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.

The possible solution to Greece's long-standing request for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures from London may be held by... robots.

It is the first time in history that one of the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum has been replicated using digital 3D technology and a robot.

The famous chariot horse head of the goddess Selene: the ancient Greeks believed that a goddess Selene carried the moon across the sky each night. They imagined her driving a horse-drawn chariot with two white horses. Selene's crown lit up the moon as her white horses galloped across the night sky. And the horse's head in the British Museum is the exquisite sculpture carved by Pheidias in 5th century BC, and this year, 2022 digitally reproduced and carved by robotic 3D imaging machines.

The director and founder of the Institute of Digital Archaeology (IDA), Roger Michael described to ERT how they managed to scan the sculptures after the British Museum refused them permission.

"We asked the British Museum for permission to scan some of the items. We were surprised when they refused to give it to us, but we decided to take matters into our own hands and so we did the scans using portable equipment at the British Museum. We then converted these scans into a 3D model and from that 3D model, we then created this amazing marble sculpture carved from precious Pentelian marble," Roger Michael told ERT .

The Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) chose the head of a horse of Selene, which adorned the right end of the Parthenon's East pediment, as their first work of perfect reproduction.

“It's one of the most well-known works of the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum, and we chose it for that very reason, because one of the things we're trying to show with this installation is how great the technology is, how close to the original we can be with this reconstruction. Because it shows an animal reaching the limits of its effort, it's really an incredible sculpture," said Mr. Michael.

"It's chilling, this accuracy! I think it's great that we can feed information into a machine that makes a perfect copy of a work made by a human hand. The magic of it is amazing," Dame Janet Suzman, the Chair of the  tells ERT.

Ms. Suzman, a multi-award winning actress was introduced to the plight of these sculptures, and the campaign by “ the tornado that was Melina Mercouri when she came here to the UK and swept us all along with her, she was a strong wind. And we were like autumn leaves falling and that's when I got excited," as she described her meeting with the culture Minister at the time.

Shuttershock image, user ID 361013921. Photo of Jane Suzman with Melina Mercouri and Vanessa Redgrave 

The Institute for Digital Archaeology (IDA) is proposing to replace the Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum with exact replicas, something that covers the museum's argument as an educational institution and at the same time restores the Greeks' connection to their ancient heritage.

The debate has been intense in recent months about the Greek request, the people support it as shown by the opinion polls, and the Chair of the British Museum, George Osborne himself said that "an agreement is possible". But has the time for such an agreement arrived?

"Greeks love sculptures not only because they represent Greece in that part of history. Greece has many sculptures from the fifth century that do a much better job than these objects of representing this art. They love these works because of what they represent. They are part of their national pride, their heritage, for sentimental reasons, and that is why the originals must return to Greece. Britain needn't care about any of this. It's not their story. It is not their national heritage. It's not their national pride," Roger Michael told ERT.

Asked if she thought the British Museum would take up the idea, Dame Suzman replied: “ It's very imaginative at the moment. That seems to be the case. They haven't gotten there yet. But I think they will. Because they have to. They need to get their feet out of the mud. They are stuck in the mud. They are stuck."

"For 200 years, these things did their job, to awaken British academic, historical, social circles, and the awareness of the classical world was a huge resurgence of research and science , which these guys did," she says, pointing to sculpted replica of the horse's head.

"As my grandmother would say, enough already. They have to go home. They have to go." Dame Suzman stated categorically.

Roger Michael reveals to ERT that he spoke to the Chair of the British Museum, George Osborne in the summer and "there is no doubt that this will happen".

George Osborne has already told The Times "there is a deal that can be done".

The founder of the Digital Technology Institute said Greece's Ambassador, Ioannis Raptakis was speaking directly to Mr Osborne and he thought "negotiations are going very well."

Mr. Michael emphasized that, " in fact, I would not be surprised if when the Prime Minister of Greece comes to England next week he makes some very optimistic announcement. George Osborne is very clever. He is very successful. He's a politician, but he's also the publisher of a major newspaper, so he not only understands politics, but how to communicate politics. He is a man who cares about his heritage. He does not want to be the last who against the moral judgment of the whole world hangs from these things like grim death. He wants to be the man who finds a solution to a 200-year-old conflict and to be a hero, here in Britain but also in Greece, that's the person he wants to be. I guarantee you that's what I got from talking to him. And this is what I take from the knowledge of people who know him. But Ambassador Raptakis is exactly the same, a very pragmatic man but also a man who I think also cares about his legacy and would like nothing better than to be the man who negotiates an agreement ," Mr. Michael pointed out, noting that the problem may be the word to be used, however diplomacy is working in this direction and he thinks "we will hear some good news very soon."

Roger Michel of the Institute of Digital Archaeology (IDA), the 3D sculpted horse's head at the Freud Museum and Ambassador Ioannis Raptakis, Greece's Ambassador to the UK

ERT asked the British Museum about the new proposal and received the following answer:

”There are replicas of the British Museum Parthenon Sculptures in the Acropolis Museum, where they are displayed alongside the sculptures that remained in Athens. Our Greek colleagues from the Acropolis Museum have been to the British Museum in 2013 and 2017 to scan sculptures from the Parthenon."

The horse's head is on display at the Freud Museum in London. "The construction time of the copy was about two months, while it costed about 100 thousand euros"  explained Alexi Karenovska, Director of Technology of the Institute of Digital Archaeology and added that "the next copy will be the depiction of the Battle of the Titans from the Metopian fragment of Parthenon, also in the British Museum."

The first exact copy of the Parthenon Sculptures, the Selene's horse head in the British Museum with the help of 3D digital technology took its place in history, reviving hope for the repatriation of the originals to the Acropolis Museum.

Interview by: Evdoxia Lymberi, to read the article online and watch the news bulletin, follow the link to ertnews.gr here.

All News from Greece and the World @ ertnews.gr

On behalf of all of us at The British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, I extend our fervent good wishes to His Majesty for a successful recovery.

We hold his support for the Greek cause very dear, and we wish him robust good health for many years to come.

Janet Suzman, Chair

Helen Glynn, from BP or not BP? said:

‘The Troy exhibition has inspired us to create this magnificent beast, because the Trojan Horse is the perfect metaphor for BP sponsorship. On its surface the sponsorship looks like a generous gift, but inside lurks death and destruction. This is our 40th performance intervention at the British Museum: for eight years our peaceful creative protests have been dismissed and the museum has continued to back BP. Now the planet is literally burning. So we invite everyone to come along to our mass action tomorrow and make sure the museum can no longer ignore the fact that, in order to have a liveable planet, BP Must Fall.’

Those that gathered on Saturday 08 February 2020 to support the activists and the performers, were all targeting BP’s sponsorship of the museum’s current Troy: Myth and Reality exhibition.

Multiple groups from around the world came together in the museum to make the links between climate change, fossil fuel extraction, colonialism, human rights abuses and workers’ rights, using the museum as a backdrop for calls for justice and decolonisation and reimagining what a truly enlightened, responsible and engaged British Museum could look like.

Room 18, The Parthenon Galleries was no exception. Groups gathered to hear Danny Chivers of BP or not BP? helped by Marlen Godwin of the BCRPM, to explain the connection of Saturday's protest againt BP sponsorship of exhibitions at the British Museum, with the unfair 200 year plus division of the Parthenon Marbles. The peerless collection of the sculptures from the Parthenon are mainly exhibited between the British Museum in London and the Acropolis Museum in Athens.

BCRPM has been campaigning for the return of the sculptures from London to Athens, since 1983. The 'new' Acropolis Museum was officially opened in June 2009, picking up an award in London in November 2010. In June 2019, it celebrated it's 10th anniversary and BCRPM helped Hellena Micy sing her song for the Parthenon Marbles in Room 18. Hellena sang  her song 10 times, once for every year that the museum in Athens has welcomed visitors from all over the world. To listen to Hellena's song, please follow the link here.

2020 is also Melina Mercouri year. With that in mind, BCRPM had t-shirts printed for the day and included in the presentations in Room 18 the background to Melina's pleas for the return of the sculptures. We would like to thank the Melina Mercouri Foundation for their kind permission to use the image of Melina on the t-shirt. If you would like to order one, kindly email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Celebrating the activist Melina Mercouri, who had championed for all freedoms, from the freedom of speech and to more, BCRPM also remembered their Chair, Dame Janet Suzman when she had campaigned and protested against  aparththeid in South Africa. These two activist women share a great deal, from acting to their passionate protests, to their love for the Parthenon and its sculptures. To this day Janet continues to be enthusiastic about protests in the BM, so much so that in 2018, she wrote words that Danny Chivers read out in Room 18.

In 2019 at another BP or not BP? protest, Cambridge University stdent Petros Papadopoulos also quoted Janet during his passionate plea for the 'RETURN' of the marbles to Athens.

 And so to the protest on 08 February 2020, Janet's words were heard in Room 18 once again: 

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 this year in June, the New Acropolis Museum will celebrate its eleventh 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 do the right thing. SIMPLE JUSTICE DEMANDS IT! GO BM! Do it! 

The protest was also covered in Ta Nea with an article by Yannis Andritsopoulos, UK Correspondent for Ta Nea, based in London. 

Yannis Andritsopoulos reports in Ta Nea on 21 September 2019: Britain has rejected Greece’s request to hold talks on returning the Parthenon Marbles after Athens proposed a meeting between experts from the two countries, it can be revealed.

Ta Nea, Greece’s daily newspaper, has obtained a letter written last year by Jeremy Wright the then culture secretary, which states that the UK will not enter a discussion with Greece about the permanent reunification of the sculptures.

“If the expert meeting is being convened to discuss (the Marbles’) permanent transfer (to Greece), the British Museum cannot participate in further discussion on this issue,” the UK culture secretary wrote on December 3, 2018.

Wright was responding to a letter written by his Greek counterpart, Lydia Koniordou, in which she asked the British government to discuss the matter with Greece “at the appropriate interstate level”.

Koniordou sent her letter on August 10, 2018 and suggested that “a bilateral expert meeting” should take place in Athens “preferably in October or November 2018”.

However, Wright’s response to this request arrived four months later. His letter was addressed to Myrsini Zorba, who had since replaced Koniordou as Greece’s culture minister.

In his letter, the British culture secretary rejected Greece’s invitation, telling his Greek counterpart that any request regarding the Parthenon Marbles should be submitted to the British Museum rather than the British government.

“As is very well known, the Parthenon sculptures in London are owned by and are the legal responsibility of the Trustees of the British Museum, which is independent of Government, and they have been on permanent and prominent public display at the museum for the last two hundred years,” the letter reads.

Wright goes on to say that “the Trustees believe that the British Museum is the best place for the sculptures to be seen in the context of their rich contribution to the history of the whole of humanity. The UK Government fully supports the Trustees' position on the sculptures.”

Responding to Greece’s request for a bilateral meeting in Athens, Wright stresses that it is the British Museum, rather than the government, that should participate.

“The British Museum would therefore be an essential contributor, and indeed lead on any meaningful expert meeting concerning the Parthenon sculptures in their collection and, accordingly, my officials have sought their opinion on Ms Koniordou's proposal.”

However, the British Museum advised that it would not take part in such talks. Subsequently, the Greek government’s request was rejected by the UK government.

“The British Museum's view is that if the expert meeting is being convened to discuss permanent transfer, they cannot participate in further discussion on this issue. Their position on this is very clear, including on the historical, cultural, legal and ethical dimensions of the case, which have been explored at length in recent decades,” the letter reads.

Wright adds, however, that “the Trustees will consider any request for any part of the collection to be borrowed and then returned, provided the borrowing institution acknowledges the British Museum's ownership and that the normal loan conditions are satisfied.”

However, Greece insists that it is the rightful owner of the Parthenon Marbles. The Greek government says that the sculptures were illegally removed from the Parthenon during the Ottoman occupation of Greece in the early 1800s.

‘Deep cultural trauma’

Responding to Wright, Zorba sent her counterpart a letter dated May 30, 2019, in which she says that the ‘dismembered’ Parthenon Marbles “constitute an open wound to a World Heritage Site of the stature of the Acropolis. This is nothing less than a deep cultural trauma in the eyes of mankind.”

Zorba adds that “the return and-re-integration of the Parthenon Marbles remains a firm demand”, stressing that maintaining a dialogue on the issue is “an objective of major importance and of cultural responsibility towards both History and the moral order.”

“We would be willing to participate in it, provided it will not be rendered unrealistic through the insistence on such kinds of prerequisites. We call upon you to re-examine all of the facts, in order for us to be able to resume a well-meaning sincere dialogue, free from prerequisites or binding admissions and able to bear fruit in the future,” Greece’s then culture minister says.

The UK government has not responded to this letter. However, on June 10, 2019, arts minister Rebecca Pow wrote a letter to Dame Janet Suzman, Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, in which she repeated word for word Jeremy Wright’s response to Zorba.

Dame Janet had previously written to Wright, saying that “the Government and the British Museum must attempt to show respect for the Parthenon and therefore also for its sculptures”.

“Keeping these very specific sculptures divided smacks of imperialism, an era we surely cannot continue to pay homage to without seriously re-considering the mood of the world we live in. Continued excuses not to reunite this peerless collection ring hollow,” she stressed.

Athens has repeatedly called for the permanent return of the 2,500-year-old sculptures that Lord Elgin removed from the Acropolis temple. The British Museum has consistently ruled out giving back the marbles, saying they were acquired legally.

“With an overwhelming sense of awe for the comprehensiveness of the collections in the British Museum, I yet cannot help being equally overwhelmed by its sense of superiority. The same rather smug ownership song is being sung,” Dame Janet Suzman told Ta Nea.

“Can the Director and Trustees not see that there is a different mood in the world? Can they not see that the Duveen Gallery is just one of a myriad of world exhibitions under its impressive roof?,” she added.

“Can they not admit that millions of their visitors find that they have entirely missed the Marbles due to other fascinations? In any case the visitor figures the BM gives out never indicate a figure for those who specifically visit the Marble galleries.”

“The New Acropolis Museum in Athens has an entirely more focussed task; it stands in sight of the Parthenon, and every floor of it is concentrated on the glories that were Greece. The spaces that should be filled by the BM’s Parthenon collection are a painful lacuna.”

“Every decent impulse for reunification should be awakened and seriously discussed by the both the BM Trustees and the British Government instead of repeatedly providing statutory replies. Depressingly they are not. When will they both wake from their Rip van Winkle-ish slumbers and realise the world has changed? The Empire is so very over.”

“Ex-Director Neil MacGregor himself says that the British think of their past in order to comfort themselves, whereas the Germans (he is a student of German history) reflect on their history in order to look to the future. They should start to emulate that honesty before another period of intellectual arthritis sets in,” Dame Janet added.

Published in Ta Nea, Greece’s daily newspaper (www.tanea.gr)    

Publication date: 21 September 2019   

English version: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/exclusive-uk-turned-down-greek-request-experts-return-andritsopoulos

Original version (in Greek): https://www.tanea.gr/print/2019/09/21/politics/agapitoi-ellinescrta-glypta-anikouncrsto-mouseio-mas/

Ahdaf Soueif, a Trustee of the British Museum since 2012, resigned a few days ago.This is the first time that a Trustee from the British Museum has resigned for moral and ethical reasons.

"Public cultural institutions have a responsibility: not only a professional one towards their work, but a moral one in the way they position themselves in relation to ethical and political questions. The world is caught up in battles over climate change, vicious and widening inequality, the residual heritage of colonialism, questions of democracy, citizenship and human rights. On all these issues the museum needs to take a clear ethical position." wrote Ahdaf SoueifAhdaf Soueif.

On twitter, we've been retweeting articles about this resignation with the hashtag #WednesdayWisdom, not because we wish to have another go at the British Museum but because we sincerely hope that Dame Jane Suzman's Cambridge debate address delivered with passion on 25 April,  will be heard again, especially when she said: 'the Parthenon Marbles can no longer be kept hostages of time in Room 18.' This was fueled by her visit to Athens ten days prior to attend a conference organised by the President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopios Pavlopoulos, where he said how "miserable and completely unworthy of Britain's tradition is the attitude of the British Museum's officials today, who thus end up appearing inferior to the circumstances and the necessities pertaining to the defence of World Cultural Heritage and our common Civilisation and, furthermore are unrepentant accomplices of Elgin's cultural crime.” 

Ahdaf Soueif announced her resignation in an open letter published by the London Review of Books blog: ‘My resignation was not in protest at a single issue; it was a cumulative response to the museum’s immovability on issues of critical concern to the people who should be its core constituency: the young and the less privileged.’

Asked whether she thinks that the British Museum should be engaged in talks with Greece about returning the Parthenon Sculptures, Soueif told Yannis Andritsopoulos, London Correspondent of Ta Nea, Greece’s daily newspaper: “I believe it would be in everyone's interests for the Museum to engage in open, honest and transparent discussions with everyone who feels they have a claim on objects held by the Museum.”

Asked if she thinks that the Parthenon Sculptures should be returned to Greece, Soueif said she “cannot really comment more specifically,” but added that “these claims can only be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.”

BCRPM took part in the BP or not BP? protests with campaigner Danny Chivers, reading a statement from Dame Janet Suzman on Saturday 8 December 2018 in the Parthenon Gallery.

This was followed by 22 year old campaigner Petros Papadopuolos, a second year Cambridge student speaking in Room 18 during the BP or not BP?  'Stolen Goods Tour' of 04 May 2019.

Ahdaf Soueif raised her concerns with BP’s high-profile sponsorship of exhibitions at the museum: ‘It was an education for me how little it seems to trouble anyone – even now, with environmental activists bringing ever bigger and more creative protests into the museum.The public relations value that the museum gives to BP is unique, but the sum of money BP gives the museum is not unattainable elsewhere.’ she is quoted as saying in Frieze.

Just last week the Director of the British Museum Hartwig Fischer announced that the Museum will continue its relationship with BP.  From 21 November this year to 08 March 2020, BP will sponsor the museum’s upcoming exhibition “Troy, Myth and Reality”.

Soueif also raised her concern over the museum’s failure to respond to a report published in 2018, which recommended the full restitution of looted African artefacts. The report noted in that some 90% of African cultural heritage currently exists outside of the continent and is displayed in major Western museums. Economist Felwine Sarr and art historian Bénédicte Savoy were charged by Macron to develop a clear framework of what this restitution means, philosophically and politically, and what needs to be done.

In the resignation letter, Soueif goes on to cite the museum’s employment policies, which she says pushed workers into ‘economic precarity’ with its unwillingness to rehire workers following the bankruptcy of service provider Carillion in 2018. 

Dame Janet Suzman, Chair of the BCRPM salutes Ahdaf Soueif and hopes that her resignation will ensure a change of heart with the British Museum's Board of Trustees. "What Ahdaf Soueif has said and done, must not fall on deaf ears or be swept aside and ignored. The time for change is here."   

"As governments are never tired of reminding us, the responsibility for all decisions on the British Museum’s holdings lies with the Board of Trustees, as an independent body. We can only hope that a new Trustee can be found who is as principled and well-informed as Ahdaf Soueif." Professor Anthony Snodgrass, Hon President of BCRPM

03 September 2019 Yannis Andritsopoulos, London Correspondent for Ta Nea, Greece's daily newspaper wrote his report following Prime Minister Mitsotaki's offer of a loan to the British Museum made in an article published in the Guardian.

The Greek government must acknowledge the British Museum’s ownership of the Parthenon sculptures before its Trustees consider whether or not to lend the marbles to Greece, a museum representative told Ta Nea, Greece’s daily newspaper.

“A precondition for any loan would be an acceptance of ownership of those objects by the Trustees / the Museum”, a British Museum spokesperson told Ta Nea, commenting on Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’s recent statement that he will ask Prime Minister Boris Johnson to approve a loan of the Parthenon Marbles to Athens in a temporary swap with other ancient artefacts.

“The Trustees will consider any loan request for any part of the collection. As yet there has been no direct contact from the Greek authorities regarding the proposal made over the weekend”, a British Museum’s spokeswoman said, stressing that “as an arms-length body, this would be a matter for the Trustees not the UK Government.”

“The British Museum is committed to sharing its collection as widely as possible, as one of the leading lenders of objects in the world we lent over 5,000 objects to venues in the UK and internationally last year,” she added.

“The Parthenon Sculptures are legal property of the British Museum. They are free to view, have been on display for over two hundred years, and millions from across the world have seen them”, a Downing Street spokesperson told Ta Nea.

“Decisions relating to their care are taken by the Trustees of the British Museum - free from political interference,” the UK government’s spokesperson said.

Mitsotakis told the Observer on Sunday that he would ask the new British prime minister to lend the marbles to Greece as part of its bicentennial celebrations in 2021.

“Given the significance of 2021, I will propose to Boris: ‘As a first move, loan me the sculptures for a certain period of timeand I will send you very important artifacts that have never left Greece to be exhibited in the British Museum’,” said the Greek premier.

On 7 June 1816, British Parliament voted to purchase from Lord Elgin his collection of sculpted marbles from the Parthenon and elsewhere on the Acropolis of Athens. They were then passed to the British Museum, where they are now on display. The British Museum is an arms-length body not under the control of the UK government.

“The International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS) and the twenty National Committees worldwide congratulate and firmly support Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in his efforts to reunite the Parthenon Sculptures in the Acropolis Museum in Athens for the festive bicentennial commemoration of the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence in 2021”, Dr Christiane Tytgat, President of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS) told Ta Nea.

“The loan proposition Prime Minister Mitsotakis successfully agreed with French President Macron last week - the South metope X of the Parthenon on display in the Louvre in return for a collection of bronze artefacts from Greece - was a first step on the way to making a breakthrough in the long ongoing claim by the Hellenic Government for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures in Athens,” she added.

“We warmly welcome the announcement Prime Minister Mitsotakis made in an interview with The Observer stating that he is going to propose to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, [quote] “as a first move, to loan me the sculptures for a certain period of time and I will send you very important artefacts that have never left Greece to be exhibited in the British Museum.”

“We sincerely hope that Prime Minister Johnson, as a philhellene and Classically educated person, will give this proposition consideration, and we wish Prime Minister Mitsotakis every possible success in his campaign to reunite the Parthenon Sculptures in the Acropolis Museum in 2021,” Dr Tytgat said.

“The difference between Macron’s thoughtful, sensible and sensitive attitude to ill-gotten colonial gains stands as an admonishment to the BM’s present snooty inflexibility, which won’t deign to enter a discussion on the matter but maintains radio silence through diplomatic channels and tells outdated stories through public ones, but we fervently hope for better things from the dear British Museum very soon, as times they are a-Changing,” Dame Janet Suzman, Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, told Ta Nea.

“A twinge of discomfort might be starting to manifest itself since the BM has, we are told, printed up in the Duveen Galleries for the general public to digest, a pamphlet telling its ageing trope about universality. We would like them to show a further inclination to fair debate by publishing alongside their screed the now current view that it is high time the Parthenon marbles were graciously returned to be exhibited next to their other halves in the Parthenon Gallery of the superlative Acropolis Museum,” Dame Janet said. 

She added that “it would be nice if the Museum manifested a more Macronesque largesse of spirit in regard to what belongs to the Sacred Rock and the people of Greece.”

“A mutually agreed exchange of loans is certainly far preferable to the BM's shameless soft diplomacy 'loan' of 'Ilissos' to President Putin some five years back. That I thought was a calculated insult to the Greek government. President Macron's statements on the unconditional return/reunification of 26 African art objects from France paved the way for the recent talks between Greece and France,” Professor Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture emeritus, University of Cambridge, Vice-Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, told Ta Nea.

“But of course we of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM) and the International Association for the Return of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS) hope for and expect much more in due course - namely, the total reunification in the Acropolis Museum of ALL pieces originally from the Parthenon that are currently held in museums outside Greece (not only in the BM)! But of course we campaign especially on behalf of the Marbles currently held (prisoner) in the BM,” Professor Cartledge said.

“For that eventual reunification the Greek Govt of the day will certainly reciprocate most handsomely with spectacular loans - such as those that are scheduled or will be scheduled to go to the Louvre no doubt will be,” he added.

Published in Ta Nea, Greece’s daily newspaper (www.tanea.gr) on 03 September 2019

 English version: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/greek-pm-told-he-must-recognise-british-museum-secure-andritsopoulos/

Original version (in Greek): https://www.tanea.gr/print/2019/09/03/lifearts/tha-eksetasoume-crto-aitima-sas-monon-ean/

Thursday 25 April 2019, Cambridge Union Debate 

This House Would Return Looted Art Back to its Country of Origin

Proposition:

Alice Procter:
Alice is an independent tour guide and art historian, best known for running the often sold-out Uncomfortable Art Tours, telling the ‘ugly truth’ about the artefacts in Britain’s museums.

Dame Janet Suzman:
Dame Janet is a renowned actor and director of both stage and screen and an Academy Award nominee. She is currently co-Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, a significant lobby group working to ensure the Marbles’ return to Athens.

Professor Lord Colin Renfrew:
Hailed as, ‘The Great Restitutionist,’ Lord Renfrew is an archaeologist and Senior Fellow of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research. He is a former Master of Jesus College and a former President of the Union.

Opposition:

Dr. Kevin Childs
Kevin is a writer and lecturer on art history and has recently developed a series of pieces looking at the contribution to culture and history made by LGBT people over the millennia. He writes regularly for Independent Minds and the Independent.

Neil Curtis
Neil Curtis is Head of Museums and Special Collections at the University of Aberdeen. He is Convenor of University Museums in Scotland, Vice President of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and a member of the Ethics Committee of the Museum Association.

Lewis Thomas                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Lewis is a third-year historian at Sidney Sussex College.

Below Dame Janet Suzman's prsentation

Mr President,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               The burning of Notre Dame should remind us all how much a building can mean to a people.

               Fellow debaters, ladies and gentlemen,

               I am here pleading for some exquisite pieces of stone to be returned to their birthplace. They have been given shelter for 200 years and now they need to go home. They can no longer be kept hostages to time.

              I am not the first by a long shot -

              In 1986, Melina Mercouri - in a similar debate in what you no doubt call the Other Place - the Oxford Union - was tremendously moving on this special case - specialbecause of what the Parthenon means to the Greeks…

               …means to the world.

               You might say all of Western culture is predicated on this building. It is the logo of UNESCO. Every classical building in the ancient - and modern world - springs from its genius.

               It's where democracy was born.

               And single-mindedly, incomprehensibly, a mere lordling from these isles cut bits off that edifice, which, so perfect in its symmetry, is a work of art in itself.

               The temple tells the thrilling story of the pan-Athenaic procession - carved in relief by Phydias' incomparable team - surging at a gallop round the entire building; Olympians and their creatures once adorned the pediments.

              These marbles were wrenched from a building that belonged - not to 'the one true god', not a tyrant, nor a king - but to the people.

              And there - astonishingly - it still is. After two thousand years plus it still stands atop the sacred rock, bloody but unbowed, and in the eye-line of millions of Athenians going about their business down below. It is embedded in their national identity.

              Imagine the dome of St Paul's sitting in Potzdammerplatz? A Stonehenge dolmen standing in the Tuileries - no, there IS no national equivalent here.

             I was privileged to have had a meeting with His Excellency, President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopios Pavlopoulos in Athens last Monday the 15th April, while I was attending a conference on the subject of these marbles.

               He wanted to make a very clear point - that the Greek government has never asked for any other piece of statuary in any other museum in the world to be returned to them. And that it never would.

               On the contrary, he said - the Greeks are very proud that the Louvre has the Winged Victory of Samothrace - they are happy to see it there.  

              They are NOT happy that Elgin attacked the Parthenon. They want their marbles back where they belong.

               The British Museum, via the Dept of Culture, stays tight-lipped. That insulting silence is way past its sell-by date.

              The reply to the President's latest request to re-consider by the Culture Secretary prompts me to offer him this simple advice: "Do NOT attempt to 'follow the logic of restitution to its logical conclusion', Mr Wright". Museum acquisitions were not exactly logically obtained, why should restitutions follow suit?

No slippery-slope-ism allowed; each case on its merits if you please.

                              --------------------------------------------------------

               A brief reminder: Greece was under Ottoman occupation when Lord Elgin was appointed Ambassador to Athens.  

               Napoleon was invading Egypt. So, on the principle of 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' sacrificing the Parthenon's glories to Elgin's whims was probably for the Sultan a mere bagatelle.

               However, exactly what 'glories' was Elgin allowed to take? Did the Sultanate specifically designate which?

               Proofs, if they exist, have hitherto skulked in murky clouds of smoke and mirrors.

               There is vague wording in an Italian transcript of a 'firman' - an official permission - in the Elgin archives - which give him leave to take 'qualque pezzi di pietra' - the word qualqueindicating 'some' or 'a few pieces of stone'.

               He was permitted to 'copy, draw, mould and dig' around the base of the Parthenon only.

              Dr Tatiana Poulou, an archaeologist working on the Parthenon site today likened his depredations to the destruction by ISIS of Palmyra. That is, catastrophic.

               Prof Dimitrios Pandermalis, Director of the New Acropolis Museum, understates these barbarisms of Elgin's as: 'at least surrealistic…' as he wryly points out the upper part of this horse and the lower legs of that.

              Scholars have known, and further Turkish research has confirmed that there exist no permissions to take the friezes and pediments, and none to take down the metopes.

               Hence this headline in the Greek edition of The NY Times: Dated April 16th - the day after my meeting with the President:

               "Acropolis Museum director says Ottoman archives debunk the claim Lord Elgin had permission to remove sculptures".

               The historian William St Clair knows more about the smoke and mirrors than anyone and is soon to publish his further findings, and I think he won't mind if I say that the headline above will not rock his boat.       

                                             -------------------------------------------------

               Ladies and gentlemen - there is far too much to say about the manner of Elgin's acquisitions: his huge bribes to Ottoman high-ups, his trail of 'shattered desolation' - as a witness described the rape of the metopes - the ship that sank with the marbles aboard (Poseidon briefly rejoiced!), Elgin's bankruptcy forcing him to sell to the nation instead of hiding them in his Scottish pile. Yes…he had wanted them for himself!

              Elgin was a terrible imperialist, but the truly colonial-imperial act was that of the British Parliament in 1816 in recognizing Elgin's title to his loot by buying it from him. That Act of Parliament thereby claimed 'ownership'.

               But the BM is not a private company with a board of directors. Trustees are required solely to look after things entrusted to their care, not play at politics.

               Does culture exist outside of politics? I think not.

               Anyway, look, it's done. The BM has them.

               The hornet's nest of Ottoman legalities still unravelling leads me to dwell rather on the NOW, not the THEN.

                                -----------------------------------------------------------

               Post-World War II, international laws should surely persuade parliament to re-think its position?

               Questions arise: does an occupying power have legitimacy to dispose of a vassal nation's heritage for the rest of history?

               Should Britain own a mass of foreign heritage for the rest of time?

               The ownership title that Britain exercises today surely should end at these shores?

              The BM's Director, Hartwig Fischer, has developed a trope about separation being a 'creative act'. Well, he would, wouldn’t he? The Marbles are one of the BM's star attractions.

               The Rodin show last year re-inforced the marbles' supremacy in execution and their diminished meaning in isolation.

               The BM once said the Greeks couldn’t look after their own marbles. The stunning New Acropolis Museum opened all of ten years ago, with the Parthenon serenely in view from every glass-walled gallery. One of them empty of its own. But waiting…

               We can't put Humpty together again but now you can visibly link the two - a revelation for visitors.

              The BM is a great encyclopaedic institution - and the Aladdin's Cave of conquest.

               There's a mood abroad that it must wake up to.

               A revolt against colonialist attitudes.

               The violence of the "Rhodes Must Fall" movement at Cape Town University made sure he did. That's the blunt end of hurt feelings.

              The Museums Association takes a more nuanced and ethical approach. When the balance of power was so heavily skewed towards imperial authority, blunt 'no's are not enough, it says. Polls taken in 2012 are 73% for the return of sculptures to Greece.

               The director of the Rijksmuseum recently said: "It's a disgrace that the Netherlands is only now attending to the return of colonial heritage…We should have done it earlier and there is no excuse".

                Guidelines for their return, he suggests, intend to offer a framework similar to existing directives for Nazi loot claims.

               The V & A is showing an open mind, Macron is thinking out of the box, St Mark's horses are back in Venice, Sweden has returned Icelandic Sagas, Easter Island will have its guardians back, Nigeria its Benin figures - and look! - the heavens have not fallen!

              It is high time the BM showed us a heart within the beast. Make models for heavens sakes! - but do the right thing!

             In the name of fairness and morality' said Melina in 1986 'please give them back. Such a gesture from Great Britain would ever honour your name'.    

Letter from Chair of BCRPM, Dame Janet Suzman to the Financial Times in response to Sir Richard Lambert's review of Geoffrey Robertson's newly launched book 'Returning Plundered Treasure'. To read the review by Sir Lambert, please follow the link to the FT here. 

Sir Lambert's review ends on a well reheared note: " the trustees are driven by the conviction that the collection is a public good of inestimable value, which it is their duty to conserve and share as widely as possible." One has to wonder if Sir Lambert doesn't believe that the Acropolis Museum's Parthenon Galleryhas such a conviction and that it is here, in Athens that visitors view all of the surviving sculptures (including the casts bought by Greece from the British Museum) facing the right way round and with direct views to the Parthenon, a building that still stands.

Sir Lambert concludes his review by stating that we all own history, indeed we all do but when we have a unique opportunity to put together halves of one peerless collection as close as possible to the building they were once an integral part of, all those thousands of years ago, surely the onus is on all of us to do just that. Respect for cultural heritage of a World Heritage site is key here too. 

RE: Returning Plundered Treasure 

I am offering, if I may, a very simple request which we would like to make to Sir Richard Lambert, who is Chairman of the British Museum, and that is to please reconsider his case for retaining the Parthenon marbles. After two hundred years, when circumstances have so radically changed in the country of origin, that stubborn retention seems wilful, wounding, and unfounded. There may not be faultless legal reasons for returning them, but there are surely humanistic and moral ones that should now come in to play?

The great new Acropolis Museum, which stands directly opposite the Parthenon itself, celebrated its tenth anniversary this year. It longs with all its heart and soul, to re-unite the two halves of the pedimental sculptures, frieze and metopes from that bedraggled but proud building, one half there and the other in the Duveen Gallery in Bloomsbury. 

Why on earth is there no constructive debate about these unique objects? As I understand it, there are no other pieces on display in the BM chopped off a building from the ancient world that is still standing? As I understand it there is no half of a major work in the BM’s collection awaiting re-unification with its other half? As I understand it, there is no major museum in the world that was expressly built to house its incomplete central collection - resolutely thwarted by the BM.

We know it is a noble stance to honour the founding intentions of the BM, which is to display the world to the world, but the quoted numbers that swarm through the BM do not take account of those visitors who simply don't get to the Duveen Galleries, as there are such rich offerings in other departments. Millions swarm through the Acropolis Museum at Athens too, you know, who would be moved and enlightened by seeing where the London marbles ought to be and are not.

Some day Sir Richard Lambert and the great Museum he represents must surely see that its intransigence in the matter of the Parthenon sculptures is way out of date. Colonial plunder is being re-assessed by all major museums. The heavens will not fall were they returned home. On the contrary, the stars will sing in their spheres if the BM resolved, after two hundred years, to make a generous gesture in regard to the only ancient building representing the West's entire political and ethical mind-set still exerting its power from its rock. The great neo-classical facade of the BM itself, entirely inspired by the Parthenon, could then bedeck itself with flags of altruistic joy.

Yours most sincerely,
Dame Janet Suzman DBE
Chair of The British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles

"There are a lot of historical artefacts that should be returned to their original owners, but none more important than the Parthenon Marbles.”

George Clooney writing to Janet on the 8th of January this year.

His latest film 'The Midnight Sky' was released a month earlier on 09 December 2020 and there were a number of articles in the weeks that followed including one in the Guardian, written by Tom Lamont. To read that, you can use the link here.

George Clooney remembers when he met Amal in February 2014 and that in the same month he was also in the UK for the launch of 'The Monuments Men', a film about soldiers at the tail-end of the Second World War who were tasked to protect priceless works of European art from Nazi looters.At this time Clooney also viced his  belief that the United Kingdom might return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. The then Mayor of London Boris Johnson retaliated by comparing the actor to Adolf Hitler. That evening he met with Amal for dinner and she gave George lots more facts about the plight of the Marbles including an update on UNESCO rulings.

Journalist Tom Lamont suggests to Clooney, that the actor owes everything to UK's Prime Minister Johnson: marriage, kids and present state of domestic contentment. George agrees and then suggests he might send a thank you note to  the PM..... plus a comb. We would concurr that a comb would be useful and we sincerely hope that the thank you note may persuade the PM to be more magnanimous when it comes to considering the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles too.

We live in hope and agree with George Clooney that despite the current challenges, here's to better days for all.

I was asked to be the Chair of the BCRPM because of my long-standing sympathy with the magnificent fury of Melina Mercouri, who came whirling into Britain many years ago like a mighty wind, to stir up the clouds of dead leaves that often litter the venerable institutions of this land. She demanded the return of the marbles. She is long gone, but the wind still blows, sometimes stronger, sometimes just a breeze to disturb the quiet. Those winds have started up again as the arguments about Brexit swirl this way and that, and they have started up in France as it recognises certain acquisitions in its own collections need justifying, and the windy debates continue in other far countries once colonised by Great Britain in its Empire heyday.

One of the most mightiest of those Institutions, The British Museum, is the keeper of so many of the world’s treasures they are almost beyond counting, because Empire-builders brought back wondrous artefacts from across the world when Britain ruled the waves. As we know the star attractions of the British Museum's astonishing collection are the Parthenon marbles, those breath-taking fractions of a breath-taking whole. The Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Lord Elgin, brought them to England and for two hundred years they have awed the millions of visitors who shuffle across the floors of the mighty Museum. They are seen in a severely walled gallery, sitting with great respect and decorum on harsh concrete plinths, with greyish light partly revealing their astonishing beauty.

Last year some of these pieces of sculpture were brought down to another larger gallery to show Rodin’s work alongside them, and how inspired he was by them. A breath of fresh air rushed round the figures and we saw anew how wonderful they are, in fact unmatchable. Emotionally charged, muscled Rodin figures paled beside the stillness of their haunting super-reality. The curators had presented the figures as solo works of art separated from their original function of being parts of a larger whole, wrenched from an integral part of an ancient belief-system.

Melina was an actress, I am an actress; that probably means we are basically open-minded. Acting requires you to be non-judgemental about a character and thus to depict its point of view, often very far from your own in real life, as truthfully as possible. I am no scholar, no academic. My position on the BCRPM Committee is one of a perfectly ordinary museum visitor and as such I can see so clearly that the marbles are in the wrong room. They need the sweet Attic sunlight shining on them and a blue sky beyond; they ask to be re-connected to their other half in the New Acropolis Museum where a space for them awaits. They need to be seen in sight of the Parthenon itself, which still astonishingly stands, in full view of that space, so that I, the visitor could turn my head and exclaim “Now I see - that’s where they came from!” No more gloomy light, no more orphaned statuary. They need to be re-joined to their other pedimental half which sits in this fine museum so that I, the visitor, can understand the whole silent conversation between them.

I simply do not trust the jargon of art historians or artistic directors however eminent who enlarge rather pompously on ‘creative acts’ - meaning the marble figures take on another equally important resonance by having been violently parted from their siblings. Chopped off in fact; the wounds are visible. I have no reason to disrespect the director of the British Museum but if I were playing him I would have to understand his motivation in speaking such transparently suspect words. It’s clear that it would be more than his job is worth if he allowed his natural intelligence to win over his enforced hypocrisy; he is required to speak diplomatically. So it is not he who is at fault; it is the Trustees of the British Museum who must surely be rather smug closet colonialists that they still don't choose to entertain what is only right and just. After more than two centuries, it is high time those marbles were returned to their rightful place.

I end by quoting from an eminent member of BCRPM, Alexi Kaye Campbell, who wrote most eloquently in The Guardianrecently: “Asking for something back of huge significance which has been taken from you when you were under foreign occupation is a demand for simple justice”. Europe has felt the dread hand of occupation far too often, and it behoves Britain and its premier institutions to start to accommodate the other point of view.

Greece’s ask is wholly justified. It must keep blowing zephyrous winds towards England.

Janet Suzman

The above article was published in Greek , Saturday 9 February 2019, in Ta Nea, Greece's daily newspaper.  It was also re-printed in Parikiaki.

Monday 15 April 2019,  Acropolis Museum, Athens.

Maria Vlazaki, Secretary-General of Ministry of Culture and Sports:

"Honourable organisers and participants; dear guests, colleagues and friends, dear campaigners.With great interest and attention, we watched the speakers' presentations and video messages during today’s Conference held at the Acropolis Museum. Each presentation at today's International Conference for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures was an in-depth approach to the quest to reunite the Parthenon sculptures and each one approached this from a different perspective.

Let us recall the main points of today's speeches: During the inaugural session, the Excellency President of the Hellenic Republic, Mr. Prokopios Pavlopoulos, emphasised that this international conference is yet another link in the long chain of the international struggle for the reunification of this unique cultural collection.He underlined that the fair request for the return of the Sculptures has a long history and began after Greece gained her independence. Moreover, the construction and opening of the Acropolis Museum further weakens the sacrilegious "alibi" of the English side that stated that Greece had no proper place for the sculptures to be exhibited.

(To read the President's full speech, please follow the link here.)

The Minister of Culture and Sports, Ms Myrsini Zorba, stressed that 37 years have passed since the UNESCO Conference in Mexico when Melina Mercouri first formally called for the return of the Sculptures, and referred to their removal as  cultural vandalism, an open trauma for the eyes of all humanity.In the decades that followed, Greece and the Ministry of Culture supported, the return of the Sculptures and their reunification in order for the monument to acquire its integrity - a one-way street, a lasting pledge that ‘we’ have a debt to resolve through dialogue.A pending historical, cultural, scientific, aesthetic, political and ethical quest towards the reunification of the Sculptures continues. The Minister congratulated all who helped, promoted and defended the claim, and in particular the national committees.

The President of the Acropolis Museum, Professor Mr. Dimitrios Pantermalis made a very interesting retrospect presentation of the history of the Parthenon monument, presenting in a way particularly characteristic and explaining the ‘adventures’ of three different parts of the sculptures, to their acquisition by the British Museum. He then noted the need to further investigate the Elgin material.

Mr. Christoforos Argyropoulos, President of the Greek Consultative Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, and President of the Melina Merkouri Foundation, argued that in the discourse related to the repatriation of the sculptures from the Parthenon, the Greek side uses real arguments - whereas the British, deliberately and repeatedly use misleading claims.

Mrs. Marianna Vardinoyianni, UNESCO's Goodwill Ambassador, reviewed her actions and initiatives. She referred to both the national and international dimension of the claim, as well as the legal and ethical aspects of the claim, while she also mentioned her aim to continue to gather signatures from prominent international personalities in order to add to the calls for the return the Parthenon Sculptures to Athens.

Former Minister of Culture and Sports, Lydia Koniordou, stressed the Greek side's insistence for a diplomatic path towards the reunification of the Sculptures without forgoing the possibility of using legal action. She too is keen to raise greater awareness of public opinion, which would act as a leverage to persuade the British Museum. Finally, she praised the effective and fruitful collaboration with the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, while observing that the polls continue to also show support for Greece’s legitimate demand.

The second session was followed by the latest developments in the case of the return of the sculptures, coordinated by the Director of the newspaper KATHIMERINI, Mr. Alexis Papakelas.

Professor Bernard Tschumi, architect of the Acropolis Museum, in a brief video message, presented the architecture of the Parthenon friezeand its exhibition at the Acropolis Museum where the visitor can see the sections of the Frieze as they were intended to be seen on the length and breadth of the Parthenon and not like those that hang in the British Museum. He likened the ones in the British Museum as paintings hanging on a wall. The sculptures, he concluded are the living entity of the Athenian democracy.

Academic Eleni Arbeler, President of the European Cultural Centre of Delphi, presented interesting historical aspects of the issue by analysing the conflict between two British scholars and the Sculptures in the late 19th century, and Cavafy's commentary as a journalist - columnist at that time.

Professor Louis Godart, President of the International Association for the Reunion of Parthenon Sculptures, described Italy's actions to combat the illicit trafficking of cultural goods and that his role as a counsellor to the President of the Italian Republic will continue to help him to help Greece in her quest.He appreciated that England is also unable to support the integrity of this symbol of eternal values ​​and aesthetic excellence, especially today where concepts and symbols such as the European Union are shaken and endangered by extreme populist forces. He concluded by saying that the return of the sculptures to the Acropolis Museum would be a move that would honour England and show respect for the whole of Europe.

Actress Dame Janet Suzman, Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, spoke of Melina, public pressure and opinion polls too. She apologised for the mess that the UK found itself at this time because of Brexit. She stressed that timing was everything and that young people no longer appreciate colonial practices and policies. In this context, many museums have and will continue to return cultural artefacts to their countries of origin. She finally suggested that the British Museum would soon be marginalized for its choices, namely to own and expose arts from other countries.

The lifelong scholar of the Monuments of the Rock, Professor of the National Technical University of Athens, Mr. Manolis Korres, presented with great emphasis the basic architectural particularities of the monument, as well as the ideological reports of the overall programme of the construction of the Parthenon’s masonry.

This panels presentations were brought to a close by UK journalist Sarah Baxter, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of The Sunday Times from London. She admitted that England seems to lose the battle in the moral field while expressing the view that the Parthenon Sculptures should be returned to Greece in the same way that the "Coronation Stone" was returned to Scotland.In addition, she expressed the view that the new technologies now make it possible to produce impressive copies of works of art, and that the British Museum could use copies of the Parthenon sculptures and return the authentic ones to Greece.

The third session was dedicated to the discussion of the strategy and the perspectives of the topic, Mr. Nikolaos Stambolidis, Professor of Archaeology, University of Crete, and the Director of the Museum of Cycladic Art, mediated this panel of speakers.

Dr. Tom Flynn, an art historian and writer in his short video message, provided a message for this conference, he expressed the view that public pressure for reunification is increasing, to such an extent that only the "cultural deaf" might not hear it.In addition, he mentioned the 10^th anniversary of the Acropolis Museum, stressed that the international museological tendency for smaller museums linked to archaeological sites, while large encyclopaedic museums represent an outdated imperialist concept.

Professor Paul Cartledge, Professor Emeritus of Greek Culture at the Cambridge University School of Classical Studies and Vice President of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, added that the British side's obsession no longer has any legal or moral support in modern day. He spoke of the firman and the Turkish experts that presented in Athens earlier this year. These experts proved that these were but travel permits. In fact no firman would have granted Lord Elgin the right to take down from the building what he did remove.

Dr. Artemis Papathanassiou, Legal Counsellor at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and member of the Greek Consultative Committee for the Reunification of Parthenon Sculptures, highlighted recent developments regarding the return of cultural goods to their countries of origin within the UN and UNESCO, focusing on the emblematic case of the Sculptures of the Parthenon.The most recent development within UNESCO is the adoption of a Recommendation in May 2018 by the Intergovernmental Committee for the Promotion of the Return of Cultural Goods in their countries of origin. In the extremely important recommendation, the Commission first takes into account the historical, cultural, legal and ethical dimensions, while it is recalled that the Acropolis is an emblematic monument of universal scope that has been included in the World Heritage List. In December 2018, the UN Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing the institutional character of the International Conference on Return of Cultural Goods and their final texts, while mentioning once again the request for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures.

Brigadier Fabrizio Parrulli, Commander of the Carabinieri Corps of Antiquities Department, explained that his Department held the world's largest digital database of stolen artworks. He went on to describe the initiative to set up and run the Task Force ‘Unite for Heritage’, which is involved in missions for the protection of cultural heritage in cooperation with local bodies and intergovernmental organisations both within Italy and internationally.He took this opportunity to refer to a similar initiative by the Ministry of Culture and Sport. As early as August 2016, a registry of executives willing to assist businesses to protect the cultural heritage was set up in Italy’s Ministry. Some 51 executives, archaeologists, engineers, conservationists, lawyers, museologists and architects continue to offer their services to international cooperative enterprises under the supervision or invitation of UNESCO or other organisations to record damage, provide know-how and assistance in the protection and recovery of cultural goods. 

Professor Emanuel Papi, Director of the Italian Archaeological School of Athens, referred to the long-standing practice of seizing antiquities as early as Roman times, and just before the start of the struggle for the Independence of the Greek State, Greece was the scene of the ‘important monuments of the ancient cosmos’ (Aphaia in Aegina, Epicureus of Apollo, Parthenon). He concluded his speech by asking the Italian State and the Sicilian region to return a piece of the sculpted decor of the Parthenon, which is now in the Museum of Palermo.

Dr. Elena Korka, Honorary Director-General of Antiquities and Cultural Heritage of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, testified the results of the thorough research she conducted in archive material, which reveals both the truth and the fiction that surrounds the removal of the sculpture from the Parthenon, while demonstrating legitimate use by distorting data related to the export of the sculptures by Lord Elgin, and the subsequent acquisition by the British Museum in 1816.

Mrs. Sophia Chiniadou Kambani, Head of Cultural Affairs of the Presidency of the Republic, focused on the erosion of the meaning of the sculptures when viewed away from the context of the monument, and set the goals for the success of the relevant struggle: preventing forgetfulness, the use of diplomatic channel as a main strategy to offer stability and consistency to the campaign, the emergence of the importance of the monument's uniqueness and integrity, as well as the unity and coordination that must identify every initiative, national and international.

The closing session, was co-ordinated by Marlen Taffarello-Godwin, from the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

The Deputy Minister of Culture and Sports, Mr. Constantine Stratis, noted that the Parthenon Sculpture case also raises a series of wider issues pertaining to the perceptions of the preservation, restoration, protection and enhancement of the cultural heritage, as well as the way in which it should be presented to the international community. It highlights the problems surrounding antiquity, the property regime, the commercialisation and trafficking of antiquities.Greece has continued to abolish all the arguments of the British side concerning both the preservation and protection of the Sculptures, as well as their appearance and presentation to the public, while the British Museum's rhetoric is rejected internationally as the remnant of an outdated colonial logic.The interventions of the representatives of the National Committees were then heard. They presented with enthusiasm their campaigning thoughts, some also outlined the efforts they have undertaken or implement in their individual countries, contributing to the swell in public opinion for reunification in many parts of the globe. Greece thanks them from the heart! We keep these great ideas and suggestions and we are committed to working on them and making the right use of them.

Professor Ove Bring, a member of the Swedish Parthenon Committee, Professor of International Law, Swedish National Defense College, Stockholm University, former lawyer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: proposes that the British Museum obtain exact copies and temporary repatriation of the property. He suggested that ownership is shifted to Greece and that Greece then in turn continues to lend the sculptures to the British Museum.

Emanuel Comino, Founder and President of the International Organization of Organizations (IOC-A-RPM) - supports cultural diplomacy, remarking on how it was Melina Mercouri that encouraged him to work with the British Committee, founded by James Cubitt. He added that the two committees had worked closely together for nearly 40 years and that he would continue to give his personal and committee’s support. He mentioned the International Colloquy held in London in 2012 before the London Olympics, the second held in Sydney, Australia in November 2013 and the third held in Athens in July 2015. He also mentioned attending BCRPM’s 200^th commemorative event held at Senate Housewhere Melina Mercouri also spoke, this event was held in London 07 June 2018 to mark 200 years since British Parliament voted to purchase from Lord Elgin his collection of sculpted marbles collected from the Parthenon and elsewhere on the Athenian Acropolis.

George Vardas, Secretary of the International Association (IARPS), Australian Council for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, Secretary of the Greco-Australian Council: analysed the legal dimension of the issue and suggested that the International Court of Justice should be consulted on this matter.

Mrs. Alexandra Pistofidou, Founder and President of the Austrian Committee for the Return of the Parthenon Sculptures, Historian-Palaeographer: presented her Committees use of social media networking as a tool and how these tools might be used to further the campaign of the IARPS.

Professor Maria Guimarães Kangussu, Brazilian Committee for the Reunification of Parthenon Sculptures, Professor of Philosophy, Federal University Ouro Preto: presented the Brazilian activities which included raising students' awareness of the plight of the Sculptures, talked about the website and a photographic exhibition that they will present at their embassy in Athens in November of this year.

Mr Roland Devivier, President of the Belgian Committee, spoke about their new website and facebook page, Mr Pantermalis' lecture in Brussels in January of this year and a Luxembourg decision to set up a committee there too.

Ms Donatella Monterisi Andreani, French Committee for the Return of the Parthenon Marbles, read out a moving letter from Ms Arberler to President Macron requesting the return of the section of the frieze that is currently in the Louvre. The letter also went to the French Ministry of Culture and the Directorate of the Louvre.

Mr Ole Norrback, Finnish Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Sculptures, a former Minister and Diplomat, former Ambassador of Finland to Greece, proposed better co-ordination of the actions of national committees in relation to the International Association. He feels there has to be activities on both national and international level.

Ambassador Krister Kumlin, Swedish Parthenon Committee, former Swedish Ambassador to Greece, supported Professor Bring's statement and spoke of the hope that we may get from a young people’s movement.

Professor Dusan Sidjanski, President of the Swiss Committee, Professor of Political Sciences, Geneva University, Honorary President of the Geneva Cultural Centre: talked about cultural diplomacy, but added the need to exert pressure, rather than a judicial claim, and analysed his thoughts on Greek culture and democracy, bringing the value of history and people. Without the will of people the campaign would have no traction.

In summing up, the return of the Sculptures is also directly linked to the theoretical discussions taking place across Europe on the return of so-called "colonial" cultural goods. This is why the current meeting of the IARPS is important not only for Greece but also for the global community. The Greek claim, a timely and imperative demand, is constantly winning supporters at the level of Civil Society and International Organizations. This is confirmed by the recent developments in both the UN plenary session and the UNESCO Intergovernmental Commission, as well as by the presence here at the Acropolis Museum of the International Association and its member Committees.After all, the arguments of the British side have now been broken down one by one:

• Elgin had no legal authority to remove the Sculptures as he did, as modern archival research has also shown.

• A modern Museum operates in direct visual contact with the Holy Rock and the Parthenon.

• New technologies can provide solutions for visitors to the British Museum by creating three-dimensional digital copies of maximum precision.

• The Greek side constantly declares its intention to collaborate creatively with the British Museum, as it has done with other museums, for the presentation of periodical reports and the development of joint research programmes.To achieve our goal, cultural diplomacy and public awareness remain our main weapons. The Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports continues to coordinate and process the necessary steps, updating it on the basis of the data, in cooperation with the National Advisory Committee, the Acropolis Museum and, of course, the Presidency of the Republic.

In the above context, having the International Committees and National Committees working alongside us, we believe that it would not be inconceivable to design and implement a campaign that would take place at the same time internationally through modern technologies and social media tools. On behalf of the Ministry of Culture and Sports, we commit ourselves that the relevant department, the Directorate for Documentation and Protection of Cultural Goods will undertake a public awareness campaign on April 15, 2020, and we call on a similar action on the same day, one year from now. We propose that the Committees discuss the matter at their meeting tomorrow.

We believe that the outcome of this conference is a strong and loud message. In a turbulent period that Europe is experiencing today, the return of the Sculptures from the British Museum will be a gesture of unity and belief in the ideals and values ​​of European culture. As Italy's important institutional representatives are among us, the first step, with the consent of the Italian Government, would be the permanent return of the fragment from the Pietus in Palermo, Italy, and that of the Vatican Museum, with the consensus Holy See. And finally, a larger coordinated effort to return the fragment from the Louvre. Such an achievement would be a decisive precedent for Britain's next moves.                                                                         

Thank you all. 

verage on this, check the articles listed below:

For coverage on the conference, some of the articles are listed below:

Greek president demands UK return Parthenon marbles from ‘murky prison’ of British Museum

Greek president brands British Museum a 'murky prison' for Elgin Marbles

Greece calls on the UK to free the Parthenon marbles from the British Museum's 'murky prison'

Greek president demands UK return Parthenon marbles from British Museum’s 'murky prison'

From Janet Suzman
Chair: British Committee for the Reunification
of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM)
1st January 2024

It really is very dispiriting that eminences like Lord Sumption (Sunday Times Dec 31st 2023) still make so many wrong assumptions. (Sorry). Here are some of them:

He fails to find a difference between a bas relief (the frieze, running round the perimeter of the building) and the 3D sculptures (metopes and pedimental figures). He can’t see why those pedimental figures make a stunning triangular pedimental shape when placed together, quite lost by enforced separation. The half of the extant frieze not in Bloomsbury is in Athens.

He avers that Lord Elgin obtained a ‘decree from the sultan authorising him to remove the sculptures.’ No such document has ever been found, only a permit (a ‘firman’) from a high official in Constantinople allowing him to retrieve ‘qualche pezzi di pietra’ already fallen down (it is an Italian copy) and to make drawings of pieces out of reach. Elgin, who kept a careful record of his expenses, bribed functionaries at every level to turn a blind eye to his crude attack on an already fragile building. Tourists reported shocking falls of precious metopes and such smashing to pieces, and a disdar – a guard at the time – was described as weeping at the mayhem inflicted on the building.

Elgin commandeered a ship of the line to transport his booty to Britain – so, taxpayers’ money – and had every intention of displaying the pieces at Broomhill, his Scottish seat, and none of sharing them with the public. Only when bankrupted after his rich wife left him did he turn to the British Government for a hasty sale.

Yet what’s done cannot be undone, and what matters now is a solution to a modern moral maze and not an old blame-game. And yet, Lord Sumption widens his argument to justify how artifacts have always voyaged to distant lands for our enlightenment. But this avoids the point; these Parthenon Marbles are sui generis. Elgin took far more than those cut off the Parthenon, but Greece is not asking for the caryatid he stole from the Erechtheum, nor is it asking for the Winged Victory of Samothrace from the Louvre.

In 2019 at a conference in Athens, I was invited into the then President’s rooms in his official residence where he took care to explain to me that Greece is proud that Hellenic pieces are in the Louvre (apart from Parthenon pieces…) and proud that around the world Greece’s treasures are displayed. “Let me be clear: we want only those pieces that Elgin took off the Parthenon itself”, he told me. The Greeks first claimed those Marbles when it was freed of Ottoman rule and became the Hellenic Republic in the 1830s. Melina Mercouri cast a spotlight on that claim in the 1980’s. Boris Johnson, when he was still an honest scholar, wrote a spirited article for the Oxford Union paper pleading for their return to the land of Achilles. The world is today more aware of cultural plunder than during colonial times. The British Museum is the only major museum in the world staying silent about its often ill-gotten contents. All of UNESCO is aware of this silence and is finding it embarrassing.

Sumption seems unmoved that panels from Duccio’s altarpiece are divided between nine museums, as if it might be diminished in some way were the whole to be displayed as Duccio intended. That altarpiece is a separate inspiration, whereas the Parthenon marbles are part of the very fabric of the building; it is one thing, conceived and carved as one thing. Alexander Herman (‘The Parthenon Marbles Dispute; Heritage, Law, Politics’ – Hart, Bloomsbury, 2023) makes this point: ‘Because we live in democratic times, we tend to have a predilection for remnants that connect us to the Athenian prototype. For this reason the Parthenon as a symbol continues to dominate’.

After two hundred years in London and badly displayed in a grey gallery in Bloomsbury since the 1960s, the Marbles have done their work of enlightening Europe to the glories of the ancient world. The United Kingdom is second to none in classical scholarship; the British Museum has millions of other ancient artifacts in its collections, and wonderful objects are promised for exhibition by the Greeks themselves to compensate for the (inevitable) return. George Osborne, Chairman of the BM Trustees, is embarking on an important act of international co-operation.

As to numbers, only one sixth of the 6 million annual visitors that enter its portals visit the Duveen Galleries. Approximately that same number passes through the Acropolis Museum in Athens, and why, one wonders, should not a Greek child be as astounded as a British one at the god-like figures caught in a high wind off Mount Olympus, and be as proud as Punch that his distant ancestors were so utterly brilliant with white stone? Why should the Greek people not thrill to such visions? They might be as far down the line as the Druids are to the English, but just listen to the fuss if half of Stonehenge had been nicked and plonked in Potsdamerplatz.

To read Lord Sumption's article, 'The Elgin Marbles weren’t stolen — Greece is just exploiting our weakness' follow the link to The Times.

On Thursday 29 Feb 2024, at 7 pm many gathered at the Hellenic Centre in London to hear Evdoxia Lymperi, the Greek Public Broadcaster and London based correspondent for ERT, present: Messengers and Communication in Ancient Mythology & Drama.

What is the equivalent of journalistic correspondence in ancient drama? Who were the people tasked with reporting happenings elsewhere?

Theatrologist, brodcaster and London correspondent for ERT, Evdoxia Lymperi took the assembled on a special journey. From the awesome world of ancient Greek drama and mythology, along with real and fantasy characters who were created to deliver communications at that time, to current day, and the war correspondents that many of us hear at least once a day reporting from around the globe.

Messengers in ancient times brought events to life and journalists today reporting from around the globe also look to inform us. Commanding the respect of audiences past and present remains key and to do so, the reporting must be truthful. Today, and despite the added visual element provided, words continue to matter, as indeed they did in ancient times, when there was no visual. Words are key and how they were used by the mesengers then and journalists today, remains pivotal.

Joining the event were two very special guests: actor and brodcaster Alexis Conran plus actor and political commentaror, and broadcaster, Alex Andreou. Each performed a reading from Greek tragedy, both had us sitting up to capture every word!

With thanks to Evdoxia for her enlightening and enjoyable presentation.

This event was organised under the auspices of the Embassy of Greece in London.

Pictured below Janet Suzman, Chair of BCRPM, with Evdoxia Lymperi, Alexis Conran and Alex Andreou.

THE GUARDIAN 16 November 2021

On Tuesday, 16 November 2021 in the Guardian Peter Walker and Helena Smith wrote that it has long been the official UK position that any return is a matter for the British Museum.

The wider debate about museums returning artefacts taken from other countries during colonial times, has so far been resisted by the UK with the mantra of “retain and explain”. And that the British Museum’s consistent view is that the sculptures were acquired legally, with Elgin receiving formal consent from the Ottoman empire to remove the section of sculptures. “His actions were thoroughly investigated by a parliamentary select committee in 1816 and found to be entirely legal, prior to the sculptures entering the collection of the British Museum by act of parliament,” the museum says on its website.

BCRPM Vice-Chair Paul Cartledge was quoted in the same Guardian article saying that this amounted to “a sleight of hand”.

“It’s a nonsense,” he added. “Even if the trustees agreed to relinquish them, the final decision to rescind the act of 1816 which declared the Elgin Collection to be owned by the nation would legally have to go through the British parliament. There is no doubt that the pressure is building up for genuine, post-imperial reconciliation in the cultural sphere and Johnson is trying to evade it.”

To read thst article in full, follow the link here.

THE TIMES

  Josh Glancey of The Times tweeted on the same day about the British Museum's website statement:

And BCRPM member Benjamin Ramm replied 

Variations in the British Museum's statements, half truths on the information provided in Room 18, have left generations questioning what really happened bewtween 1801-1805 for Greece to have lost to another country half of its surviving Parthenon Marbles, with the Parthenon itself still in Athens.

A helpful video can be found on the Acropolis Museum web site.

GBNews 18 November 2021

On Friday vening BCRPM's member Professor John Tasioulas joined GBNews and took a pragmatic approach on the issue too.

Today, Saturday 20 November, Simon Jenkins wrote in the Guardian and the article headline reads: 'Give the Parthenon marbles back to Greece – tech advances mean there are no more excuses. To read the full article follow the link here. 

THE GUARDIAN 20 November 2021

Simon Jenkins pragmatic approach concludes: 'This issue, so important to the Greeks but not to the British, could be sorted out with goodwill in an instant. Precisely such a negotiation on the marbles was demanded in September by UNESCO, and rejected by Britain. If it requires a “perpetual loan” or an act of parliament, then get on with it. If money is required, raise it. Johnson is being feeble in fobbing off Athens’ request as not being under his purview. The museum is a state institution. Instead of keeping his promise and doing the right thing by the marbles, he has performed another U-turn and funked it.'

THE DAILY MAIL 20 November 2021 

Prime Minister Mitsotakis wrote in the Daily Mail and adds: "Now, given the Prime Minister has told me he would not stand in the way of Greece establishing a formal dialogue with the British Museum over the future of the marbles, I can only assume things will be different – that he will not obstruct any future agreement and, instead, the Prime Minister would seek to amend the relevant legislation to allow the sculptures’ return."

THE TELEGRAPH 20 November 2021

The Telegraph published a double page spread in the main section of Saturday's paper, witten by Gordon Raynor, with the headline questioning:'Could we be on course to lose 'our' Marbles?'

BCRPM's Chair Janet Suzman is quoted:"The British Museum is demonstrably behind the curve.Other world-class institutions have started returning items, so it's a bit smug for the British Museum to refuse to engage. It just keeps trotting out the same mantra it has clung on for the past 200 years. It's terribly impolite for them to just stay silent on this."

The British Museum's reasons for keeping the Marbles in London and divided from their surviving half in Athens is that: " there is a positive advantage and public benefit in having the sculptures divided bewtween two great museums, because in Athens they are seen against the backdrop of Athenian history and in London visitors gain insight into how ancient Greece influenced other civilisations."

Janet adds that this is just "childish, finders keepers stuff. They were forcibly removed, they were brought to Britain, they have excited the western world and classical scholarship went up. They have done their job and it's time for them to go home. It is a moral obligation.

She continues:" Anyone who goes to the museum in Athens can see, that is where they should be displayed. In the British Museum the experience is quite depressing."

To read the full article, visit the Telegraph.

More on this also in the Greek Reporter.

Boris Johnson says ‘2021 is a significant year for Greece and a very exciting year for Britain to be invigorating our relationship with the Greek people’. If only. If only that good brain of his endowed with an impeccable classical education would dare to think outside the boring old box. Go on, Boris, reinvigorate the relationship with the one thing that would do it instantly: give back those Parthenon marbles. The old refrain that they were legally acquired is an invention, a factoid; say something often enough and people begin to believe it. Boris is a master of that sort of sell. There never was any proof of permission to export those figures, and the laws of the time have become inappropriate and dated. These sculptures represent the very heart and soul of Periclean Greece and so of the modern Greek state. The Ottomans are long gone. After 200 years the Marbles have done their job of enlightening and civilising the peoples of the West. The British Trustees do not own them they hold them in Trust, and to decide that the Greek people should in their celebratory year of 2021 have a chance to bathe in the aura of the originals would be a magnificent, and wholly decent gesture on their part. Those figures so brutally detached from the building still soaring above Athens, should be back where they belong, in sight of the Parthenon itself. A beautiful museum awaits them.

Janet Suzman, Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles 

 Now is the time, now is the hour, Prime Minister Johnson, to show that you are a true philhellene. That you truly respect not only what the brave Greeks of 1821 and following accomplished, against huge odds, in the name of liberty, but also what the Hellenes of the 5th century BCE achieved in creating a culture and a civilisation that has been an example and model to the world in the 25 centuries since. Consider what Pheidias, master-craftsman and master-designer, and architects Ictinus and Callicrates, would think if they knew that their masterpiece, the Parthenon, had been torn apart and kept apart - not only by a gunpowder explosion in the heat of battle with Venetians long, long ago but by British hands and minds, from the 7th Lord Elgin to the current Trustees of the British Museum even today. Do your duty by the Greeks, would-be philhellene PM Johnson! Reunify.

Professor Paul Cartledge, Vice-Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM) and the International Association (IARPS)

 ‘Our Prime Minister’s comments are very disappointing. He talks of friendship and cooperation with our European friends and claims that the Parthenon marbles were obtained legally. But the permit for their removal from Athens was granted by the occupying Ottoman forces and the Greeks themselves had no say in the matter.

I believe that works of art should not be returned to their country of origin save in the most exceptional of circumstances. In the case of the marbles their ownership is doubtful to say the least, the British Museum only has some of them and there is a rightful place for them at the Acropolis Museum where the surviving sculptures could be displayed in their entirety. If we are not prepared to return them permanently could we at least lend then to the Parthenon for the 2021 celebrations.’

Lord Alf Dubs, Labour Life peer

Sunday 23 February 2020,  The Sunday Times, Deputy Editor Sarah Baxter, wrote her  modest proposal for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, aptly entitled: "The sane move is to give Greece back its Elgin marbles".

The first 'modet proposal' was written by Christopher Hitchens (pages 104 to 106) in the third edition of  'The Parthenon, The Case for Reunification' published by Versoin May 2008 and launched at Chatham House by the BCRPM. The second was written by Stephen Fry in 2011, you can  read that here too. 

Sarah Baxter attended the International Conference: 'The Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures'  in Athens on 15 April 2019 and saw for her self  "the marvellous museum facing the Acropolis that was built 10 years ago to house the marbles — much lighter and more beautiful than the windowless strip devoted to the sculptures that is admired" at the British Museum. She also spoke at the conference which was hosted by the President of  the Hellenic Republic, Prokopios Pavlopoulos.

In the Sunday Times of the 23rd of February, Sarah Baxter suggestes  the UK had "no need to keep the marbles when it was possible to access the “universal” culture, so prized by the British Museum, by the clever use of technology. As mayor of London in 2016, Johnson had welcomed to Trafalgar Square a 3D replica of the beautiful arch of Palmyra destroyed by Isis in Syria. And, of course, his own trusty bust of Pericles, the “populist” who ordered the construction of most of the Acropolis, is a fake — and none the less inspirational for UK's prime minister."

Sarah's article can be accessed on line or follow the link here.

Following on from Sarah's article, the Director of the British Museum, Dr Hartwig Fischer wrote a letter, which was published on 01 March:

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Sunday March 01 2020, 12.01am, The Sunday Times

Greeks should be glad we have the marbles

Sarah Baxter’s column on the Parthenon sculptures asks us to imagine how we would feel if Big Ben had been transplanted to Athens (“The sane move is to give Greece back its marbles”, Comment, last week). This is to ignore the many buildings and artworks that have been reused, reshaped and often moved across borders, such as Duccio’s altarpiece the Maesta, elements of which have been removed from Siena cathedral and are held in museums across Europe and America.

The Parthenon sculptures are fragments of a lost whole that cannot be put back together. Only about 50% of the original sculptures survive from antiquity. The Parthenon has become a European monument precisely because its sculptures can be seen not only in Athens but in London and other European cities. The public benefit of this distribution and what it means for our shared cultural inheritance is self-evident, and something to celebrate.

Hartwig Fischer, director, British Museum

Minister of Culture for Greece, Dr Lina Mendoni also responded by saying that Dr Fischer's letter was as “unfortunate, if not outright unacceptable.” To read one of the article's quoting Dr Mendoni, follow the link here.

As expected, this was not well received by most not just in the UK but elsewhere too. Yannis Andritsopoulos, London Correspondent for Ta Nea, Greece's daily newspaper, wrote an article  following on from Dr Fischer's letter to the Sunday Times, quoting a number of BCRPM members including Janet Suzman, Alex Benakis,  Dr Peter Thonemann and Professor John Tasioulas. An English version of the Ta Nea article can be read here.

As Chair of the BCRPM, Janet also submitted a letter to the Sunday Times, which is printed in today's paper, alongside one from Dr Peter Thonemann Professor of ancient history, Wadham College, Oxford  and a member of BCRPM. The online link is here and the texts for both letters are below:

Behind the Times at the Museum

Hartwig Fischer, the director of the British Museum and a respected art historian, fails to find a credible parallel for the Parthenon’s dispersed marbles (“Greeks should be glad we have the marbles”, Letters, last week). This is not surprising: there is none.

Thinking people in London were holding anguished debates on the merits of keeping the marbles 200 years ago. They still are. What has changed is the mood abroad: colonial acquisitions are regarded with an increasingly active disdain.

The Greeks have waited for the return of the marbles since 1843, with great dignity and patience. After his latest utterance in defence of the indefensible, Fischer should be aware that patience is wearing thin.

Janet Suzman, chairwoman, British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles

Hack job
Since the Parthenon frieze cannot be fully put back together, Fischer thinks that having its sculptures spread around London and other European cities is a “public benefit” and “something to celebrate”.

My local museum doesn’t have any bits of the Parthenon, and the British Museum has loads. It’s not fair. I wonder if Fischer might be persuaded to hack a few pretty bits off his sculptures and send them our way. If the division between Athens and London is to be celebrated, surely dividing them further would be even more beneficial.
Peter Thonemann, Professor of ancient history, Wadham College, Oxford (member of BCRPM)

Read Janet Suzman's letter sent directly to Dr Fischer on Friday by post and by email. 

Images from left to right: Sarah Baxter Deputy Editor of the Sunday Times, Dr Hartwig Fischer Drirector of the British Museum, Dr Lina Mendoni Greek Minister of Culture and Sport, Dame Janet Suzman BCRPM, Dr Peter Thonemann, Professor of Ancient History, Wadham College, Oxford and BCRPM member

On Saturday 20 June, the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM) organised a silent protest outside the gates of the British Museum, which remains closed. The protest follows on for those held in previous years and since 2009 when the then ‘New Acropolis Museum’ in Athens was officially opened. This Saturday’s protest was held to marked the 11th anniversary of the Acropolis Museum, which post Covid19 lockdown re-opened to the public on Monday 15 June 2020.

The four large banners that were tied to the British Museum’s railings were the four original banners that hung down from the 4th Plinth in Trafalgar Square, when 19 year old student from Central St Martin’s College, Sofka Smalesstood to protest, 12 September 2009, on behalf of the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. On the following day, accompanied by Eleni Cubitt and Marlen Godwin, Sofka visited the British Museum to hand the letter she had written on a roll of wallpaper during her protest on the plinth to the then British Museum Director, Neil MacGregor.

On Saturday the London protesters, Luke, Zara and Tayo wore the 2020 Melina Mercouri t-shirts that made their debut at the 08 February 2020 BM protest. They hung the 4 posters with a few additional scribbles on them (11 years later, there was more to say!) and held the ‘Reunite the Parthenon Marbles’ flag that Professor Edith Hall held out for the first time on 22 February 2020 in the British Museum’s Room 18, the Parthenon Galleries, at the end of Natalie Haynes recital of ‘A Thousand Ships’ the voices of the women of Troy.

On Saturday, 20 June, the Acropolis Museum reduced its entrance fee and there were a number of talks and additional exhibitions for visitors to take part in, including: ‘Chisel and Memory’, ‘The lost statue of Athena Parthenon’ and ‘A walk through the Museum with an archaeologist’.

The Director of the British Museum, Dr Hartwig Fischer spoke to UK correspondent for Ta Nea, Yannis Andrtisopoulos that the Acropolis Museum and the British Museum “are complementary in their approach,” adding that the museum “looks forward to continuing our collaboration and fruitful dialogue with our colleagues at the Acropolis Museum.”

Minister of Culture and Sport for Greece, Dr Lina Mendoni commented :“ Perhaps the main argument that the British Museum has been making for years in order not to return the Parthenon Sculptures - since 1982, when Melina Mercouri raised the issue at a UNESCO Conference of Ministers - was that Greece did not have a modern museum that could house the masterpieces of Phidias. Since September 2003, when the construction work for the Acropolis Museumbegan, Greece has been systematically demanding the return of the Sculptures, which are on display in the British Museum, because they are products of theft. The current Greek government - like any Greek government - is not going to stop claiming the stolen sculptures, which the British Museum continues to hold illegally contrary to any moral principle.”

Conservative MP Sir Roger Gale reflected: “while I do not hold to the view that all artefacts should be returned to their country of origin it does seem to me that the Parthenon Marbles have a good home to be returned to and a facility in which they can be properly displayed in home surroundings for the benefit and enjoyment of visitors from all over the world.”

Labour MP Mary Glindon also added: “I have enjoyed several classical tours of Greece and a highlight of those tours has always been the visit to the Acropolis and the Parthenon. But it’s sad that the Parthenon Marbles are in London. While they are seen in the British Museum by many people, as many, if not more, would appreciate seeing the Marbles as part of the amazing cultural experience to be enjoyed when visiting the Parthenon and the Acropolis Museum. The Marbles belong in Athens.”

Dame Janet Suzman, Chair of the BCRPM concluded: “there’s always an anniversary to celebrate. June 16th marked the 44th year since the student uprising in Soweto that was a turning point in the downfall of the apartheid state. A global reaction to the murder of a black man in America is sweeping the world, and those same students, grown much older if they survived at all, want to honour that murder by urging “a move away from a world centred on white supremacy and violence to one centred on justice and equity”.

“That argument was taken further when last week a statue was torn down from its plinth in the city of Bristol in England and thrown into the waters of the harbour where the slave ships used to anchor. Bristol, aware too well of its past, has decided that the statue should now be placed in the city museum with a full explanation of how the trader became so rich. Visitors can then understand that the defaced bronze figure is not just a benefactor of the city but a man who grew rich on other people’s misery, by exploiting the cruellest of white supremacies - the slave trade.

“And in Greece, the end of the Ottoman Empire’s occupation will be celebrated next year. Taking over bits of the world and ruling them according to your own values is an occupation that the British know only too well; at its height that Empire ruled a third of the world. So when Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman court, decided he wanted to send back bits of the Parthenon to adorn his house in Scotland, he didn't bother to ask the subject Greeks, he greased the palms of functionaries from Istanbul, persuaded his own king to provide a ship and made off with the glory that was Greece. They landed up in Room 18 of the British Museum and for 200 years have been one of its star attractions.

“So we need to ask the British Museum, hiding from the tsunami of anti-colonialist feeling sweeping the whole world, whether they would have the decency to provide visitors with the full story: how did these incomparable pieces of sculpture torn from the greatest building in the western world get to sit - out of context - in the grey grandeur of Room 18? Reunification of the Marbles would seem to be a move away from white British exceptionalism and a move towards a world the survivors of Soweto are desperate to see. White supremacy stole them away and a white sense of justice should see them restored. But until that time comes, as it surely must: tell the story. Let the people judge the fairness of their captivity in London. There is a museum waiting for them in Athens.”

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.

01 April 2023

The Marbles - Panel Discussion

Join David Wilkinson, director of forthcoming documentary The Marbles, and an expert panel to discuss the story of the Parthenon Marbles.

By Greenlit

When and where, date and time: Saturday, 01 April,  5 - 6pm BST, online.

To read more about David's documentary film, follow the link here.