in the UK is cut back.

From:
Bloomberg

Economic Lessons From the Greek Acropolis
By Marc Champion Apr 30, 2012 5:18 PM GMT

Greece is in the state it’s in because the government had its fingers in industries long since privatized elsewhere; it spent and borrowed recklessly; it failed to collect taxes; and it couldn’t pay when the music stopped on the global economy.

So you’d think the new Acropolis Museum, a project of great national pride that opened in 2009 as the crisis struck, would be in dire straits as the government cuts back under orders from its international creditors. Not so, because the museum takes zero funds from the state to fund its operations.
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Intelligence Squared are organising a debate about whether the Parthenon Sculptures should be returned to Greece.

Speakers include Stephen Fry, who has recently written at length about why he supports the campaign for their return.

According to the website, the debate will also be later screened on BBC World News.

From:
Intelligence Squared

Send them back: The Parthenon Marbles should be returned to Athens
June 11th, 2012, Cadogan Hall
Doors open at 6pm. The debate will begin at 6.45pm and finish at 8.30pm

What’s all this nonsense about sending the Parthenon Marbles back to Greece? If Lord Elgin hadn’t rescued them from the Parthenon in Athens and presented them to the British Museum almost 200 years ago, these exquisite sculptures – the finest embodiment of the classical ideal of beauty and harmony – would have been lost to the ravages of pollution and time. So we have every right to keep them: indeed, returning them would set a dangerous precedent, setting off a clamour for every Egyptian mummy and Grecian urn to be wrenched from the world’s museums and sent back to its country of origin. It is great institutions like the British Museum that have established such artefacts as items of world significance: more people see the Marbles in the BM than visit Athens every year. Why send them back to relative obscurity?

But aren’t such arguments a little too imperialistic? All this talk of visitor numbers and dangerous precedents – doesn’t it just sound like an excuse for Britain to hold on to dubiously acquired treasures that were removed without the consent of the Greek people to whom they culturally and historically belong? That’s what Lord Byron thought, and now Stephen Fry is taking up the cause. We should return the Marbles as a gesture of solidarity with Greece in its financial distress, says Fry, and as a mark of respect for the cradle of democracy and the birthplace of rational thought.
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Most countries in the western world inherit a huge amount of their cultural tradition from the ancient Greeks. From the Romans onwards, the political systems, philosophical approach, art & architecture have all borrowed heavily on Hellenic culture, using it as their foundations. Perhaps now is the time for some of these countries to think about how they can give something back – to acknowledge their cultural debt to Greece, by doing whatever they can to help support the country in its current situation.

Tourism is a huge source of income for Greece, bringing foreign money into the country – so the crisis shouldn’t be seen as a reason to stay away – but an excuse (as if one was needed) to return & rediscover the country.

Greece has made steps towards monetizing the licensing of its intellectual property – these should be given the support they deserve, rather than criticised as profiteering.

Perhaps most of all, for the reasons already given, now is the right time to return the Parthenon Marbles. They would be safe, because they would be held in the recently opened New Acropolis Museum & they would bring a fresh influx of tourists to Athens to see the sculptures reunited for the first time in over two hundred years. If Britain ever found itself in a similar situation, surely the British would expect the same?

From:
Forbes

3/15/2012 @ 3:01PM |1,493 views
One Way Greece Could Get Out Of Debt: License Its History

Of all the places I know, Greece lies most at the core to me, the place to which I always return as if visiting a beloved, again. To be there has always meant to be surrounded by life, poems, history, legacy, beauty of place, art and timelessness. Greece, for so many, has been a fountain of thought, cradle and pillar of western civilization, of course.

Such is its fascination for me that I carry a pocket Odyssey with me always, to read if I find myself waiting, wherever I may be waiting. And such is the global fascination with Homer’s great epic that I just recently read of yet another expedition to locate Odysseus’ home, the island to which he could not help but return.
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The International Organising Committee Australia for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, has launched their new website. The IOCARPM is one of two committees in Australia, whose sole aim is to campaign for the return of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum to the New Acropolis Museum in Athens.

From:
ABC (Australia)

Push to return Parthenon Marbles to Greece
Updated March 15, 2012 09:10:50

There has been a renewed call from a committee of Greek Australians for the British government to return the Elgin or Parthenon Marbles to Greece.

The marbles are Greek sculptures that were part of the Parthenon, but have been held in London’s British Museum for nearly 200 years.
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Another article on the effect that Greece’s financial crisis is having on the country’s ancient sites. As government budgets are cut, there is far less money than before for maintaining the sites & providing security on them, leading to increased levels of damage & looting.

From:
CBC

Greek antiquities threatened by austerity plan
By Adam Carter, CBC News
Posted: Mar 13, 2012 10:02 AM ET
Last Updated: Mar 13, 2012 10:06 AM ET

Sites like the Acropolis and the Parthenon have withstood tsunamis, earthquakes and the ravages of time — but some are questioning whether they can withstand the Greek debt crisis.

Thefts of ancient artifacts and cuts to culture and museum programs are ravaging a place that’s deeply tied to its past.
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The Getty Museum has returned three fragments of an ancient gravestone to Greece, following a deal made in 2011. Two of the fragments join onto another fragment that had never left Greece.

Greece plans to lend other artefacts to the Getty in return.

From:
Archaeology News Network

Getty Museum repatriates antiquities to Greece
Source: Associated Press [March 09, 2012]

Three ancient marble fragments from the collections of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles have been repatriated to Greece following a deal last year.

A culture ministry statement says two of the 2,400-year-old pieces are parts of the same broken gravestone decorated with relief sculptures, and will be joined onto a third section in a Greek museum.
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Following on from previous coverage of the effects of the Greek financial crisis on the country’s archaeological sites, some archaeological programmes are taking steps to rebury archaeological discoveries, to protect them until such time as there are sufficient funds to allow full excavations to take place. Such a move, also prevents looters from discovering where some of these sites are, removing the requirement for further security.

From:
Canada.com

Greek antiquities reburied for lack of funds: report
Agence France-Presse March 2, 2012

ATHENS – Lack of funding in crisis-hit Greece has stymied archaeological research and leads experts to rebury valuable discoveries to better protect them, a Greek daily reported on Friday.

“Mother Earth is the best protector of our antiquities,” Michalis Tiverios, a professor of archaeology at Thessaloniki’s Aristotelio University, told Ta Nea daily on the sidelines of an annual archaeological congress in the city.
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