The International Organising Committee (Australia) for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, one of two Australian committees promoting the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece, has launched their new website.

From:
St George and Sutherland Shire Leader

Marbles project gets a website
BY MARIANNA PAPADAKIS
26 Feb, 2012 01:30 PM

THE International Organising Committee (Australia) for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles founded by Emanuel Comino of Kogarah is launching a website and campaign to encourage the repatriation of the historic marbles to Greece.

The committee celebrates its 31st anniversary this year with lectures and other educational activities.
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Clearly, the British Museum is called that, because it’s a national museum, located within Britain. But beyond that, there’s not a lot of logic to the name.

It has been pointed out many times in the past, by many different people, that the British Museum is not really very British. That is to say, that not much of the stuff on display is actually from Britain. You have to really look to spot the exhibits from Britain, amongst all the artefacts taken from other places around the world. In this sense, it is more a museum of British imperialism, than it is one of modern Britain.

From my point of view, many of the artefacts there are legitimately acquired – however, the vague descriptions on the information panels next to them give you little idea of the real stories behind the acquisition of many of the items in their collection.

From:
Dawn

A pilgrim’s progress
From the Newspaper | M.J. Akbar | 2 days ago

THE British Museum should, in all propriety, be renamed the British Empire Museum. The largest repository of human genius is a magnificent tribute to three centuries of commercial and political power.

The Empire and its diaspora had three overlapping shores: lands that were directly ruled; regions under domination (hence Dominions) and an arc of grip sanctified by treaty (as in the Indian or Malaysian princely states) or justified by gunboat diplomacy (as in China).
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One of the Australian committees for the return of the Parthenon Marbles hopes to exert pressure on the British Government to return the Parthenon Marbles.

From:
Greek Reporter

Greek Australians Will Visit London to Ask For Restitution of Parthenon Marbles
By Marianna Tsatsou on April 13, 2012 in Community, events, News

British actor Stephen Fry called on the British government for the return of the Parthenon marbles to Greece. Now the Greek Diaspora in Australia has also decided to exert pressure on English officials for the same reason.

The Greek campaigners have already planned a trip to London this year. Leaders of the campaign are going to be the Chairman of the International Organizing Committee Australia for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles Emanuel Comino, as well as renowned South African human rights lawyer George Bizos.
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Following their requests for the return of the Samsat Stele, Turkey is blocking the planned loan of an artefact to the UK. The author of this article, feels that they should be focussing first on protecting the heritage that they already have in their country, before trying to retrieve items such as this. I still can’t understand though, why when we want an artefact to stay in the UK, this is completely acceptable, but when someone else asks for their (in many cases stolen) artefact to be returned, it is decried as “cultural nationalism.”

From:
New York Times

April 11, 2012, 9:33 am
Treasure Hunters
By ANDREW FINKEL

ISTANBUL — “Hajj: journey to the heart of Islam,” the British Museum’s recreation of Islam’s holy pilgrimage, has attracted much praise and a dash of controversy, as Huma Yusuf recently wrote on Latitude. Meanwhile, another interesting story related to the exhibit has percolated down to Turkey, the successor state to the empire that ruled over Mecca and Medina for centuries and once controlled the major pilgrimage routes.

Turkey was founded in the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, and its great museums – the Topkapi Palace and the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum – hold many of the important historical artifacts associated with the Hajj.
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Germany has returned a looted statue to Afghanistan, after suspicions were raised about the provenance of the piece when it appeared in Munich last year.

From:
Reuters

Germany returns two millennia old Afghan sculpture
By Amie Ferris-Rotman
KABUL | Tue Jan 31, 2012 6:59am GMT

(Reuters) – Germany this week returned an ancient pre-Islamic sculpture looted during Afghanistan’s civil war, giving hope to Kabul’s cultural mavens that the rest of its stolen treasures will also make their way home.

Eight figures, one missing a torso and others without noses, make up the 30-cm high (12 inches) limestone antiquity from the second century AD, a reminder of Afghanistan’s rich classical past as a confluence of cultures on the crossroads of Asia.
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As part of their ongoing campaign for the restitution of looted artefacts, Turkey has written to the British Museum asking for the return of the Samsat Stele, a stone tablet that is over two thousand years old.

From:
Today’s Zaman

Turkey requests return of Samsat Stele from Britain
9 April 2012 / TODAY’S ZAMAN, İSTANBUL

The Turkish government has requested from Britain the return of a stone tablet dating back to the first century.

The Samsat Stele, which is currently held at the British Museum, is a stone tablet dating back to the first century B.C. portraying Commagenian King Antiochos I Epiphanes greeting Greek god Zeus’s son Herakles. The hole in the center of the Samat Stele, which is made of basalt, reflects its later use as an oil press.
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Michael Hoff is giving a lecture on the Elgin Marbles at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, Montana on Thursday 12th April.

From:
Bozeman Daily Chronicle

Art historian speaks on archaeology controversy
Posted: Friday, April 6, 2012 12:00 am | Updated: 10:40 am, Thu Apr 5, 2012.

Michael Hoff presents “Lord Elgin and the Parthenon Marbles: Two Hundred Years of Controversy,” Thursday, April 12, at 6 p.m. at the Museum of the Rockies Hager Auditorium. Hosted by the Archaeological Institute of America, Bozeman chapter, this lecture is free and open to the public.

Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, who had been appointed the English ambassador to the Ottoman court, was responsible for the removal of many of the sculpted statues and reliefs from the Parthenon. His purpose was to enlighten European culture by bringing to London examples of the best sculpture from Athens, and spurred on by the knowledge that Napoleon’s agents were also actively seeking to acquire the marbles. Elgin’s zeal, along with well-placed bribes, allowed his own agents to proceed beyond the original limits of his permit granted by the Turkish authorities.
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Imeros, an Athens based organisation have produced a new opera “Opus Elgin: the Destruction of the Parthenon”, about the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum. More information about it is available here.

Tickets for the event are available here.

Recieved by email.

World Premiere – New Greek Opera About The Return of The Parthenon Marbles From the British Museum – Press Release

Imeros is a non-for-profit organization (NFP) founded in 1995 by a group of scholars and artists based in Athens. Imeros aims to produce dance theater performances after research on a specific topic. Its original purpose was for actors, dancers, musicians and artists to collaborate and find new ways of expression. The Company was previously sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, but since February 2011 it is an independent Non-Profit Organization and its goal is to promote cultural development globally.

We are writing to invite you to our new opera “Opus Elgin: the Destruction of the Parthenon” (http://www.all4parthenon.gr/), which is an original opera by Theodore Stathis making its World Premiere on May 29th, 2012 at the Athens Concert Hall/Alexandra Triandi Stage at 8:00 PM, in Athens Greece.

We hope you can help spread the news or put us in touch with other organizations globally who are also engaged in this effort. We plan on bringing this opera around the world for the sole purpose of increasing awareness, but more importantly applying pressure on the British government to safely return the Parthenon Marbles to our new state-of the art Acropolis museum in Athens.

A reader responds to the article in the Guardian about the reasons why the Parthenon Marbles weren’t the only special case for restitution.

From:
Guardian

Series: Brief letters
Tuesday 3 April 2012 21.00 BST

Mike Pitts (Can we have our past back?, G2, 3 April) writes “it should be noted that none of the Parthenon sculptures can be set on the original building, they have to be exhibited in museums, wherever they may be”. There is only one appropriate museum, constructed in the hope of the sculptures’ eventual return: the excellent Acropolis museum. Here there is a full-scale reconstruction of the Parthenon, on the same alignment, and within view of it. The casts that now adorn it could be sent to Britain, and the originals returned to their rightful place.

Mary Lambell
Reigate, Surrey

As well as eighteen artefacts in the Metropolitan Museum, Turkey is requesting the return of many other disputed artefacts in other museums across the USA.

From:
Los Angeles Times

Turkey asks U.S. museums for return of antiquities
By Jason Felch, Los Angeles Times
March 30, 2012, 8:48 p.m.

The government of Turkey is asking American museums to return dozens of artifacts that were allegedly looted from the country’s archaeological sites, opening a new front in the search for antiquities smuggled out of their original countries through an illicit trade.

The J. Paul Getty Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Cleveland Museum of Art and Harvard University’s Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection are among the institutions that the Turkish government has contacted, officials say.
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A Greek based campaign for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles have written an open letter to British Prime Minister, David Cameron, calling for their return.

From:
Global Greek World

Saturday, March 31, 2012
Open Letter to Mr David Cameron re The Parthenon Sculptures Issue and the London Olympic Games

The following is the text of the Open Letter to Mr David Cameron, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, which was issued today by Mr Alexis Mantheakis, Chairman of the International Parthenon Sculptures Action Committee Inc (NZ), requesting the repatriation of the Parthenon Sculptures. We are pleased to be part of the IPSACI movement from the very first day, supporting Greece’s just demand for the return home of these unique works of art pillaged by Elgin and which remain imprisoned at the British Museum…

To The Rt. Honourable Mr. David Cameron

Dear Prime Minister,

Re – The Parthenon Sculptures Issue and the London Olympic Games

My country, Greece is currently suffering from one of the worst upheavals in its history, with its institutions and economy hanging in the balance and its people being subjected to unprecedented peacetime suffering and tensions for reasons every Greek citizen and politician knows. In the past we, of Greece, a small but inordinately proud nation, stood virtually alone at your side when Europe collapsed during the Second World War. Despite the terrible cost we would have to pay in lives and property we did not, as your allies, hesitate for a moment to stand up to the vastly numerically superior forces of Hitler and Mussolini, turning the tide of the war long enough to delay the deployment of German forces to attack on the Eastern front. The result was, as your eminent predecessor Sir Winston Churchill declared “If there had not been the virtue and courage of the Greeks, we do not know which the outcome of World War II would have been.”
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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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