Three academics who have helped in the restitution of Parthenon fragments to Greece have been honoured at a ceremony at the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
Athens News Agency

02/12/2008
Parthenon Marbles

Culture Minister Mihalis Liapis on Tuesday addressed an event held at the new Acropolis Museum in honour of three academics who have made great contributions to the effort for the return of the Parthenon Marbles currently held at the British Museum in London.

The three are Prof. Tonio Holscher, professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Heidelberg in Germany, Prof. Louis Godart, advisor to the Italian President for the Conservation of Artistic Patrimony and professor of Mycenean Philology at Federico II University of Naples, and Prof. Antonia Sofikitou, who is chair of the Italian Committee for the Return of the Parthenon Marbles and teaches Modern Greek Literature at the University of Palermo.
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A fragment from the Acropolis taken from Athens during World War Two has been returned.

From:
Reuters

Acropolis marble taken by soldier is returned
Tue Dec 2, 2008 2:45pm EST

ATHENS (Reuters) – Greece welcomed back on Tuesday a marble fragment from a frieze decorating the Parthenon temple which an Austrian soldier removed during World War Two, but renewed a call for all its stolen treasures to be returned.

An inscription on the fragment, measuring 7-by-30 cm (2.8 by 12 inches), says it was taken from the Acropolis in Athens on February 16, 1943 — in the midst of the three-year occupation of Greece by the Axis powers, led by Germany.
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Following the return of the Heidelberg fragment in 2006 & the Palermo fragment earlier this year, the Vatican has now also returned a fragment from the frieze on a one year loan. The Vatican still holds two other fragments from the Parthenon sculptures in their collection on which negotiations are still continuing.

From:
Reuters

Vatican lends Parthenon Marbles fragment to Greece
Wed Nov 5, 2008 7:30am EST
By Daniel Flynn

ATHENS (Reuters) – The Vatican returned a small fragment of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece on Wednesday on a one-year loan, fuelling calls for the British Museum to hand back its own priceless sculptures from the ancient temple.

The loan of the fragment, one of three in the Vatican Museum’s vast collection of antiquities, follows a request for its return by Greece’s late Orthodox Archbishop Christopoulos at a meeting with Pope Benedict in 2006.
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