The British Museum has responded unfavourably to MP Angus MacNeil’s proposal that the British Museum could open an outpost in the Western Isles to house the Lewis Chessmen.

From:
Scotsman

Thursday, 11th March 2010
Lewis chessmen must stay in British Museum, minister says
Published Date: 11 March 2010
By David Maddox

A PROPOSAL to create a wing of the British Museum on the Isle of Lewis to house the famous chess pieces found there was yesterday rejected by the UK government.

Western Isles Nationalist MP Angus MacNeil put forward the idea as a compromise solution to allow the 78 12th century Lewis chessmen to go home.
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MP Angus MacNeil has suggested that the Lewis Chessmen could be housed in an outpost of the British Museum located in the Western Isles. This suggestion is not dis-similar to what was proposed for the Parthenon Sculptures by the Greek government in 2003, where it was suggested that the British Museum could have a joint curatorship agreement with the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
BBC News

Page last updated at 16:52 GMT, Wednesday, 10 March 2010
MP calls for return of chessmen

The historic Lewis chessmen could be housed in an extension of the British Museum built on the Western Isles, the islands SNP MP has suggested.

Angus MacNeil told a debate in Westminster that most, if not all, the 93 pieces should be returned to Lewis where they were found buried in 1831.
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Today marks the point at which the website has been running for five years. I had the site registered for some time before that, but only with a single page of links available on it. Today marks the anniversary though of the first posting to the current site (the observant amongst you will notice that it is not the earliest post listed – this is because I later aided numerous saved articles from earlier dates).

The site itself is still largely in the same format as when it was first started – I would however like to think that in that time many of the issues have moved forward. Perhaps one of the most significant steps forward is the opening of the New Acropolis Museum – something that finally put to rest the long standing argument that the Parthenon Marbles could not be returned because there would be nowhere to put them. During the past five years, there have been many high profile (& in a lot of cases unanticipated) restitutions of disputed artefacts, showing that the cultural climate has made a definite shift towards resolving such issues. There are still many cases that remain unresolved however – the first case mentioned on this site involved the British Museum & they continue to drag their heels at every step of the way, hiding behind legal obstacles & refusing to enter into serious debate on issues of restitution. They are far from the only such institution that takes this view, but in the eyes of many, they are one of the worst.

I hope that in the next five year, the situation will have changed again – that some of the world’s great museums will realise that to lead the way in the twenty-first century means taking a radically different approach from that taken by them in the previous two hundred years. The institutions that are first to define a new operational model need to step out & admit that times have changed – that the future of museums is going to be a different one to that which they have been used to – but that if handled correctly it can be a win-win situation for all parties involved.

The Spectator has unexpectedly spoken out in favour of the return of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum to Greece. This is the second positive article in a year about the subject – from a source that historically has been against such action.

From:
Spectator

Thursday, 4th March 2010
Why we should give the Elgin Marbles back to Greece
Daniel Korski 10:45am

While we’re talking about countries on the brink, it’s worth taking a look at Greece – which has probably passed beyond it. The government has published its package of austerity measures – aiming to reduce its deficit to 8.7 percent of GDP by the end of 2010 – and the markets are deciding what they think. But, in the meantime, the country faces strikes; the Euro is taking a pummeling; there are fears that problems may spread to countries like Portugal and Spain; and Greek foreign policy – particularly with regard to Macedonia and the Balkans – is stalling. Nobody is through the woods yet.

All this mean that George Papandreou’s problems are also the EU’s problem. Sure, as one of Greece’s best known scholars Loukas Tsoukalis says, “there is no denying that the prime responsibility for dealing with the Greek problem lies with the Greeks themselves.” But answers to these problems will also have to come from Berlin, Paris and Frankfurt, home of the ECB. But London can play a role too.
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Much like the Elgin Marbles, the Aphrodite of Milos was removed from Greece whilst the country was under Ottoman occupation during the nineteenth century.

From:
Hurriyet

Greece and Germany fight over Aphrodite of Melos
Monday, March 1, 2010
Ariana Ferentinou

I am sure that no one these days has heard of the name Georgos Kentrotas or Botonis, least of all the German editors of the Magazine Focus who chose to act somewhat like modern archaeologists or restorers and added one of the two missing arms of Aphrodite of Melos to their cover page.

But if it was not for this poor Greek farmer, this whole uproar over the “fingers up” symbolism against the European Union would never have been created.
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The Acropolis in Athens, along with the numerous buildings that occupy & surround the site are all now on Google Earth in 3D.

From:
Google Earth Blog

March 1, 2010
Athens goes 3D

With the Winter Olympics wrapping up, Google thought it’d be fun to revisit the site of the first modern Olympic games. They’ve added detailed 3D coverage to the city, with thousands of buildings now showing off sharp 3D models.

They provide a list of fun places to check out, such as the Parthenon and the Herodeion Theater.

You can also view a short video tour of the 3D city of Athens here.

Korea like other countries has been observing the approach taken by countries such as Italy & Egypt in retrieving their cultural property, whereby they have switched from a diplomatic approach to more hard-line measures with a certain amount of success.

From:
Joong Ang Daily

More than treasure lies beneath a historical trove of Korean art
[NEWS IN FOCUS:First in a two-part series]

Determining who has the rights – legal and natural – to the relics is a complicated question.
March 01, 2010

For much of its tumultuous history, Korea was invaded by stronger nations. Time after time, dating back to the fifth century, invaders ravaged the helpless country and none went home without spoils: They carted off cultural treasures ranging from texts from royal libraries to paintings and sculptures.
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In a followup to the story a few days ago about the Lewis Chessmen, the British Museum responds to the criticism, although seems to be missing the fact that the real issue isn’t over technicalities off where the pieces were created, but of the realities of where they were discovered & how the people there see them as a part of their identity.

From:
Press and Journal

MPs hit out at snub to Scots origin of chessmen
British museum project on Lewis artefacts ignores place of discovery
By David Perry
Published: 26/02/2010

A motion which “deplores” the way the Hebridean origin of the fabled Lewis Chessmen has been airbrushed out of a major British Museum project has been put down in the Commons.

Western Isles SNP MP Angus MacNeil has secured the support of two SNP MPs and seven others for his motion, which complains that a poster campaign shows a picture of one of the chess pieces – found buried in sand dunes at Uig, Lewis – with the date AD 1150-1200 and the word “Norway” below it.
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A more recent case of an artefact in a UK museum – that its original owners want returned because they feel that it symbolises more for to them than it does to the museum it is currently in.

From:
Irish Central

The Keane Edge
by Brendan Patrick Keane

Pressure on a British museum to return Gal Gréine to Ireland, and honor Constance Markiewicz, Irish nationalist and feminist leader

During the Easter Rising of 1916, the British administration engaged in a shock and awe campaign to destroy Dublin, and the morale of Dubliners, by the brute force of its army. Destruction and looting was a psychological tactic, and much treasure was whisked from the capital city of Ireland, back to the imperial city of London, as trophies of the British empire’s brutal resistance to self-determination.
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An ancient coffin smuggled into the US many years ago is now due to be returned to Egypt.

From:
Press TV

US to return smuggled Egyptian coffin
Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:59:34 GMT

Egyptian Culture Minister Faruq Hosni says his country will reclaim a Pharaonic coffin smuggled into the US more than 125 years ago.

Egypt’s antiquities chief Zahi Hawass will receive the ornately painted coffin next month, Hosni said in a statement.
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