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

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.
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Richard Dorment’s article in the Daily Telegraph unsurprisingly provoked many angry responses on the newspaper’s comments page. Not least, were the claims that the sculptures have been, & would continue to be, better displayed & looked after in the British Museum than in the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
London Daily News

01 July, 2009 12:03 (GMT +01:00)
“Greeks should build a statue to Lord Elgin in Athens”, Telegraph editorial
International News

In what is becoming an increasingly protracted debate, the issue of the reunification of the stolen marbles of the Parthenon took a new dynamic with a highly provocative editorial by Richard Dorment the arts editor of the Daily Telegraph calling for the Greeks to “erect a statue of Lord Elgin near the Parthenon to express their nation’s gratitude to him for saving the marbles”.

Ironically an extensive report published in 1999 by world archeological experts found that the “Elgin marbles” morphology had suffered as a result of the “misguided efforts to make them whiter than white”. The report went onto to say :
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The Guardian has a poll on their website on whether the Elgin Marbles should be reunited now that the New Acropolis Museum is opened.

Place your vote their as soon as possible as voting closes in a few days.

Currently the vote stands at a massive 94.7% in favour of the sculptures being returned.

Vote here.

From:
The Guardian

Wednesday 24 June 2009 09.56 BST
Is it time to return the Parthenon Marbles?

The Greek minister of culture claims that public opinion in the UK favours the return of the Parthenon Marbles. Is he right?

Along similar lines to this piece looking at the arguments for & against the restitution of the Parthenon Sculptures, here are eight key reasons why they should be returned.

From:
American Chronicle

Eight Reasons: Why the Parthenon Sculptures must be returned to Greece
Nicolas Mottas
February 23, 2009

The date has been announced. On June 20th, the New Acropolis Museum of Athens will be inaugurated, opening its gates to the public. Crouching at the foot of the Acropolis rock, the brand new Museum is consisting the forefront of Greece’s continual effort for the restoration of the Parthenon Marbles. The opening of the 130 million Euro ultra-modern building, which covers almost 14,000 square meters of exchibition space, dismantles the years-long argument that there isn’t a proper place to host the ancient Sculptures in Athens. But, actually, the new Museum isn’t the only reason which advocates in favour of Parthenon’s Sculptures back to Greece – there are, at least, seven more points:

1. Lord Elgin action’s illegality: Thomas Bruce, then British ambassador in Istanbul, did not have the legal right to remove (in 1801) the ancient masterpieces from the Parthenon. Officially, Elgin obtained a ‘firman’ from the Ottoman authorities but when the British Parliament asked to examine it, he couldn’t submit it. What he submitted was an italian translation of the official document. I reproduce from an interesting article of the American Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, Inc: “Specialists in Ottoman Law point out that the document does not carry the signature and seal of the Sultan or his customary invocation to God, and without them, Elgin and by extention the British Museum have no legal evidence of ownership of the Parthenon Sculptures” (Newsletter, Nov.2008).
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Almost anyone who has seen the New Acropolis Museum, now believes that its opening will represent the start of a significant new chapter in the campaign for reunification of all the surviving Parthenon Sculptures in Athens.

From:
The Times

From Times Online
October 14, 2008
Inside the New Acropolis Museum
Athens finally has a suitable home for the Parthenon sculptures and – British marbles or not – you should go, says Ginny McGrath

The opening of the New Acropolis Museum will almost certainly reignite the debate over the Elgin Marbles.

The museum, which is expected to open in early 2009 after 30 years in conception, has even reserved a space for the missing sculptures in optimistic anticipation of their return.
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The Greek Neo-pagans may have tenuous connection to the ancient Greeks. Their actions are however drawing a lot of media attention & on the back of this, more coverage is being given to the imminently opening New Acropolis Museum that it might not otherwise have received.

The followers of Ellinais object to the removal of sculptures from the Parthenon to preserve them from the elements – unfortunately though this has long been considered a necessary action by almost all archaeologists if they are to be preserved for future generations to see them.

More interestingly though, this article reveals information from a recent poll by Ipsos Mori, which shows that 69% of people in Britain believe that the Parthenon Marbles should be returned to Greece. This conveniently disproves the view put forward by the British Museum in a National Geographic film on the Elgin Marbles, which suggested that old polls were invalid because they were taken too long ago & there was no proof that support for reunification had been maintained over that time.

From:
Guardian

Greece: Pagans call on Athena to protect the Acropolis
Helena Smith in Athens
The Guardian,
Monday September 1 2008

Thrusting their arms skywards and chanting Orphic hymns, Greek pagans yesterday made a comeback at the Acropolis as they added their voices to protests against the imminent inauguration of the New Acropolis Museum.

Ignoring a sudden rainstorm and irate officials, white-clad worshippers gathered before Greece’s most sacred site and invoked Athena, the goddess of wisdom, to protect sculptures taken from the temples to the new museum. It was the first time in nearly 2,000 years that pagans had held a religious ceremony on the site.
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