The New Acropolis Museum represents the most important step forward in the campaign to reunify the Parthenon Marbles since they were originally removed from the Acropolis over two hundred years ago. The heirs of Lord Elgin will not be invited tot he ceremony, although dwelling on this aspect seems to be something led by the press rather than an important part of the opening. If the heirs of Lord Elgin see the museum, maybe they will realsie that it is the best location for the sculptures & put their support behind the reunification campaigns.

From:
Scotsman

Greece steps up marbles bid with new museum opening
Published Date: 21 May 2009
By Renee Maltezou in Athens

GREECE will open a new Acropolis museum in June, with the aim of bringing back historical artefacts exhibited in the British Museum in London.
Greece has long campaigned to retrieve the Parthenon sculptures, saying they were an integral part of one of the world’s most important monuments, but the British Museum has refused to return the treasures.

The Acropolis museum, built below the Parthenon and the other classical age marble temples of the Acropolis, has experienced years of delay with legal battles and missed deadlines plaguing its construction.
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Various artefacts that are alleged to have been looted were returned to Egypt by a small museum in the UK. It is unclear from the article quite how they got there, how they were acquired without sufficient due diligence & why they are now being returned – it sets a good example to other museums though that actions should be taken to restore looted artefacts to their rightful owners.

From:
ArtInfo

British Museum Returns 454 Artifacts to Egypt
Published: May 1, 2009

CAIRO—Britain’s Myers Museum has returned 454 ancient artifacts to Egypt, according to Bloomberg.

The artifacts, which include beaded necklaces and bronze coins, had been removed from Egypt between 1972 and 1988, after antiquities trafficking was banned in 1970, said Hussein Al-Afuni, a head of Egypt’s Red Sea antiquities department, in a statement.
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Evidence suggests that an artefact currently on loan to the British Museum for a temporary exhibition may have been illegally excavated. It could be argued that although the museum does not own the artefact, it is going against its own loan guidelines in accepting it for the exhibition.

From:
The Art Newspaper

Bronze at British Museum may be loot
Drum stand now owned by Shanghai Museum but origins unclear
By Martin Bailey
Posted online: 11.3.09 | From Issue 200 (March 2009)

LONDON. The centrepiece of the Chinese bronzes exhibition, “Treasures from Shanghai”, at London’s British Museum appears to have been illegally excavated within the past few years. However, it is now legitimately the property of the Shanghai Museum. The British Museum show is the first time the bronze has been exhibited.

Dating from 770-476 BC, the drum stand is decorated with three intertwined dragons. It probably comes from the tomb of a ruler, from a site that is unknown to archaeologists, possibly in Shanxi Province. Other important finds, such as musical instruments, may well have been looted from the tomb.
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Further coverage of the proposal by Professor Francesco Buranelli that the formation of a pan-European museum is the best way to facilitate the reunification of all the surviving Parthenon sculpture fragments.

From:
Artinfo

Pan-European Museum Would Solve Parthenon Problem, Says Vatican Official
Published: December 4, 2008

ROME—Francesco Buranelli, a Vatican official, says he has a solution to end the longstanding Elgin Marbles problem once and for all, reports the Times (London): to build an extraterritorial, pan-European museum in Athens in which all the known parts of the Parthenon could be united.

Greece has been trying to get the set of marble sculptures back from England for decades, and has stepped up its efforts as of late in anticipation of the completion of its new Museum of the Acropolis in Athens.
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More coverage of the return of a fragment from the Parthenon (note that whilst this is a decorative element of the building, it is not a part of what is normally described as the Parthenon Sculptures (frieze, metopes & pediment). Nonetheless, it still represents yet another significant return within a single year).

From:
Press TV (Iran)

Greece retrieves Parthenon marble piece
Wed, 03 Dec 2008 15:49:18 GMT

Greece has retrieved a marble fragment belonging to a Parthenon temple, which was removed by an Austrian soldier during World War II.

The piece, which was part of a frieze decorating the temple’s inner colonnade, bears an inscription saying it was taken from the Acropolis in Athens on February 16, 1943, when Greece was occupied by the Germany-led Axis powers.
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More coverage of the return of a looted Byzantine icon to Greece following successful legal action earlier this year.

From:
Artinfo

Britain Returns Stolen Byzantine Icon to Greece
Published: November 20, 2008

ATHENS—Britain has returned a 14th-century Byzantine icon painting stolen from a Greek monastery 30 years ago, BBC News reports. The painting, which is valued at £1 million ($1.4 million), depicts Jesus being lowered from the cross. It was commissioned 700 years ago for the St. John the Baptist monastery in Serres, in northern Greece, and hung there until 1978, when thieves cut it into six pieces and smuggled it out of the country.

In 2002, British police recovered the icon after it was offered for sale by a London-based Greek art collector. The seller failed to provide proof of ownership, prompting the High Court in London to order the painting’s return. An appeal by the seller was dismissed.
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More details on the Hungarian offer to return a number of looted antiquities to Greece.

From:
Artinfo

Hungary Offers to Return Looted Antiquities to Greece
By ARTINFO
Published: September 12, 2008

ATHENS—Hungary has offered to return a number of artifacts that were illegally exported from Greece, the Associated Press reports. The 22 pieces are currently on view at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.

Hungary’s foreign minister, Kinga Goncz, made the announcement yesterday after concluding talks in Athens with Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis. She said that Greek and Hungarian experts would convene to study the pieces and discuss which would be returned.
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More coverage of Professor Vassilis Dimitriadis’s study on the validity of the Firman that supposedly allowed Lord Elgin to remove pieces of the Parthenon Sculptures from the Acropolis.

From:
Artinfo

Professor Questions Legality of Elgin Document
By ARTINFO
Published: August 29, 2008

LONDON—A professor from the University of Crete has called into question the sole document that the British Museum has found in recent years to support its legal ownership of the Elgin Marbles, reports the Times of London.
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More information on the request by Kenya for the return of numerous cultural artefacts from museums & institutions around the world.

From:
ArtInfo

Kenya Demands Return of Significant Artifacts
By ARTINFO
Published: August 6, 2008

NAIROBI—Kenya is asking for the return of artifacts of significant national importance that are currently owned by museums in the United States and England, the Independent reports. More than 2,000 artifacts housed in the British Museum and thousands more held by U.S. museums and in private collections are being compiled by Kenyan officials into a list of significant objects that the country wants repatriated.

In the past, attempts by Kenya to get artifacts returned were countered by arguments that the country did not have suitable facilities for them. But last month, the new National Museum, whose renovation was financed by the European Union, opened in Nairobi, and Kenyan heritage officials now insist that they can care for all types of objects.
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More coverage of the acquisition guidelines for US museums, brought in largely to try & avoid repeats of some of the court cases that have occurred in recent years. These are however still only guidelines, so museums are free to ignore them & they don’t apply retroactively.

From:
Artinfo

New Guidelines for Collecting Antiquities
By ARTINFO
Published: June 4, 2008

NEW YORK—After a year and a half of discussions, the Association of Art Museum Directors has announced new guidelines for collecting antiquities, reports the New York Times. The new policy uses 1970, the year UNESCO ratified a landmark convention prohibiting trade in illegal antiquities, as its starting point, saying a museum “normally should not” acquire a work unless it has solid proof that the object was outside of its country of probable modern discovery before 1970, or that the object was legally exported from its country of probable modern discovery after 1970.
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