Greek Culture Minster, Evangelos Venizelos, has issued a statement, clarifying what Greece is & isn’t asking to be returned – and that the requests against the British Museum only include the sculptures from the Parthenon, despite assertions from the museums that this would be the tip of the iceberg, leading to more artefacts returning afterwards.

From:
New York Times

December 13, 2002
Greece Affirms Limits to Elgin Marbles Claim
By CELESTINE BOHLEN

Greece’s case for the return of the so-called Elgin Marbles — fragments of the Parthenon frieze now housed in the British Museum — has nothing to do with claims for the repatriation of other cultural assets, Evangelos Venizelos, the Greek culture minister, said yesterday.

He was responding to a recent statement signed by 18 museum directors representing most of the major museums of the United States and Europe (except those in Britain and most of those in Italy). The statement affirmed the museums’ right to hold on to artworks that have long been in their collections.
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Various major museums from around the world have issued a document declaring the importance of the Universal Museum. It is thought that part of their aim behind this, is in an attempt to prevent having to return artefacts from their collections (with dubious provenance) to their original owners. This is of particular concern to many Australian Aboriginal groups, who were having a certain level of success in working towards a commitment for the return of artefacts involving human remains.

From:
The Age (Melbourne)

Museums get tough on ‘trophy’ returns
December 11 2002
By Peter Fray,
Europe Correspondent,
London

A group of leading European and US museums have issued a declaration opposing the wholesale repatriation of cultural artefacts seized during imperial rule or by means now considered unethical.

They say the universal role played by collections of archaeological, artistic and ethnic objects in promoting culture outweighs the desire by individual countries or racial groups for their return.
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More coverage of the declaration on the importance of the Universal Museum – issued without the name of the British Museum included on it, but thought by many to have been masterminded by them. Many have been quick to notice the relevance of this declaration in trying to shore up the British Museums defences for their retention of the Elgin Marbles, against the powerful argument presented by the construction of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens.

From:
News Observer

Wednesday, December 11, 2002 3:26PM EST
World galleries back British Museum in dispute with Greece
By ROBERT BARR, ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON (AP) – Several of the world’s leading museums defended the British Museum’s right to keep ancient statues taken from the Parthenon 200 years ago, despite Greek demands for their return.

A letter signed by the directors of 18 museums, including the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, said works acquired decades ago have become essential to the museums that house them. “Objects acquired in earlier times must be viewed in the light of different sensitivities and values, reflective of that earlier era,” the statement said.
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A Belgian newspaper appears to have re-printed the story about the real origins of the Elgin Marbles from Artnose, without realising that the whole story was originally written as a satirical spoof.

From:
Guardian

How the Belgians lost their marbles
Fiachra Gibbon, arts correspondent
Saturday December 7, 2002

It looked like the archaeological scoop of the year. The Elgin Marbles were not Greek after all, but the work of a wandering stonemason from Devon called Phil Davies who changed his name to Pheidias to ingratiate himself with his ancient Athenian patrons.

And it got better. The British Museum, sick of a century of Greek whingeing about its refusal to return to sculptures to the Acropolis, was now demanding the repatriation of the entire Parthenon to Britain where it would be rebuilt as a part of a “shopping centre and multiplex cinema” in the West Midlands.
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Ellis Tinios, argues that the sculptures from the Parthenon that remain in Athens are not as well preserved as those in London, but this seems to miss a lot of key points.

Surely, if he was free to take whichever pieces he wanted to, Elgin would have taken the best ones available & not the worst ones.

Secondly, if Elgin’s removal of the sculptures did have an incidental effect of preservation was just that – entirely incidental. Elgin never originally intended the sculptures for anything other than ornamenting his own house. Claims about damage to them in Athens appeared only when the removal process was already very well advanced.

Finally – most of the factors such as acid rain & other pollution are things that Elgin could hardly have anticipated – they are post-rationalised arguments based on looking back with hindsight – which should in no way justify the original actions.

From:
Guardian

The fate of the Parthenon sculptures in Athens
This is the history of what happened to the sculptures on the Parthenon from early Christian times to the 21st century and the damage to those remaining after Lord Elgin bought the majority of them
By Ellis Tinios

Advocates of the “restitution” of the Elgin Marbles do their best to ignore, belittle or dismiss the fact that the sculptures removed by Lord Elgin’s agents from the Parthenon were spared substantial further damage. Instead, the more intemperate of them suggest that Elgin’s actions represent perhaps the worst assault ever perpetrated upon the building.

The history of the degradation and destruction of the architectural sculpture on the Parthenon spans 1,600 years, from the fifth century to the closing decades of the 20th century. In what follows I will seek to place Elgin’s actions in the context of that history before turning to what I regard the central issue in the “Marbles” debate.
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There are many copies of the Parthenon Sculptures about – some are better reproductions than others, depending on whether they were a first or later generation cast. But there is only one original set, which Greece hopes to be able to house in the New Acropolis Museum once it opens.

From:
Norwich Bulletin

Sunday, November 17, 2002
Slater’s Parthenon replicas impress — despite Greek snub
By DAVID PENCEK
Norwich Bulletin

NORWICH — Copies? We don’t want your copies. We have plenty of copies. We want the originals.

That’s how a spokesman from the U.S. Greek Embassy responded when asked by a reporter if Greece had any interest in borrowing the Slater Museum’s plaster-cast replicas of the disputed Parthenon marbles.

Greece wants the original marbles returned in time for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. The originals have been housed in the British Museum in London since it acquired them from Lord Elgin in 1811.
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Greece is building a new museum specifically to house all the surviving Parthenon sculptures in one place. Unless the British Museum changes their mind though, it looks as though it will open without this main exhibit in place.

From:
Guardian

No, you can’t play with our marbles
A new museum in Athens looks doomed, not least because it won’t have its major exhibits
Deyan Sudjic
Sunday November 17, 2002
The Observer

Never mind for a moment what Bernard Tschumi’s new Acropolis Museum might look like. From the Greek government’s point of view, he is the ideal architect to design a home for the Parthenon marbles in the unlikely event that Neil McGregor ever changes his mind and lets them out of the British Museum.

Not only is Tschumi not Greek, and can therefore be presumed to be neutral in the struggle for the marbles, but he is also fashionable. So his appointment can be presented as a confident, open- minded gesture of cultural maturity rather than the more predictable selection of a favoured local son. With an international reputation based on his years teaching at the Architectural Association in London and now as the Dean at Columbia University in New York, the Swiss-born Tschumi’s credentials are impeccable.
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The Elgin Marbles were carved by a Welsh sculpture called Phil Davies – allegedly…

The problem is that the story sounds more plausible that some of the other mis-information that is used to justify the continued retention of these sculptures in the British Museum.

From:
Artnose

Elgin Marbles were made by Englishman, claims Oxford don
By Percy Flarge
Artnose Cultural Heritage correspondent

THE ELGIN MARBLES were made by an English sculptor and are therefore definitively English and should stay in Britain, according to new research by the renowned Oxford archaeologist Dr Rex Tooms.

Dr Tooms’s research has uncovered fresh evidence that Pheidias, the Greek sculptor of the Parthenon Marbles (one shown above left) was not in fact Greek at all, but an itinerant worker of British extraction named Philip Davies who settled in Athens around 453 and who changed his name to Pheidias in order to insinuate himself into Athenian social and artistic circles.
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Greece has outlined a new deal to the British Museum, whereby a series of temporary loans of artefacts – some of them never before publicly displayed – would be made available if the Elgin Marbles were returned to Athens.

From:
The Age (Melbourne)

Greece offers art loan in exchange for Marbles
November 13 2002
London

Greece has offered to lend antiquities to the British Museum in exchange for the Elgin Marbles that once decorated the Parthenon but are now a star London attraction.

Museum director Neil MacGregor, however, said the frieze sculptures would not leave the country.
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Greek Culture Minister, Evangelos Venizelos, says that the return of the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece is the will of the British People. He is in the UK on a mission to promote the case for the return of the statues, currently housed in the British Museum.

BBC News

Tuesday, 12 November, 2002, 17:14 GMT
Minister puts case for Marbles return

The Greek culture minister has said the British people want the Elgin marbles to be returned to Greece.

Evangelos Venizelos is in London to introduce Greece’s first official proposal to return the marbles to their home and will meet the UK’s Culture Minister Tessa Jowell.
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The British Museum has responded to the recent calls from Greece for the return of the Elgin Marbles, suggesting that they have no intention on altering their position on the issue.

From:
Reuters

British Museum Resists Greece on Elgin Marbles
November 13, 2002 12:07 PM ET
By Christian Oliver

LONDON (Reuters) – Returning the Elgin marbles to Greece would rip the heart out of a collection that tells the story of human civilization, the British Museum said on Wednesday.

In a riposte to the latest efforts by Greece to repatriate the classical sculptures, the museum rejected proposals to send them back on a long-term loan basis.
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The British Museum has long suggested that the return of the Elgin Marbles is not possible, because setting aside all other arguments, their governing charter, the British Museum Act, prohibits the deaccessioning of artefacts from their collections.

New proposals from Greece, of a long term loan of the sculptures, would be one possible way around this sticking point.

If this loan was reciprocated by temporary loans from Athens, this cold do a lot to help the British Museum’s finances, as the temporary exhibitions are a major source of additional income to the museum over & above the grant in aid funding that it receives from the government.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Monday November 11, 2002
Ray of light for Marbles?

After years of refusing to consider returning the Parthenon Marbles to Athens, the British Museum may be considering a radical plan to exchange them for a series of rotating exhibitions of ancient Greek artifacts that could help increase its revenues, Britain’s Independent newspaper reported yesterday.

The news came on the eve of Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos’s visit to London. Today he is to meet with his British counterpart, Tessa Jowell, and the British Museum’s new director, Neil MacGregor. The sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles, will be at the top of Venizelos’s agenda. He will also be presenting plans of the new Acropolis Museum, which is to be ready by the 2004 Olympics and has been designed to house the marbles now in London.
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