September 26, 2008
Recognising the illegality of looted artefacts
Kwame Opoku writes on the return of the Palermo Fragment from the Parthenon frieze earlier this week & how the British attitude differs from the that of the Italians.
From:
Modern Ghana
ITALY RETURNS PARTHENON FRAGMENT
By Kwame Opoku, Dr.
Feature Article | Fri, 26 Sep 2008Italy has returned to Greece, a piece of the Parthenon, “Palermo fragment” which has been missing from Athens for 200 years. The fragment showing the right foot of the Greek hunting goddess Artemis and part of her robe had been in the collection of the Antonio Salinas Archaeological Museum, Palermo, Italy. (1)
How did this fragment from the Parthenon end in Palermo? It was part of the marbles removed by the infamous Lord Elgin, then British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire which was occupying Greece. Elgin gave the fragment as gift to the British Consul-General of Sicily in 1816 and took the bulk of the sculptures to London where they are now in the British Museum. Greece has been demanding their return ever since then but to no avail. (2)
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