Showing 5 results for the tag: Lord Byron.

July 13, 2009

Why it’s time to lose the marbles

Posted at 12:37 pm in British Museum, Elgin Marbles, New Acropolis Museum

The New Acropolis Museum is one of the most high profile cultural projects in Europe in the last decade. The British Museum still claims that its existence does not change anything though in the argument for the reunification of the Elgin Marbles.

From:
London Daily News

09 July, 2009 18:30 (GMT +01:00)
Why It’s Time We Lost ‘Our’ Marbles
By Gemma Brosnan

It has been described as one of the most high profile cultural projects undertaken in Europe this decade, costing over €120m after 33 years of planning.

Designed by Swiss-born/New York based architect, Bernard Tschumi and his Greek associate, Michael Photiadis, The New Acropolis museum opened in Athens last month to much fanfare, presenting a spectacular modern building boasting 226,000 square feet of glass, 150,000 square feet of display space spanning five floors and 4,000 artifacts.
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June 21, 2009

Why Athens is the only location for the Elgin Marbles

Posted at 11:53 am in Elgin Marbles, New Acropolis Museum

Christopher Hitchens has written a 4 page piece in Vanity Fair about the Parthenon Marbles & the reasons why he believes that they belong in Greece. Unlike many recent pieces though, although it is prompted by the opening of the New Acropolis Museum, it goes far deeper into the argument, looking at many aspects of it rather than purely focussing on this most recent development.

From:
Vanity Fair

Acropolis Now
The Lovely Stones
Among the first to visit Greece’s new Acropolis Museum, devoted to the Parthenon and other temples, the author reviews the origins of a gloriously “right” structure (part of a fifth-century-b.c. stimulus plan) and the continuing outrage that half its façade is still in London.
By Christopher Hitchens July 2009

The great classicist A. W. Lawrence (illegitimate younger brother of the even more famously illegitimate T.E. “of Arabia”) once remarked of the Parthenon that it is “the one building in the world which may be assessed as absolutely right.” I was considering this thought the other day as I stood on top of the temple with Maria Ioannidou, the dedicated director of the Acropolis Restoration Service, and watched the workshop that lay below and around me. Everywhere there were craftsmen and -women, toiling to get the Parthenon and its sister temples ready for viewing by the public this summer. There was the occasional whine of a drill and groan of a crane, but otherwise this was the quietest construction site I have ever seen—or, rather, heard. Putting the rightest, or most right, building to rights means that the workers must use marble from a quarry in the same mountain as the original one, that they must employ old-fashioned chisels to carve, along with traditional brushes and twigs, and that they must study and replicate the ancient Lego-like marble joints with which the master builders of antiquity made it all fit miraculously together.
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April 20, 2009

Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day

Posted at 1:06 pm in Elgin Marbles

More coverage of the celebration of Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day in Greece.

From:
Athens News Agency

04/20/2009
Philhellenism Day events

The celebration of Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day in the Greek Parliament, regularly observed on April 19 in compliance with a Presidential Decree signed last year, will this year be postponed until the following week so as not to coincide with the Orthodox Easter Sunday.

April 19 was proclaimed Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day at the initiative of Parliament President Dimitris Sioufas, commemorating the anniversary of the death of the famous poet and philhellene Lord Byron, a human rights advocate and among the first to voice opposition to the looting of the Parthenon Marbles by Lord Elgin.
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April 5, 2009

Philhelenism day

Posted at 12:52 pm in Elgin Marbles

April 19th has been designated Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day in Greece. This commemorates the death of Lord Byron – one of the first people to speak out about the removal for the Elgin Marbles.

From:
Athens News Agency

04/01/2009
Pavlopoulos on Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day

Interior Minister Prokopis Pavlopoulos on Wednesday signed a circular calling for the observance of April 19 as the Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day in compliance with a Presidential Decree signed last year. The circular mentions that this year the celebration will be moved to April 26 due to the Easter Holiday.

April 19 has been proclaimed Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day commemorating the anniversary of the death of poet and philhellene Lord Byron, a human rights advocate and among the first to voice opposition to the looting of the Parthenon Marbles by Lord Elgin.
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October 18, 2008

Honouring one of the first to speak out against the destructive actions of Lord Elgin

Posted at 2:23 pm in Elgin Marbles

Greece has now officially designated April 19th to honour Lord Byron. The poet was known for many things, one of which was the vilification of Lord Elgin’s actions in the poem Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.

From:
Balkan Travellers

Greece to Officially Honour Lord Byron
BalkanTravellers.com
16 October 2008

Greece decided on an official day on which it will honour Lord Byron and other foreigners who participated in the war for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

A decree, signed by Greek President Karolos Papoulias, declared April 19 as the Day of Greekophilia and international solidarity.
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