Once again, the dimming of the lights on the Acropolis in Athens is one of the highlights of Earth Hour, an event organised by the WWF & celebrated around the world.

You can view some before & after pictures of the event here.

From:
Guardian

Earth Hour will be watched over from space as the lights go out
Adam Vaughan
guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 March 2012 14.46 BST

Earth Hour, the environmentally symbolic annual switch-off of lights for one hour this Saturday night, is to extend into space this year, with the International Space Station taking part for the first time. A post-Gadafi Libya will also be a newcomer to the event.

The Dutch astronaut André Kuipers, who this week oversaw the trickier task of receiving supplies from one of Europe’s unmanned spacecraft, will share photos of Earth and live commentary as landmarks from the Eiffel Tower to the Sydney Opera House switch off their lights. WWF, the event’s organisers, say this year will see record participation, with 5,411 cities and towns, and 147 countries taking part, up from 5,251 and 135 in 2011.
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More coverage of the decision by Greece to reduce the costs for filming permits at the country’s ancient sites.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Greece cuts filming costs at Acropolis
Thursday, January 19, 2012
By Natalie Weeks

The Acropolis, Greece’s star attraction for 2,500 years, may be preparing for a bigger role.

The Greek government lowered the permit costs this month for using archaeological sites and museums for film crews to 1,600 euros ($2,039) a day from as much as 4,000 euros in a 2005 pricelist, and for professional photographers to 200 euros from 300 euros, according to the Culture and Tourism Ministry. Historical spots include the Acropolis, which houses the Parthenon, and Delphi, home of the ancient oracle.
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Despite the way that this was reported as hiring out ancient artefacts in many new sources, the actual story is that the cost of permits for professional filming on the Acropolis are to be reduced. The permits already exist, it is just that the cost will be less than previously.

From:
Greek Reporter

Debt-Riddled Greece Will Lease Acropolis For Commercial Exploitation
By Stella Tsolakidou on January 17, 2012

In a move bound to leave many Greeks and scholars aghast, Greece’s Ministry of Culture said on Tuesday it will open up some of the debt-stricken country’s most-cherished archaeological sites to advertising firms and other ventures.

Leasing the Parthenon through the taxation of photo and cinema shoots seems to be one of the top priorities for the Greek government, in order to raise money and tackle the debt crisis threatening the country with default.
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A photo exhibition on display at the Hellenic Foundation for Culture in the Ukraine’s third largest city, Odessa, is running until 28th April.

From:
Greek Reporter

Ukraine: Photo Exhibition Shows the New Acropolis Museum of Athens
By Areti Kotseli on March 23, 2012

The public of Odessa will have the unique opportunity – starting tomorrow – to admire the New Acropolis Museum through a photo exhibition.

The exhibition will be held on the occasion of the March 25th National Anniversary in the exhibition rooms of the annex of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture (HFC) in Odessa.
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Although most of the sculptures from the Acropolis have already been removed & replaces with replicas, with the originals in the Acropolis Museum, there are still a small number of pieces that are still in the process of being removed to be eventually relocated indoors away from the damaging effects of pollution.

From:
Agence France Presse

Zeus and Hera leave Acropolis for safe-keeping: official
(AFP) – Aug 27, 2011

ATHENS — A sculpture depicting Zeus and Hera, king and queen of the ancient Greek pantheon of gods, has been permanently removed from the Acropolis in Athens for safe-keeping, a project supervisor said Saturday.

The sculpture — one of the last of the original decorative pieces adorning the 2,500-year-old Parthenon temple — will be showcased in the Acropolis Museum in Athens and will be replaced by a copy, architect Vasso Eleftheriou said.
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William St Clair, Author of Lord Elgin and the Marbles, is giving the 21st annual Runciman lecture at Kings College London tomorrow.

From:
Kings College, London

21st Annual Runciman Lecture
Thursday 2 February 2012
Great Hall, Strand Campus, 18.00
Looking at the Athenian Acropolis: from modern times to antiquity
Speaker: William St Clair

William St Clair will discuss the ways in which the Acropolis has historically been interpreted by three main constituencies, the people of Athens, visitors from abroad, and those who only saw Athens in their imaginations with the help of pictures. Beginning in modern times when current viewing conventions were invented, and going back through chronological layers, he suggests how his approach can improve our understanding of how the Acropolis was understood in antiquity.

His starting point is that it was the viewers who made the meanings.
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The Acropolis in Athens is now going to be open for longer. It is already better than it used to be though, as I remember visiting it in the 1990s, when it seemed that it was barely open in the afternoons during the winter months.

From:
The Independent

Longer opening hours for Athens Acropolis
AFP
Saturday, 21 May 2011

Greece is to extend the opening hours of the Acropolis in Athens due to public demand, Culture Minister Pavlos Geroulanosin announced Thursday.

The site will open from 8:00 am (0500 GMT) to 19:00 pm (1600 GMT) year-round after staffing changes prompted by a restructure of the country’s public bodies.
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Apostolos Santas became famous in 1941, when he tore down the Nazi flag that had been raised on the Acropolis in Athens.

From:
Athens News Agency

Resistance figure Santas dies
06/13/2011

(ΑΝΑ-ΜPA) — One of the two men who secretly climbed atop the emblematic Acropolis Hill in central Athens and took down the Swastika in the early morning hours of May 31, 1941 – a defiant and extraordinarily symbolic act of resistance at the beginning of the Axis occupation of Greece (1941-44) – died on Saturday at the age of 89.

Apostolos Santas passed away in Athens.
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A museum in the Netherlands is returning a fragment from the Acropolis that was taken by a Dutch tourist as a souvenir fifty years ago. This is a similar sort of case to a fragment from the Colosseum in Rome, that was returned from the USA in 2009. The Museum of Antiquities in Leiden wants other museums to follow their example – unfortunately most seem intent on taking a less enlightened approach to the issue.

From:
RNW

Piece of Acropolis returned after 50 years
Published on 11 April 2011 – 11:09am

The Museum of Antiquities in the Dutch city of Leiden will return to Greece a small marble fragment of the Acropolis: the ancient fortress and temple complex in the capital Athens.

Newspaper de Volkskrant reports that the piece of marble, probably part of a cornerstone located just above one of the Acropolis’ columns, was taken by a Dutch tourist more than fifty years ago.
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The Russian Magazine Ellada has an article in it about an exhibition of photos of the Parthenon by Apostolos Papapostolou.

From:
Greek Reporter

Parthenon Photo Exhibition Profiled in “Ellada” Greek-Russian Magazine
Posted on 25 March 2011 by Polina Dimea

A special feature in the Russian magazine “Ellada” (Greece), which is published in Moscow, was dedicated to the “Marbles” photo exhibition and its creator Mr. Apostolos Papapostolou. The above mentioned magazine is the only printed medium in Russia specialized in topics related to Greece and Cyprus.

The article outlines the profile and work of Mr. Papapostolou, who is a professor in the Technological Educational Institution (TEI) of Athens. It describes how art and technology are his big loves, and actually a motivation for a remarkable photographic approach of the Parthenon marbles.
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More coverage of the metopes from the Parthenon that have been discovered buried within the walls of the Acropolis.

From:
Agence France Presse

Long-lost marble fragments found in Acropolis walls
(AFP) – Mar 3, 2011

ATHENS — Archaeologists in Greece have located long-lost fragments from the 2,500-year-old Parthenon built into the outer walls of the Athens Acropolis, a supervising official said on Thursday.

The fragments were pinpointed after a vertical scan of the 20-metre (65-foot) walls using a camera mounted on a modified weather balloon, says Mary Ioannidou, head of the Acropolis Restoration Service.
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Unfortunately, unlike other years, due to issues with large numbers of visitors in previous years, the Acropolis will not have a late night full moon opening this August. Many other Archaeological sites in Greece will be open late however.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Wednesday August 3, 2011
Acropolis closed for full moon night

Officials said on Wednesday that the Acropolis, the most popular ancient monument in the Greek capital, will not open on the night of the August full moon following extensive damage to the site last year.

Fool moon night in August is the only time when archeological sites remain open after sunset.
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