British Museum director, Neil MacGregor has given a talk, mentioning both the Elgin Marbles & the Cyrus Cylinder. He says that the sense of national identity that people get from these pieces is an example of seeing what one wants to see – but surely his own interpretation of the artefacts as part of a global story that can only be told when they are assembled together in the British Museum is far more of a digression from the original significance of these particular artefacts.

From:
Guardian

British Museum’s Neil MacGregor on the Parthenon marbles and Cyrus cylinder
Tuesday 2 February 2010 22.45 GMT
Charlotte Higgins

Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, gave the first of the London Review of Books’ winter lectures, organised to celebrate the ­journal’s 30th birthday. He began by talking about John Dee’s obsidian ­mirror, in which the Elizabethan ­magus could supposedly see angels. That became MacGregor’s metaphor: we look at objects and find in them what we want to see. And so to the ­Parthenon marbles and the Cyrus ­cylinder (a clay cylinder inscribed with a decree from the Persian ruler Cyrus the Great). “A whole nation,” MacGregor said of the marbles, “has decided they embody something ­fundamental about Greek national identity. It is a prime example of ­seeing what you want to see.”
Read the rest of this entry »

The British Museum’s arguments with Iran continue, as they try to justify their position in continually delaying the proposed reciprocal loan of the Cyrus Cylinder. What is more interesting is that the British Museum clings on to these artefacts proclaiming how important they are, but then it is not included on the list of the 100 most important artefacts in the Museum.

From:
The Guardian

British Museum in battle with Iran over ancient ‘charter of rights’
Tehran alleges time-wasting as curator trawls through thousands of cuneiform clay fragments for Cyrus the Great’s legacy
John Wilson – The Observer, Sunday 24 January 2010

The discovery of fragments of ancient cuneiform tablets – hidden in a British Museum storeroom since 1881 – has sparked a diplomatic row between the UK and Iran. In dispute is a proposed loan of the Cyrus cylinder, one of the most important objects in the museum’s collection, and regarded by some historians as the world’s first human rights charter.

The Iranian government has threatened to “sever all cultural relations” with Britain unless the artefact is sent to Tehran immediately. Museum director Neil MacGregor has been accused by an Iranian vice-president of “wasting time” and “making excuses” not to make the loan of the 2,500-year-old clay object, as was agreed last year.
Read the rest of this entry »

The Guardian’s Website is running a poll (closing tomorrow) on whether or not people think that the Rosetta Stone should be returned. Please go to The Guardian’s Website, to vote before the poll closes.

From:
The Guardian

Stolen treasure?
Ignoring the British Museum’s rebuffs, Egypt is demanding for the return of the Rosetta Stone, which has been on display in the UK since 1802. Should the museum give it back to Egyptian authorities?
Tuesday 8 December 2009 11.58 GMT

• Yes. They stole part of Egypt’s cultural heritage
• No. It’s about global cultural heritage. The country of origin doesn’t matter

Anthony Snodgrass – Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles responds to Simon Jenkins’s earlier article about the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
The Guardian

Letters
New home for the Parthenon marbles
The Guardian, Tuesday 27 October 2009

I know that Simon Jenkins is fundamentally on the same side as I am, and I’m sure it wasn’t he who chose to put that offensive phrase in his headline (A banana republic police HQ maybe, but not a home for the Elgin marbles, 23 October). But his piece did contain more than its fair share of anti-Greek prejudice. The Greeks were “foolish” to turn down the offer of a loan of the Elgin marbles this summer (a heavily conditional offer, confined to a few pieces, never officially proposed and withdrawn as soon as mooted). They have consigned the excavated ancient site under the new museum to a “surreal dungeon” (unfair: it is to be open to visitors). And Jenkins cannot have it both ways: if the Greeks previously “spoiled their case” for restitution of the marbles by shortcomings in conservation, then he should not be complaining now that the restoration works on the Acropolis are so painstaking.

Anyway, the Greeks have now “gone to the other extreme” with a building that “screams the supremacy of Big Modernism” and looks like “the police headquarters of a banana republic”: Bernard Tschumi’s New Acropolis museum in Athens, which is the real target here. Comment is free, and a whole series of other expert architectural critics have commended Tschumi’s building for exactly the opposite quality – “handsome”, “unassuming”, “minimalist”, “unpretentious” – to what Jenkins detects. Simon Jenkins prefers the interior to the exterior: fair enough, so do many of us. But there was no call to package his criticism in this offensive wrapping paper.

Anthony Snodgrass
Chair, British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles

There have been many positive reviews of the New Acropolis Museum since its opening last June. As with any piece of art (or architecture) it is not to everyone’s taste. Simon Jenkins who has in the past spoken out in support of the return of the Parthenon Sculptures clearly falls into the latter camp. Unfortunately he is allowing his dislike of the building’s style to seemingly weaken his own case for return – something which is unfortunate, as generally people’s views on reunification are transformed in a different way when they are shown around the building.

From:
The Guardian

Simon Jenkins
A banana republic police HQ maybe, but not a home for the Elgin marbles
I am a restitutionist – but the new museum fails to clinch the case. It is not so much an argument as a punch in the face
Thursday 22 October 2009 22.00 BST

In 1812 Lord Elgin loaded the last of his Acropolis sculptures on to ships in Piraeus and set sail for England. Four years later and bankrupt, he sold them to the British Museum. This summer the Greeks, eager for their return, staged what they hoped would be a definitive retort by opening a £110m museum to house the marbles against the slopes of the same Acropolis. It is the most costly poison-pen letter in the history of cultural exchange.

Any lawyer can prove anything, and I happen to agree with those who regard the Elgin marbles as legally Britain’s. But in any meaningful sense, they “belong” in Athens. As 56 of the surviving 94 panels of the Panathenaic procession, they should rejoin the 36 in the new museum. Precedent is not an issue, being the last refuge of reactionaries and those who have lost an argument. The Elgin marbles are, to put it mildly, a special case.
Read the rest of this entry »

More coverage of Iran’s threat’s to cease co-operation with the British Museum if the dispute over the loan of the Cyrus Cylinder is not resolved.

From:
Fars News Agency

15:30 | 2009-10-08
Iran Warns British Museum over Cyrus Cylinder

TEHRAN (FNA)- Tehran announced that it would cease cooperation with the British Museum in London until it loans the Cyrus the Great Cylinder to the National Museum of Iran.

The clay cylinder is inscribed in Babylonian cuneiform with an account by Cyrus II, king of Persia (559-530 BC). The Cyrus Cylinder is described as the world’s first charter of human rights.
Read the rest of this entry »

The British Museum makes much of the fact that the Elgin Marbles can be seen there free of charge, It remains unclear though whether this is really such a good thing as it is portrayed as being. Certainly, the museums are opened up to more people when they do not charge, but unless one lives within walking distance of them or is already in London, there are costs (sometimes significant) in getting to the museum in the first place. The focus on admission charges skims over any other questions about what the visitor experience is really like – is the cost everything? This is an argument that definitely has more than one side to it.

And finally – as many will probably have spotted, the headline of the article suggesting that its costs five Euros to view the Elgin Marbles in Athens is completely wrong. Not only is the actual admission charge for the New Acropolis Museum only one Euro. But the Parthenon Sculptures there are very definitely not the Elgin Marbles (this claim could possibly be made about those in the British Museum – but those remaining in Athens have never passed through Lord Elgin’s hands).

From:
Guardian

A fiver for the Elgin marbles, anyone?
Only in Britain are all the national museums and galleries free – it is time to show our gratitude
Ian Jack
Saturday 26 September 2009

Britain can still be a remarkably free country – free as in “goods and services provided without money changing hands”. Last week I went to see a doctor and a hospital consultant, got prescription drugs from a chemist, entered the British Museum and the National Gallery, travelled between all these people and places by bus and tube, and not once did my hand go into my pocket to retrieve anything more than a travel pass. Age (the travel pass) was only a minor cause of this free-ness. The rest of it – the close inspection of the Portland Vase at the museum, the sophisticated medical treatment, the special Corot to Monet exhibition in the gallery – would have been as free to a British citizen of any age, and the cultural part free to a citizen of any nationality. In this way British public taxation and private philanthropy have removed the financial barriers to the repair of both body and soul. This is perhaps a rather earnest perspective, to be disputed by the queues in A and E and people with no feeling for old vases, but there’s nothing like adjacent visits to a hospital and museum to make you feel the truth of it.
Read the rest of this entry »

Australian Aboriginal representatives are in the UK to lobby the Wellcome Trust, Oxford & Cambridge Universities for the return of Aboriginal remains held in their collection – something that they are likely to be successful with, based on their track record in recent years since the introduction of the Human Tissue Act 2004.

They are also discussing another entirely separate case – that of a sculpted bus of the last true Aboriginal from Tasmania, claiming that it is racist art. I’m in two minds about this case – whilst I respect their views & the original motivation for creation of the bust may in part have been motivated by a racially prejudiced world view, there is no evidenced that this is what the sculpture is now being used to portray. This is not something that physically ever belonged to the Aborigines, but instead they are laying claim to a likeness or representation, something that could set a very uncomfortable precedent if they were successful. One possible compromise would of course be to remove the artefact from display, but still to retain ownership of it. Another might be for more informative signage to indicate to visitors the issues surrounding the piece. Because the bust is currently in the British Museum, the British Museum Act’s anti-deaccessioning clauses would rule out the possibility of any form of outright return – at present if those asking for the artefact have plans for circumventing this.

From:
Artinfo

Aboriginal Remains, And a Bust, Sought From U.K.
Published: September 17, 2009

HOBART, Australia—She’s the most famous historical figure from the Tasmanian Aboriginal community in Australia, and 130 years after her death, representations of Truganini in the form of busts have provoked a continuing controversy.

Last month the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre in Hobart stopped a Sotheby’s auction in Melbourne from selling busts of Truganini and her husband, Woureddy. Now, representatives of the Tasmanian Aboriginal community have flown to Britain in hopes of reclaiming another copy of Truganini’s bust, along with remains of other ancestors held by medical and academic institutions in the U.K.
Read the rest of this entry »

The British Museum continually rejects any mention of a long term loan of the Parthenon Sculptures, describing it as unworkable. In the world of museums however such a wide variety of loans are always underway, that to reject such a suggestion as a matter of course is really just avoidance of entering serious discussion of the issue.

From:
Guardian

Art on the move: curators reveal the art world’s secret merry-go-round
The growth in blockbuster exhibitions travelling the globe means more art than ever is in transit, under a shroud of strict secrecy – but how does it make the journey?
Noni Stacey
Wednesday 12 August 2009 17.30 BST

A blockbuster exhibition often showcases an artist’s work or offers a new interpretation of an era, but it shows us only part of the story. Look closely at a label on the gallery wall and you’ll notice a little note saying “On loan from …”. The larger touring exhibitions read like a high-fashion social diary, galloping across the globe from New York to Paris, London to Tokyo, while smaller shows criss-cross their way from Pittsburgh to Bogotá, Figueres to Melbourne. Art travels around the world in myriad ways: in and out of galleries and auction houses, to and from private collections. The question is: how does it get there?

My journey begins at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, where Anna Jackson, deputy keeper of the Asia department, has been delving into the royal collections of India’s maharajas over the last 18 months. She’s preparing for the museum’s autumn exhibition, Maharaja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts, which will open in October 2009. The original idea was floated more than two years ago, and the museum officially announced the show some months later. Jackson first set out for India in February 2008, to see what treasures the royal collections would yield.
Read the rest of this entry »

It is often stated that the Codex Sinaiticus was removed illegally from St Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai desert. Christfried Boettrich, a University of Greifswald theologian suggests that this is not the case though.

Whether or not the Codex was looted however, few could argue that the pages of a book split between different countries makes any real sense. Efforts should be made to reunifiy it because it is the sensible thing to do – the story in one place makes far more sense than the story spread between different locations.

From:
Deutsche Presse Agentur

Scholar rejects Egypt claim to oldest Bible – Feature
Posted : Tue, 04 Aug 2009 02:08:37 GMT
Author : DPA

Greifswald, Germany – The extraordinary tale of how a German pastor discovered the world’s oldest book and arranged its removal from Egypt has been told in full for the first time in a new book. It was published in time for the completion in July of an online reconstruction of the 4th century Christian bible, known as the Codex Sinaiticus.

The actual pages of the Codex which are scattered between London, Leipzig, St Petersburg and the Sinai. A codex means a bound book, as distinct from a scroll.
Read the rest of this entry »

Neil MacGregor talks about the digital future of museums & tries to suggest that the issue of the Elgin Marbles is “yesterday’s question”. This seems more like wishful thinking on his part however, as it is very much a current issue – particularly with the opening of the New Acropolis Museum. Furthermore, if he believes that the future of museums is digital, then why doesn’t the British Museum return the Elgin Marbles & keep a digital copy for themselves so that they can be taken care of by people who still see the value in the physical as well as the virtual.

The British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles have also published a response to this article.

From:
Guardian

Museums’ future lies on the internet, say Serota and MacGregor
Museum chiefs paint multimedia future for institutions
Wednesday, 08 July 2009

Two titans of the British museum world, Sir Nicholas Serota and Neil MacGregor, last night sketched out their visions for the museum of the future.

Both said that the relationship between institutions and their audiences would be transformed by the internet. Museums, they said, would become more like multimedia organisations.
Read the rest of this entry »

The poll I mentioned last week in the Guardian has closed now & the results have been published.

Whichever way you look at it it shows a resounding level of support for re reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures.

This website also gets a mention – so quite a few people must have followed the link from it & voted. I’m not sure that I’d describe this site as Elginist – more anti-Elginist.

From:
Guardian

How G2’s Parthenon marbles poll went global
Aida Edemariam
Wednesday 8 July 2009

Best-read lists on websites are disconcertingly revealing things. In a week where the Guardian’s list might have been dominated by, say, Michael Jackson’s demise or the demonstrations in Iran, one small element of our arts coverage persistently ranked in the top-two best-read pieces on the site: a poll that asked, simply, “Is it time to return the Parthenon marbles?” No fewer than 380,000 people clicked on it, and an unprecedented 129,974 felt strongly enough to vote – an overwhelming 94.8% voting yes, and a puny 5.2% voting no.

Now, the Parthenon marbles aren’t exactly breaking news: Lord Elgin began removing them from Greece in 1801. True, the new Parthenon museum had just opened, with its pointed gaps where the missing marbles ought to go – but still. The opening of even the snazziest of museums can’t usually compete with one of the biggest celebrity exits in the obituaries calendar. Or the biggest demonstration in Iran since the fall of the Shah.
Read the rest of this entry »