Greek culture minister Nikos Xydakis has responded to the news that his country’s request for mediation over the Parthenon Marbles issue has been rejected by both the British Government and the British Museum.

Part of the Parthenon Marbles, the river god Ilissos in the Duveen Gallery

From:
ABC News (Australia)

Greece condemns British Museum’s refusal to allow mediation over ancient Parthenon sculptures
Posted 28 Mar 2015, 10:02pm

Greece has condemned the British Museum’s decision to reject a UNESCO offer to help resolve a decades-old dispute over returning ancient Parthenon sculptures to Athens.

The sculptures are part of the collection popularly known as the Elgin Marbles which were acquired by Lord Elgin in the early 1800s when he was ambassador to the Ottoman court.
Read the rest of this entry »

The British Musuem is loaning various artefacts to the National Museum of Australia in Canberra. The artefacts were taken by Captain Cook while he was exploring Australia.

Various Aboriginal groups want the items returned permanently though.

One thing that loans such as this do prove, is that even though the British Museum insists that the artefacts are better located in the British Museum, there is a tacit acknowledgement that there is a significance to exhibiting them in their country of origin, even if it is only temporary. If Australian artefacts can return in this way, then why can’t they make a similar loan of the Parthenon Marbles?

Aboriginal bark painting of a barramundi dating from 1861

From:
ABC News (Australia)

Indigenous artefacts collected by Captain Cook set to return for exhibit in Australia
Updated February 26, 2015 19:11:43

The National Museum of Australia (NMA) in Canberra says a controversial exhibition will see Indigenous souvenirs collected by Captain James Cook return to Australia for the first time in 245 years.

The British Museum in London will loan 150 Indigenous exhibits for display, including the shield and spears thought to be taken by Captain Cook from Botany Bay in 1770.
Read the rest of this entry »

ABC’s Big Ideas has re-broadcast June’s debate on the Parthenon Marbles organised by Intelligence Squared.

From:
ABC (Australia)

Published 23 July 2012
IQ2 Debate: ‘Send Them Back’ The Parthenon Marbles Should Be Returned to Athens

The proposition for this IQ2 debate from the UK is ‘Send Them Back: The Parthenon Marbles Should Be Returned to Athens’. These marbles, also known as the Elgin marbles, were removed by Lord Elgin (British Ambassador to Constantinople 1799-1803, Greece was under Turkish rule until the 1830’s War of Independence) and shipped back to London in the early part of the 19th century.

The Parthenon sculpture included a large amount of 5th century BC sculptured freize (about 75 metres) that once ran around the Parthenon and life size sculpted figures.
Read the rest of this entry »

The International Organising Committee Australia for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, has launched their new website. The IOCARPM is one of two committees in Australia, whose sole aim is to campaign for the return of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum to the New Acropolis Museum in Athens.

From:
ABC (Australia)

Push to return Parthenon Marbles to Greece
Updated March 15, 2012 09:10:50

There has been a renewed call from a committee of Greek Australians for the British government to return the Elgin or Parthenon Marbles to Greece.

The marbles are Greek sculptures that were part of the Parthenon, but have been held in London’s British Museum for nearly 200 years.
Read the rest of this entry »

Canterbury Auction Galleries in Kent planned on selling a sacred Aboriginal artefact known as the Tjuringa stone. The sale has now been cancelled following pressure from Australian Museums & the Australian High Commission in London.

From:
ABC (Australia)

Sacred stone withdrawn from UK auction
Tanya Nolan reported this story on Wednesday, September 7, 2011 12:50:00

ELEANOR HALL: Now to that victory for Indigenous Australians.

A British auction house has withdrawn a sacred Aboriginal artefact from sale after high level intervention by Australian museums and the Australian High Commission in London.

The Tjuringa stone, which is believed to belong to Arrernte people of Central Australia, was being sold by a woman from Kent who says she was given it as a gift when she lived in Sydney more than 50 years ago.
Read the rest of this entry »

The restoration of the Propylaia which forms the gateway to the Acropolis has now been completed, ending another chapter in the Acropolis’s extensive restoration programme.

From:
Athens News Agency

12/22/2009
Restoration of Acropolis Propylaea completed

All scaffolding and cranes were fully removed from the Propylaea of the Acropolis, the monumental entrance, or gateway, to the Acropolis, on the weekend following completion of the restoration work on the central building of the structure.

The Propylaea was built under the direction of Athenian leader Pericles, but the building itself was designed by the architect Mnesicles, while construction began in 437 BCE and was terminated in 432 BCE, while the building was still unfinished.
Read the rest of this entry »

The reunification of human remains held in museums with Aboriginal groups is a hot topic at the moment in Australia. The Human Tissue Act made the return of many such artefacts possible, but there are still many who claim that such returns are removing a key source of scientific & anthropological study – to the detriment of the institutions that currently held the artefacts.

Listen to the original programme here.

From:
ABC (Australia)

Regarding human remains
12 August 2009
The collection and display of human remains and human body parts were once legitimate activities for the great universal museums. Rear Vision tracks the changes in attitudes towards such displays from outside the museum world as well as from within.

CLACKING/CHANTING

Man: We’re gathered here today to welcome our old people back home.

Reporter: The Naranjeri remains were stolen from 27 gravesites between 1898 and 1906 by the controversial Adelaide coroner, Dr William Ramsay Smith. He sold livers, hearts and skeletons on the open market, all in the name of research.

Keri Phillips: During the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, collectors, traders and amateur and professional scientists from the developed world amassed enormous collections from all over the globe. These collections often contained human remains, everything from tattooed human skin and skulls to the bones of lepers and other diseased body parts. Early on, but especially during the 20th century, many of these collections were bequeathed to museums but as time wore on and museums began to change from research institutions to places of public display, questions began to be raised both within and outside the museum community about the ethics and legality of the collection, retention and display of humans and human body parts. In recent decades, some museums have begun to repatriate their collection of human remains.
Read the rest of this entry »

On the eve of the official opening of the New Acropolis Museum, the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures held a meeting to discuss how the issue might be tackled in the coming years & how the organisation could help facilitate the return of the Elgin Marbles. Members were present from organisations in sixteen different countries, all of whose primary aim is the reunification of the surviving Parthenon Sculptures in Athens.

From:
Agence France Presse

Return Elgin marbles for London Olympics: campaigners
3 days ago

ATHENS (AFP) — The 2012 London Olympics would represent a symbolic moment perfect for the return of the long-disputed Elgin Marbles from Britain to Greece, campaigners said Friday.

Representatives of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS) — which has members in 17 countries — visited Athens Friday ahead of the new Acropolis Museum’s inauguration on Saturday.
Read the rest of this entry »

Further coverage of the grand opening of the New Acropolis Museum. Predictably the British Museum is taking a defensive approach, choosing to try & negate any benefit of the new museum rather than congratulating Greece on this achievement.

From:
ABC News (Australia)

Greece unveils new home for marbles
Posted Sat Jun 20, 2009 1:34pm AEST
Updated Sun Jun 21, 2009 10:23am AEST

A new museum has opened in Athens, with a special gallery in it for the Elgin Marbles.

The marbles are Greek sculptures that were part of the Parthenon, but have been held in London’s British Museum for nearly 200 years.
Read the rest of this entry »

ABC Television in Australia has produced a program about the Parthenon Marbles as part of their Foreign Correspondent series.

From:
ABC (Australia)

Greece – Losing their Marbles
Broadcast: 07/10/2008
Reporter: Helen Vatsikopoulos
LEAD STORY, SERIES 18, EPISODE 15
Synopsis

The Acropolis, framed by the pillars of the Parthenon, is one of the most important ancient monuments in the world – a constant reminder of the glory days of Greece.

“Every Athenian has a difficult life, has to earn a living, but at any moment he can raise his eyes and look at the Acropolis and nothing is so bad at that moment,” says the head of the new museum, Professor Dimitrios Pandermalis.
Read the rest of this entry »

A relatively minor issue is now provoking much debate amongst museums curators & archaeologists. At the suggestion of some staff, Manchester Museum has taken the decision to shroud the unwrapped contents of mummies that are on display. The decision, made out of respect for the dead has been welcomed by Zahi Hawass.

As times evolve, museums are shifting from being collections of curiosities, through being windows onto different cultures, to now finding that in many cases they have to actually interact with the cultures (or the descendants thereof) that originally owned the artefacts that they are displaying. Museums of the west have to now accept that they must consider not only the sensibilities of their own country or culture, but also those that created the items in their collections.

From:
ABC News (Australia)

‘Naked’ mummies cover-up welcomed
Posted Fri May 23, 2008 8:47am AEST

Egyptian antiquities chief Zahi Hawass has welcomed a decision by a British museum to cover-up its collection of ancient Egyptian mummies, saying it is a question of ethics.

Covering up the mummies is “a very important decision. I myself am with this position on an ethical basis, not a religious one,” Mr Hawass told AFP.
Read the rest of this entry »