Its great to see that Switzerland is finally doing something to clear up the murky world of artefacts smuggled via the Free Port in Geneva.

An Etruscan sarcophagus is among stolen ancient artworks that Switzerland has returned to Italy

From:
The Local (Switzerland)

Switzerland returns looted Etruscan treasures to Italy
Published: 14 Jan 2016 16:18 GMT+01:00

Switzerland has returned to Italy 45 boxes of ancient Etruscan art stolen during illegal excavations and stashed away for more than 15 years, including two rare sarcophaguses, authorities said on Thursday.

“The antiques were given back to Italian authorities today,” a statement from Geneva’s public prosecutor’s office said.
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New voting booths have been installed in Athens airport, to let departing visitors give their opinion on whether or not the Parthenon Sculptures should be returned.

This is an interesting approach, as the bulk of tourists passing through the airport will have visited both the Acropolis & the Acropolis Museum, allowing them to make a fairly informed judgement about whether the Acropolis Museum would be the most suitable location for the display of the sculptures.

Interactive voting screens at Athens Airport

From:
Agence France Presse

Greece reach out to tourists to help bring Elgin Marbles back
Published: November 20, 2014 08:30 AM

ATHENS, Nov 20 — The Greek government is asking tourists at Athens airport to join the notorious debate over the return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece from London.

Faced with a picture of the famed Parthenon and its marble statues on an interactive screen, travellers are asked to reply “yes” or “no” to the question: “Do you support the return of the Parthenon marbles?”.
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The Director of the New Acropolis Museum, Professor Dimitrios Pantermalis, has announced planed talks to be held with the British Museum, to discuss how the Parthenon Marbles issue might be resolved.

from:
Agence France Presse

Greece in Parthenon talks with British Museum
(AFP) – 5 days ago

ATHENS — Greece is holding talks with the British Museum on the return of fragments from the Parthenon Marbles, the director of the Acropolis Museum in Athens said on Thursday.

Demetrios Pantermalis said he had made a proposal on the issue at a UNESCO meeting in June and that talks would be held in Athens in the coming weeks.
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More coverage of the problems facing Greece’s ancient sites, as a result of the country’s continuing financial difficulties. Unfortunately, it seems at the moment that the end of these problems is a long way off, so the issues are not going to disappear quickly, although help from other countries in blocking sales of looted artefacts helps to limit the market for such items.

From:
Agence France Presse

Amid debt crisis, archaeology Greece’s Achilles heel
By Isabel Malsang (AFP)

ATHENS — Faced with massive public debt, Greece is finding that its fabled antiquity heritage is proving a growing burden — with licensed digs postponed, illegal ones proliferating, museum staff trimmed and valuable pieces stolen.

“Greece’s historic remains have become our curse,” whispered an archaeologist at a recent media event organised to protest spending cuts imposed on the country for the past two years as a condition for European Union and International Monetary Fund loans.
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Letters reveal that between 1834 & 1842, Greece’s king Otto considered purchasing the Parthenon sculptures back from the British Museum, or exchanging them for other artefacts that were less culturally significant to Greece. I’m interested to know what the British response at that time was & the reasons given for not proceeding with the proposal.

From:
Agence France Presse

Greece mulled buying Acropolis marbles from Britain
(AFP) – 3 hours ago

ATHENS — Greece’s Bavarian-born King Otto considered offering Britain cash or antiquities in the 19th century in exchange for marbles removed from the Acropolis, previously unpublished historical files have shown.

“There is a document to the foreign ministry, subsequently forwarded to Otto’s minister in London, with instructions on how to request the marbles back,” Acropolis Museum director Demetrios Pantermalis told a conference on Monday.
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An Austrian museum has handed a Klimt painting looted by the Nazis to a descendent of the original owner.

From:
Agence France Presse

Austrian museum to return Nazi-stolen Klimt
(AFP) – Apr 21, 2011

VIENNA — An Austrian museum announced Thursday it will return a Gustav Klimt painting stolen by the Nazis and worth over 20 million euros, to the Canadian descendant of the previous Jewish owner.

Expert reports backed Georges Jorisch’s claim to the 1915 painting “Litzlberg am Attersee” (“Litzlberg on the Attersee”), which had belonged to his Jewish grandmother Amalie Redlich, according to Salzburg’s Museum of Modern Art.
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The official figures for 2010 show that the New Acropolis Museum was the most popular site for tourists visiting Greece. The British Museum might claim that more people see the Elgin Marbles in London (a fact that is open to some debate), however in the case of the New Acropolis Museum, the figures are for those people purely wanting to see the marbles – not general figures for a museum, which may include the Duveen Gallery, amongst numerous other elements.

From:
Agence France Presse

Acropolis Museum is Greece’s top site: official data
(AFP) – Apr 11, 2011

ATHENS — The Acropolis Museum was Greece’s top tourist draw in 2010, eclipsing for the first time the ancient Athens citadel whose sculptures it showcases, official data showed on Monday.

Over 1.3 million people queued to visit the country’s newest museum between January and December last year, the Greek statistics authority (Esa) said.
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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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Despite the financial crisis facing Greece, work on the Acropolis restoration is continuing as planned.

From:
Agence France Presse

Greece’s Acropolis: no crisis for restoration
By Isabel Malsang (AFP) – Feb 1, 2011

ATHENS — Like the victory goddess it honours, Athens’ ancient Temple of Athena Nike stands free of scaffolding for the first time in nine years in a testament to another triumph — the prolific restoration of the Acropolis.

Greece may be struggling to ward off financial collapse but nothing will crush the ambitious plan — first started in 1975 — to restore Classical glory to the country’s most visited monument.
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An Italian policeman on holiday in New York spotted a statue stolen from a museum in Rome in 1980.

From:
Agence France Presse

Italian policeman in New York finds stolen statue
(AFP) – Nov 19, 2010

ROME — The return from the United States of a precious Roman artefact stolen from an Italy museum is thanks to an Italian policeman who strolled through New York on holiday this year, officials said on Friday.

Walking down Madison Avenue, the officer from Italy’s cultural heritage police noticed the marble torso on sale for 350,000 dollars (256,000 euros) in a gallery’s display, they said.
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After a brief respite from its cloak of scaffolding, the next phase of restoration works has begun on the Acropolis, with the return of the scaffolding to the Propylaia.

From:
The Independent

Greece’s Acropolis in scaffolds as restoration resumes
AFP
Saturday, 13 November 2010

Scaffolding once again appeared on the Acropolis in Athens Thursday as work resumed after a brief pause on a decades-long restoration project.

“New scaffolding has been constructed on the central part of the Propylaea to restore the original marble,” said Mairi Ioannidou, the head of Acropolis Restoration Service.
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Further coverage of the decision taken by the Metropolitan Museum in New York to return nineteen artefacts to Egypt. The items were all originally located in the tomb of Tutankhamen. Return of two of the artefacts & acknowledgment of Egypt’s ownership of them was first mooted prior to the World War Two.

From:
Wall Street Journal

Egypt Hunts Ancient Artifacts
New York’s Metropolitan Museum Says It Will Give Back 19 Items as Archaeologist Lobbies for Returns
By ASHRAF KHALIL

CAIRO—Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s larger-than-life antiquities chief, is hunting for treasures from some of the richest known troves—the world’s prominent museums.

In an increasingly public campaign, Dr. Hawass is lobbying international museums to return some of Egypt’s most important archaeological artifacts. These include the Rosetta Stone, displayed for more than 200 years in the British Museum, and the Zodiac of Dendera, housed in the Louvre in Paris.
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