Bill Nighy, Simon Callow, Baroness, Joan Bakewell, Stockard Channing, Anna Savva,

and Dame Janet Suzman add their voices for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles

Sunday, 18 June in the British Museum’s Room 18, at 16:00 a 212-year-old poem that furiously denounces Lord Elgin for stripping the Parthenon of fabulously beautiful sculptures and friezes, and eventually selling them to the British government when they were not his to sell, will be read.  

The British Museum has housed almost half of the surviving, and fragmented Parthenon Marbles for 200 years, and refuses to give them back, arguing that they were legally acquired. No express permission from the Ottoman Sultanate who occupied Greece has ever been found to corroborate this assertion.     

 “The Curse of Minerva”, a brilliant piece of satire written in 1811 by the philhellene Romantic poet Lord Byron, will be read by acclaimed actors Bill Nighy and Simon Callow CBE; TV presenter and journalist Baroness Joan Bakewell; Stockard Channing, whose screen credits range from Grease to The West Wing; Anna Savva, the Anglo-Greek actress memorable in The Durrells, and Janet Suzman DBE, Chair of the BCRPM. Alexi Kaye Campbell, playwright and member of the Committee, will MC the event. Three Oscar Nominees in this list, plus a Golden Globe winner. 

The British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM) was founded in 1983 as a result of the visit to the UK of the Greek movie star Melina Mercouri, who, as Minister of Culture demanded that Elgin’s act of depredation be reversed. The Hellenic Republic had been asking for the Marbles since 1832. Recent polls show that a large majority of Britons support this demand.  

The reading marks the latest action by the British Committee to affirm its belief that the sculptures by Lord Elgin should be reunified with their other halves in Athens at the ultra-modern Acropolis Museum, to complete the celebration of Greece’s Golden Age when the sublime Parthenon was completed in 440BC.  

The Committee’s 30 members include many of Britain’s leading classical scholars as well as writers, media personalities, legal experts and human rights campaigners. 

The recital takes place two days before this year’s 14^th anniversary of the opening of the New Acropolis Museum, where a 50-metre stretch of the Parthenon frieze is already on superb display, awaiting the eventual addition of the 80-metre section which is now held in London.

Working closely with supporters in Greece and all over the world, the Committee has argued that the Athens museum’s success creates an overwhelming case for restitution. If London’s 80-metre section were restored to its place of origin, one of the greatest aesthetic masterworks of all time, a sculpted procession of chariots, war-horses, livestock and Athenian citizens, would be restored to near-wholeness and displayed anew under the brilliant Greek light, which inspired Lord Byron’s verses. 

Minerva’s Curse was written in March 1811, shortly after the poet had seen the destruction left on the Parthenon after the violent removal of most of its surviving sculptures. It imagines the goddess Athena (also known as Minerva) arriving at the temple, which was built to honour her, and denouncing Lord Elgin for his act of desecration. Byron celebrates the beauty of Athens and the surrounding region of Attica, reflecting his belief that the genius of ancient Greece can best be understood in the landscape where it emerged.

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For more information contact Marlen Godwin on 01780 460145 or 07789533791, and email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Notes:

Notes to editors:

1. BCRPM has been campaigning for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles for 39 years and after the Acropolis Museum was opened on 20 June 2009. Current crowdfunding campaign to return the £35,000 paid to Lord Elgin in 1816 https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/reunify-the-parthenon-sculptures/backers?fbclid=IwAR2k1XmXExQvU2Dkkv7WusHjNOrs4a_gpUwzdGzROZ8hRBpHeyFtv2Rc1s8#start
2. In June 2009 Chair of the BCRPM, Professor Snodgrass, Vice-Chair Christopher Price and Secretary Eleni Cubitt attended the official inauguration of the New Acropolis Museum with members Christopher Stockdale and Marlen Godwin.
3. Protest at the BM have spanned 14 years and there have been many memorable moments, the last was 18 June 2022, when Victoria Hislop flanked by English and Greek supporters sang happy birthday to the Acropolis Museum in English and in Greek. As was the year before that, 20 June 2021, when the current Chair Janet Suzman joined a small group of protestors outside the BM to hand out a leaflet entitled ‘Tell The Story’, refuting the reasons that the BM continue to make for keeping the Parthenon Marbles divided.
4. On 20 June 2020, silent protestors gathered outside the BM officially closed with banners
5. On 20 June 20 June 2019, Hellena sang her song 10 times in Room 18, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-EkNkxl3-A
6. Several protests were made in conjunction with BP or not BP?, starting from 2018 to 202. The first in 2018, BP or not BP?’s Danny Chivers spoke in Room 18 for the first time about the plight of the Marbles. This was followed by Cypriot student Petros Papadopoulos of REUNITE, and Marlen Godwin of BCRPM in 2020 also celebrating ‘the year’ of Melina Mercouri.
7. On 15 January 2015, jazz singer Sarah Fenwick and guitarist Marinos Neofytou perform their song 'Never Again' from the duet's latest CD 'Jazz Origins', this is dedicated to the campaign for the reunification the Parthenon Marbles. The song can be heard on YouTube
8. On 22 November 2009, American student, Mary Phillips, made her one-woman silent protest and Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, stopped by briefly to have a look at Mary and declared it 'an elegant gesture'. At the end of the day, English student and Plinthian, Sofka Smales joined Mary for a photograph.
9. Student Sofka Smales stood on the 4^th Plinth in Trafalgar Square on 12 September 2009 and two days later delivered a roll of wallpaper with BCRPM founder Eleni Cubitt, to the then Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor. The wall paper carrying her written wish to see the Parthenon Marbles reunited in the newly opened Acropolis Museum.
10. Forty five students from Argostoli, Kefalonia flew into London to dance, sing and recite poetry in the courtyard of the British Museum on the afternoon of 03 May 2009.

At 11 a.m. Saturday,15th June, members of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, Janet Suzman, Chair of BCRM joined author Victoria Hislop and Stuart O’Hara, together with members of the Greek community led by George Gabriel, at the British Museum to welcome its new Director, Dr Nicholas Cullinan to make their case, and mark the 15th anniversary of the Acropolis Museum.

Their request for an urgent meeting with Dr Cullinan to discuss the fate of the Marbles, will be one of the first to hit the new Director's desk. To read the letter, follow the link here.

George Gabriel, BCRPM Committee Member said, “Elgin's excuse for not producing written authorisation for the removal of the Marbles never amounted to much more than “my mate kindly translated my homework into Italian before my dog ate it”.

The Turkish authorities have now put the final nail in the coffin of the argument that these treasures were taken lawfully. Listen to the web recording of the 24th session of UNESCO’s ICPRCP held in Paris.

We hope the British Museum's new leadership will embrace this moment and put right this historic wrong. Reunifying the Parthenon Marbles would restore the Museum's standing as a moral leader in the protection of our shared human heritage.” 

Author Victoria Hislop, also a member of BCRPM, said, “We are delighted to extend our warm welcome and congratulations to Dr Cullinan following his appointment as Director of the British Museum.

We come with an urgent request for a meeting following the Turkish announcement. 

We have never been closer to seeing this incredible work of art reunified and it is our solemn hope that Dr Cullinan can join Museum Chair George Osborne in the history books as the men who helped make it happen.”

Photo credits to: Thomas Primidis, Alexander Lees, David Pinto, ERT and Hellenic TV.

Statement written by Dame Janet Suzman, Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles read out by Danny Chivers during Saturday's BP or not BP? protest at the British Museum.

These unmatched sculptures that you see before you have a home waiting for them. These figures, part of an ancient belief system, have been stranded in the grandest refugee centre you’ve ever seen - the great British Museum itself. But home is where they were created two and a half thousand years ago. 

In Athens stands a fine building especially built to house them, and next year this New Acropolis Museum will celebrate its tenth anniversary. On its top floor there are yearning gaps where these very sculptures should be sitting, joined with the other half of the pedimental carvings and in direct sight of the ancient building from which they were chopped, and which, astonishingly, still stands proud on its ancient rock. That fact alone makes these sculptures unique; we can still see exactly where they first displayed themselves, for they were never intended as separate 'works of art', but as part of the mighty whole of Athena’s glorious temple. Who, one wonders, was a mere occupying Sultan to sign away the genius of Periclean Athens? 

Now is the time to make a grand and generous gesture to the Greek people who in distant times laid the foundations of our modern democracies and who informed our artistic heritage. No sculptures have ever matched these languishing here. They are unarguably part of a history the Greeks feel profoundly. Modern Greeks may be as distant from their forebears as we to Anglo-Saxons but that never stopped a nation feeling viscerally connected to its antecedents. 

Let’s do so by celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Acropolis Museum in 2019 with the return of their prodigals. What a fabulous birthday present that would be! How civilised and decent of the British Museumto divest itself of dated strictures belonging to an era - now so over - of colonialist finders keepers. The time has come to do the right thing. Go BM! Do it! 

For more information on BP or not BP, visit here.

A BCRPM letter was delivered to Nicholas Cullinan, the British Museum's new Director on 15 June by BCRPM campaigners and friends. The choice of the 15th was significant as this June, the Acropolis Museum celebrated its 15th anniversary.

Alexandros and David were inspired to cover the remonstration at the British Museum as this cause is very close to both their hearts, and  they were with us also in 2022. We look forward to their continued involvement with the movement going forward.

Below a link to the video that Alexandros and David artfully put together. It features interviews with Dame Janet Suzman and Victoria Hislop and a narrative of the events by Alexandros.  

"This campaign is contingent on public awareness, which in turn is raised through high-profile endorsements and large amounts of content being created on the topic. With this in mind, David and I are very excited to also submit a review on the current debate surrounding the campaign to reunify the Parthenon Marbles." wrote Alexandros post the 15th of June.

Watch: Talking Parthenon Marbles with Dame Janet Suzman and Victoria Hislop.

Alexandros Lees: Alexandros is a British-Greek lawyer who first studied the Parthenon Marbles during his Law degree at the London School of Economics. Alexandros’ Greek heritage, legal training, and interest in cultural property give him a unique passion for repatriation.

David Pinto: David Pinto is a Franco-American journalist, documentarian, and presidential campaign aide. A recent alum of Brown University, he earned a double bachelors degree in History and Film Studies. As a specialist in both international affairs and ancient history, David uses filmmaking to cover cultural property disputes.

Next steps: Alexandros and David are currently writing a thinkpiece on the prospects of repatriation, focussing on the effects of a Labour Government, increasing international support for repatriation, and growing public awareness of the cause. The article will feature interviews with prominent figures involved in the debate.