BCRPM congratulate the British Museum for the hugely successful 'Rodin And the Art of Ancient Greece' exhibition (26 April - 29 July 2018) and Janet Suzman, BCRPM's Chair, adds that this is the right time to consider reuniting the sculptures from the Parthenon in the Acropolis Museum. 

12 April 2018, Philip Stephens wrote in the Financial Times:

The west's great museums should return their looted treasures.
He refers to the case of the Parthenon Marbles: "To my mind, it also seems perfectly obvious that Lord Byron was right and the Parthenon sculptures belong to Athens, whatever the deal struck by Lord Elgin and the then Ottoman rulers of Greece. I concede, though, that this is a dispute with some way to run. But "hard" cases should not be allowed to obstruct just settlement in instances of egregious looting. The wider debate may not go away, but restitution in these cases would take the museums on to higher ethical ground."

23 April 2018, Donald Lee for the Art Newspaper, wrote: 

Rodin's debt to Parthenon sculptures explored in British Museum exhibition.

In the exhibition Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece, the British Museum makes clear Rodin's close study and use of the museum's own ancient Greek art for the development of his sculpture.

To read the full article, click here 

24 April 2018 , Melanie Mcdonagh writes in the Evening Standard

Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece Reviewed. The master sculptor meets the Greek greats at the British Museum.

If ever there were an exhibition that plays to a museum's strengths, it's this one. Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece is about the artist's obsession with Greek statuary in general and the Elgin Marbles in particular. So the exhibition is a kind of dialogue between Rodin and the artefacts of the museum, which he first visited in 1881 and loved.

24 April 2018, Jonathan Jones writes in the Guardian:

British Museum, London
The Frenchman made some of the best loved sculptures in the world. But his magnificent work is still no match for the Parthenon Marbles. My god, what art!

26 April 2018, Michael Glover also reveiwed the Rodin exhibition in the Independent. He wrote that there's 'a lovely, easy panache to this show'.

26 April 2018, the Greek Ambassador in London, H E Dimitris Caramitsos-Tziras wrote to Hartwig Fischer, Director of the British Museum, you can read his letter here.

28 April, 2018, Hettie Judah's article entitled: 'Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece, British Museum, review: remarkably handsome and unabashedly sensual'. 

The exhibition is not so gauche as to explicitly suggest the influence of the Elgin Marbles on Rodin as any kind of rationale for keeping them at the museum – more it acknowledges the regard in which they were and are held by artists, and the influence they have had on Western European sculpture.

To read BCRPM's press release, visit here.

05 January 2022, The Telegraph

Nick Squires in the Telegraph: 'Britain should put best foot forward like Italy and give Elgin Marbles back, says Greece.'Athens museum chief hopes return of stone foot fragment from Sicily will put pressure on British Museum to return large friezes.'

“Good for Sicily,” said Janet Suzman, the chairman of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. “We expect the British Museum to make a more magnanimous gesture.

I cannot think of a single argument in favour of keeping the legacy of Greece locked in Bloomsbury. Certain things must be returned and the Parthenon Marbles deserve to be reunited in the Acropolis Museum.”

To read the article in full, follow the link to the Telegraph.

The Guardian, Angela Giuffrida

Italy returns Parthenon fragment to Greece amid UK row over marbles.

Loan deal could renew pressure on Britain to repatriate ancient Parthenon marbles to Athens.

The Antonino Salinas Regional Archaeological Museum in Palermo, Sicily, returns to the Acropolis Museum, the foot of a goddess for a loan period of four years to be extended by a further four years. However, the move back to Greece could eventually become permanent.

The fragment was loaned to Greece in 2002 and in 2008. Sicily’s councillor for culture, Alberto Samonà said the latest transfer could become permanent, but that it would be up to the Italian culture ministry to take the measures needed to make that happen.

To read the article in full, follow the link to the Guardian.

Acropolis Museum, 03 January 2022

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis speaking (in Greek) on Monday 03 January at the Acropolis Museum when 10 Parthenon Marble fragments were transferred from the National Archaeological Museum to the Acropolis Museum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gozU5WyrOoM

"Precious fragments of the Parthenon Sculptures were reunited today in the Acropolis Museum. It was a small but significant step, and I hope others now play their part in completing this important journey to reunify a truly unique monument of human civilisation."

23 May 2020, Athens, Greece

Greece's  Minister of Culture and Sport,  Lina Mendoni restated the long-standing request for the British Museum to return the Parthenon Marbles, ahead of the 11th anniversary of the Acropolis Museum.

The British Museum in London continues to refuse to return the Parthenon Marbles. The 2,500-year-old sculptures were forcibly removed from the Parthenon, by British diplomat Lord Elgin in the early 19th century when Greece was under Ottoman Turkish rule.

Prior to the opening of the Acropolis Museum on 20 June 2009,  the British Museum had argued that Greece had 'no where to display' the Parthenn Marbles. Now nearly 11 years since the purpose-built Acropolis Museum was opened  to house the antiquities from the Acropolis, the British Museum continues to argue that the sculptures in London are best viewed in London as they can be seen in the context of world cultures.

On 24 January 2019, Ioannis Andritsopoulos, Ta Nea's UK correspondent , interviewed British Mumseum Director, Hartwig Fischer who said: "since the beginning of the 19th century, the monument’s history is enriched by the fact that some (parts of it) are in Athens and some are in London where six million people see them every year. In each of these two locations they highlight different aspects of an incredibly rich, layered and complex history."

"People go to some places to encounter cultural heritage that was created for that site. They go to other places to see cultural heritage which has been moved and offers a different way to engage with that heritage. The British Museum is such a place, it offers opportunities to engage with the objects differently and ask different questions because they are placed in a new context.We should cherish that opportunity." Concluded Dr Fischer.

On Sunday 23 February 2020,  the then Deputy Editor of the Sunday Times, 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 Verso in May 2008 and launched at Chatham House, London by the BCRPM. The second was written by Stephen Fry in 2011, you can read that heretoo.

Dr Fischer responded to Sarah Baxter's article with a letter to the Sunday Times, which was publish Sunday 01 March 2020:

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.

Minister of Culture for Greece, Dr Lina Mendoni  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.

Dr Mendoni insists that “it is time for the British Museum to reconsider its stance ahead of the Acropolis Museum’s next birthday, which is on 20 June 2020. Does it want to be a museum that meets and will continue to meet modern requirements and speak to the soul of the people, or will it remain a colonial museum which intends to hold treasures of world cultural heritage that do not belong to it?” Smilar words were used by Dame Janet Suzman during her participation in the Cambridge Union debate on 25 April 2019. You can read Janet's speech here.

Minister Mendoni urged the International Committees (IARPS) to continue to support this long standing request as they also continue to support the Greek government in their quest for the return of the Parthenon Marbles.

If everyone could see this quite remarkably moving  Channel 5 documentary made by Nick Stadlen entitled 'Life is wonderful:Mandela's unsung heroes', it would bring home the enormity of the life lived by the very great George Bizos. Such tumultuous and cruel events were playing out in the land of my birth, South Africa, leading to the eventual euphoric release of, probably, one of the finest human beings of the twentieth century.

George Bizos was a figure who I salute as someone who lived a just and useful life, a great life serving others, his loathing of injustice feeding his very considerable energies to the end. He has always figured high on my list of those who I respect and admire from the bottom of my heart. There is an irony in my life that the nearest I ever got to him was his substitute in a film I made many years ago, A Dry White Season, in which he was played by Marlon Brando - another giant in his chosen field.

Those three words - "if needs be” - which George advised Nelson Mandela to insert into his famous speech at the Treason Trial, changed the outcome of history. If only George could have made the case for the Marbles return from inside a courtroom, the two sides of his life would have been perfectly joined. The small imperfection that remains must spur us all on to direct our energies towards the common goal George and all of us have to see one of his dreams realised.

George Bizos rest in peace.

Janet

George Bizos was a member of the BCRPM and a friend of Eleni Cubitt. He passed away on Wednesday 09 September 2020 in his home in Johannesburg South Africa, aged 92. Born on the 14th of November 1927 ( exact date was never known because municipal records were burned during the Nazi occupation of Greece), Gorge wrote in his autobiography that his mother, Anastasia Tomaras, recalled it as November the 14 th.

George at the age of 13 with his father Antonios, in May 1941 helped New Zealand soldiers to flee the Nazis on a fishing boat, which was rescued by a British warship, the H.M.S. Kimberley. They were taken to Egypt and from there George and his father sailed to South Africa. They arrived as refugees and at a time of racial oppression and pro-Nazi sentiment among some Afrikaners. The train taking them from Durban was diverted to a station in Johannesburg, where George stayed with a Greek family. He struggled to learn Afrikaans and English through school and went onto the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg to obtain his law degree in 1950 and by 1954 was admitted to the Johannesburg bar.

George and Oliver Tambo lead the A.N.C. representing clients in rural places, victims of apartheid. And so George came to be one of the lawyers representing Nelson Mandela.

Apartheid, a policy of racial discrimination and segregation, was used in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. It was destructive and inhuman as the laws decreed where people could live and be buried; which schools they could attend and what they might learn. Buses were segregated by race, and so were park benches, railroad stations, beaches and shops.

“In South Africa the courtroom was the last forum available to condemn oppressive policies and the deprivation of fundamental rights” George wrote. Only in court, he said, could one demand for all South Africans the rights “to meaningful citizenship, free and fair elections, dignity, equality and a fair distribution of goods and honours in a democratic state.”

Homer's Odyssey is one of the world’s most influential poems.

Janet Suzman*, our Chair will be starting the journey by reading the opening 95 lines before handing the story over to the next reader. Translated by Emily Wilson and directed by Tom Littler, on Friday 09 October 2020, the voices of 72 actors will recite this version of the Odyssey. Together with the London Review Bookshop and publishers WW Norton, Jermyn Street Theatre will stream this continuous performance of all 24 books live online.

Books 1 to 4 will stream from 9am on the LRB Bookshop YouTube channel,

Books 5 to 24 will continue at 12 noon on the Jermyn Street Theatre YouTube channeland run until late that night.

The entire reading will remain on YouTube for a week (09 October - 16 October 2020).

Emily Wilson is a 2020 Booker Prize Judge and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Her translation, recapturing the life of the poetry for the 21st century, was hailed as a definitive new version upon its publication in 2017. 

Charlotte Higgins for the Guardian on Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey wrote: “This translation will change the way the poem is read in English. Emily Wilson’s crisp and musical version is a cultural landmark.”

 BCRPM member, Edith Hallwrote in the Daily Telegraph: “In the history of Odyssey translations, few have exerted such a cultural influence that they become ‘classics’ in their own right…I predict that Emily Wilson will win a place in this roll-call of the most significant translations of the poem in history. She certainly deserves the honour”.

*The full cast of actors reciting the Odyssey on 09 October 2020 comprises:
Janet Suzman, Emma Fielding, Jim Findley, Aaron-Louis Cadogan, Dorothea Myer-Bennett, Theo Ancient, Daphne Alexander, Jack Klaff, Sally Cheng, Naomi Frederick, Burt Caesar, Richard Keightley, Jamael Westman, Miranda Foster, Michael Pennington, Bu Kunene, Bea Svistunenko, Joelle Brabban, Christopher Ravenscroft, Michael Lumsden, Naomi Asaturyan, Richard Derrington, Kirsty Bushell, Rob Heanley, Hannah Kumari, Paddy Stafford, Mercedes Assad, Cindy-Jane Armbruster, Augustina Seymour, Stanton Wright, Lynn Farleigh, Simon Kane, Skye Hallam, Lara Sawalha, Elliot Pritchard, Lydia Bakelmun, Edmund Digby-Jones, Waj Ali, Hannah Morrish, Nalan Burgess, Ellie Nunn, Alice McCarthy, Adam Karim, Helen Reuben, Gavin Fowler, Rebecca Banatvala, Viss Elliot Safavi, Leah Whitaker, Adam Sopp, Judy Rosenblatt, Emanuel Vuso, Jessie Bedrossian, Annabel Bates, Tiwalade Ibirogba-Olulode, Atilla Akinci, Sam Crerar, David Sturzaker, Paula James, Issy Van Randwyck, Ian Hallard, Asha Kingsley, Miranda Raison, Samuel Blenkin, David Threlfall and Rachel Pickup.

Emily Wilson's translaton of Homer's Odyssey was published by Norton in hardback in 2017 and paperback in 2018. This year, 2020, Norton's Critical Edition has been published, more on that here.

A celebration, and view towards a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. A world that's diverse, equitable, and inclusive. A world where difference is valued and celebrated. Together and collectively we celebrate all women today, on International Women's Day, and in 2023, #EmbraceEquity.

Today, we can all celebrate and raise awareness of all that  women have achieved and continue to do so.

Professor Judith Herrin, has this message: 

"On International Women's Day we remember and celebrate Melina Mercouri and Eleni Cubitt, who initiated and inspired the campaign to reunite the Parthenon Marbles. The British Committee continues their efforts led by the redoubtable Janet Suzman."

Duff Cooper Pol Roger Prize 2020 for 'Ravenna. Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe', Heineken Prize for History 2016, Constantine Leventis Senior Research Fellow, Department of Classics,King's College London and a BCRPM member for nearly 4 decades.

On 02 March, Times2 arts publish a double page article by Chloë Ashby about the 130 women that make up an outstanding collage for the National Portrait Gallery's re-opening.

"When the National Portrait Gallery reopens (22 June) after a three-year revamp, its walls will feature the creations of many more female artists, and even more female faces. Among them are 130 stencilled portraits that have been cut and painted by members of the public and brought together by the British-American pop artist Jann Haworth and her daughter, the abstract collagist Liberty Blake." 

Baroness Chakrabarti is featured on Panel 5.   

And a reminder of what Baroness Chakrabarti said last year, as valid today as it was then:

“There could not be a better moment for the Parthenon Marbles to be reunited in their Athenian home. Let us put international treasures on carefully chartered aeroplanes instead of desperate refugees,” Baroness Chakrabarti, member of BCRPM.

The Times, 04 December 2021

The Parthenon Gallery in the Acropolis Musem, Athens, Greece.

 George Osborne wrote a Comment piece on page 29 of the Times on Saturday, it was entitled: "It's right to be proud of the British Museum". 

He goes on to ask: "Should we be ashamed of Britain’s past or should we celebrate it?"

He adds: " humans are capable of acts of great kindness and appalling brutality towards one another. The artefacts in the British Museum, with their depictions of love and war, reflect that truth over the course of two million years. It is why they help us understand ourselves better. That was the founding purpose when it was established as the first national public museum of the world in 1753, and it remains the purpose today. It was a product less of the British Empire (which was largely created in the following century) and more of the European Enlightenment."

And he does conceed that much has changed in the last 260 years, praising the 'magnificent Norman Foster roof over the Great Court at the Millennium', which he feels helps the British Museum to confidently call itself “the museum of the world, for the world”.

Although he insists that the British Museum is also 'just a museum', and that it cannot resolve the contractions between the Enlightenment as a western construct and universal human rights, or support those that question the very existence of the British Museum.

"Of course, there are those who demand the return of objects they believe we have no right to hold. That is not new either. Lord Byron thought the Elgin marbles should be back at the Parthenon. Our response is not to be dismissive. We are open to lending our artefacts to anywhere and to who can take good care of them and ensure their safe return — which we do every year, including to Greece."

Sadly he suggests that museums of culture ought not shrink in the face of  'culture wars' - why wars and not cultural cooperation? And that the British Museum needs to tell the story of common humanity. Surely common humanity needs to uphold respect for all countries cultural heritage! 

To read the full article, follow the link to The Times.

UK Ambassador to Greece Matthew Lodge tweeted the link to George Osborne's article in the Times and John Tasioulas, Director, Institute for Ethics in AI, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford and a member of BCRPM, quoted Ambassador Lodge's tweet:

TA NEA, Monday 06 December 2021

Yannis Andritsopulos, UK Correspondent for Ta Nea writes:

Suzman and Cartledge respond to Osborne

Reactions to the statements made by the new Chair of the British Museum on the reunification of the “Elgin Marbles” and their "loan" to Athens

The new Chair of the British Museum, George Osborne, was provocative and uncompromising on the question of the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures.

A week after the 'Ta Nea' reported that in a conversation former British Minister, Dennis McShane had with George Osborne, the new Chair of the British Museum rejected any talk of a permanent return of the Sculptures, speaking with "contempt" on the subject. Osborne "struck out once more" on Saturday: in an article in  "The Times" where he calls the Parthenon Sculptures "Elgin Marbles" and suggests that Greece discuss the possibility of borrowing them on the condition that Greece could "take good care of them and ensure their return" to London!"

It should be noted that the term "Elgin Marbles" has been officially abandoned by the British Museum for many years. The Museum now uses the name "Parthenon Sculptures", both in the signage of the hall that houses them (closed for a whole year after a water leak from the roof) and on its website.

"Surely there are those who question our right to exist. They did it in 1753, they do it again in 2021. Of course there are those who demand the return of items that they believe we have no right to possess. This is nothing new either. Lord Byron believed that the Elgin Marbles should return to the Parthenon," George  Osborne wrote in the Times.

And attempting to appear "magnanimous," he adds: "Our response will not be dismissive. We are open to lending items in our collection to anyone who can take good care of them and ensures their safe return - something we do every year, including with Greece," he says, ostentatiously ignoring the request for permanent reunification of the sculptures.

In response to Osborne, the Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Sculptures (BCRPM), Janet Suzmantells 'Ta Nea': "I will remind him that Lord Byron's reputation remains heroic, while that of Lord Elgin is ragged. He cannot present the error as correct in pretending that the return of the Sculptures is a trivial matter. Greece must take them back and place them where they belong: opposite the brightest building in the world from where they were snatched."

Speaking to 'Ta Nea', Cambridge Professor Paul Cartledge, Vice-Chair of the BCRPM noted: "An old joke says: Why is the museum called British, since very few of the 8 miilion objects held by the BM are actually British-made'. Are the exhibits actually British? Is the name, British Imperial War Museum more accurate? The time has come for the Sculptures to return permanently to their home."

This is not the first time that Britain has proposed to lend Greece the Parthenon Sculptures. In the exclusive interview with 'Ta Nea' in January 2019, the director of the British Museum, Hartwig Fischer, said that Greece could borrow the "Marbles" for a limited period of time ("there are no indefinite loans", he explained at that time), but if Greece accepts that they belong to the Britain ("we lend to those who recognize the ownershiop as belonging to the British Museum ").

Almost 15 years earlier, in April 2007, his predecessor Neil McGregor said that lending the "Marbles" "for three months, six months" would be possible if Greece recognized the British Museum as the legal owner.

Essentially, what they are asking of Greece is to give up its claim to the Sculptures, "renouncing" its long-standing position (recently reiterated by Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Lina Mendoni) that they are stolen.

The British Government is demanding the same. In August 2018, in a letter from Culture Minister Jeremy Wright to his Greek counterpart Myrsini Zorba, published by 'Ta Nea', the British minister made it clear that "the museum's commissioners will consider any request for lending and, subsequently, returning any part of the collection, provided that the institution requesting the loan recognises the British Museum as the owner".

As is well known, Greece cannot accept Britain's ownership of the Sculptures, and will not agree to a loan as long as this condition is set.

Osborne was elected Chair of the Museum in the summer and assumed the post in October. After his ministerial tenure (2010-2016) he assumed the duties of director of the newspaper "Evening Standard" and advisor to the capital management giant BlackRock and investment bank Robey Warshaw.

In his article titled "It is right to be proud of the British Museum", he writes that "we do not feel ashamed of the exhibits in our collection" (some of which were controversially acquired during the colonial period and claimed as stolen by various states), since, as he also states, "we remain one of the few places on Earth where you can admire under one roof, the great civilizations of the world."

To read the Ta Nea article online follow the link here. 

Sunday 20 June 2021, British Museum

Janet Suzman and members of BCRPM, with supporting friends stood outside the British Museum to celebrate the 12th anniversary of the Acropolis Museum and hand out flyers.

TELL THE STORY

It is time for this great world culture museum to COME CLEAN.

We at The British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles urge the British Museum to give visitors the full story of how the Parthenon marbles came to be in the Duveen Galleries - just as the Bristol Museum has now done with the fallen statue of Colston, the slave trader.

THIS SENTENCE APPEARS ON THE BRITISH MUSEUM’S WEBSITE:

‘Lord Elgin acted with the full knowledge and permission of the legal authorities of the day in both Athens and London. Lord Elgin’s activities were thoroughly investigated by a Parliamentary Select Committee in 1816 and found to be entirely legal’.

This is a factoid: a factoid is a false fact repeated often enough to take on a truth of its own. It is not worthy of such an august institution as The British Museum.

NO PROOF EXISTS of either the ‘full knowledge’ nor ‘the full permission’ being granted by the Ottoman Sultan giving Elgin permission to remove its sculptures.

Single-mindedly, selfishly (because he wanted these exquisite figures for his own pile in Scotland not for the nation) a Scottish lord appointed British Ambassador to the Ottoman Court chopped bits of sculpture off an edifice so perfect in its mathematical symmetry that it is a work of art in itself. All the carvings on the Parthenon were part of the fabric of the building itself.

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 THE DEMOCRATIC IDEA WAS BORN

It is emphatically not with the expressed will of the independent Greek people that the Marbles reside in London. For over two hundred years they have ASKED FOR THEIR RETURN.

The Parthenon Marbles can no longer be kept hostage.

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 astonishingly, after more than two thousand years THAT BUILDING still stands atop the sacred rock of the Acropolis in the centre of Athens, in sight of millions of Athenians going about their business down below. It is embedded in their national identity.

The Greek government has never asked for any other piece of statuary in any other museum in the world to be returned to them.

The Culture Secretary’s latest refrain is to ‘retain and explain’ all colonial acquisitions, so while it insists on retaining the Marbles, the BM should have the honesty to explain their presence.

But it is NOT explaining the full story of these Marbles, and that is not worthy of such an august institution. Each case should be considered on its merits since each case is different. The Marbles case is unique.

Greece was under Ottoman occupation when Lord Elgin was appointed Ambassador to Athens.

There is vague wording in an Italian transcript of a 'firman' - an official permission - which only gives Elgin leave to take 'qualque pezzi di pietra' that had fallen to the ground – ‘qualque’ indicating 'some' or 'a few pieces of stone'.
He was permitted to 'mould and dig' around the base of the Parthenon only, or ‘copy and draw’ from a ladder on the figures up high.

Scholars know, and further research into the Ottoman archives in Istanbul has confirmed - and it is worth repeating this - that there exists no official permissions to take down friezes, pediments, nor metopes.

However we do know that Elgin heavily bribed various Ottoman functionaries who then turned a blind eye to his depredations. This is neither legal nor acceptable.

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'.

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

Does culture exist outside of politics? How can it?

Post World War II international Courts of Justice now exist where once they did not. Parliament should surely rethink 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 till the crack of doom?

The BM's Director, Hartwig Fischer, has developed a defensive 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 a few years ago re-enforced the marbles' supremacy in execution and their diminished meaning in isolation. Imagine one of Rodin’s great figures from the group called The Burghers of Calais standing separated from its fellows in a far country? That would hardly be a ‘creative act’.

The BM is a great encyclopaedic institution while being an Aladdin's Cave of conquest. Imperial Britain took objects from other countries because it could.
But there's a mood abroad which abhors colonialist attitudes and entitlement that it must wake up to

Polls taken in 2012 were 73% for the return of sculptures to Greece. That figure will have grown since then. Cultural appropriation is a hot subject for discussion.

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". Macron in France is also thinking out of the colonialist box.

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

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

Hair-splitters say modern Greeks are not ancient Greeks. If language, landscape, philosophic and artistic tradition do not amount to national continuity, what on earth does?

There is nothing to stop the British from making a generous gesture, bar overturning an act of Parliament, and there is nothing to stop that except will.

WHAT REMAINS IS A MATTER OF SIMPLE JUSTICE. HISTORY HAS DONE ITS STUFF. THE FUTURE BECKONS.

For further information and a list of books you can read on the subject not stocked in the British Museum, please visit our further information section on this web site and head to books!

 The text printed on the flyer, is a joint effort of BCRPM and IOCARPM. 

Janet Suzman, our Chair was on ERT TV's 9 o'clock news on Saturday 06 March 2021. The interview took place following on from the article that was published in Ta Nea by UK Correspondent Yannis Andritsopoulos that morning. Janet emphasised that all like minded, profound people, hope to see the sculptures removed by Lord Elgin and currently housed in the British Museum's Room 18, re-joining their surviving halves in the Parthenon Gallery of the superlative Acropolis Museum.

Janet added in her press statement to Yannis Andritsopoulos of TA NEA that: "the fact that George Clooney, and an increasing number of thoughtful people in the public eye, would wish to see the Parthenon Marbles reunited with their other halves in the Acropolis Museum is a measure of how aware they are of the justice of such an event. Were it to be achieved it will be the pressure in the public sphere both of respected individuals with high profiles, and a groundswell from the museum-going populace at large that will eventually persuade a great institution like the British Museum to shift its stance. These sculptures belong uniquely to an edifice that still dominates the skyline of Athens and all of Western thinking. They stand at the very heart of Greece’s cultural patrimony. Claiming a spurious ownership is not something such a respected treasure house can continue without feeling a bit foolish, above all because there exists no absolute proof of that ownership. The Museum has more than enough fascinating objects to survive the gesture with its universalist head still held high."

Professor Paul Cartledge as Vice-Chair of the BCRPM and the IARPS added:"We warmly welcome George Clooney's continued supportfor the reunion of the Parthenon Marbles. What is needed now is a supreme generosity of internationalist spirit and moral courage. Our campaign has recently been accompanied by a large wave of international support from various anti-colonial movements calling for the repatriation of cultural treasures. For centuries, colonial powers and their merchants have plundered or individualised, officially or informally, these treasures, either for purely personal gratification or as a means of national self-evolution - or both."

To read the Ta Nea article (in Greek), please follow the link here. 

Many other outlets picked up on this story including The Art Newspaper that also carried Janet Suzman's letter in their March 2021 edition.

“Friendship seems to hold states together, and lawgivers care more for it than for justice; … and when men are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality.” Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, Ch 1.

Greece has been friends with the people of the United Kingdom for centuries, through good times and bad.

In October 1940, when Mussolini sought to occupy strategic Greek sites, the Greek Prime Minister (even though he was not democratically elected) simply declared, "Ohi!" ("No!") and Greece became the only European country that did not capitulate to the Italian fascists and the German Nazis.

Inspired by the Greek resistance, Churchill said “Hence we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks!”

On being asked in Parliament during the war whether it would consider returning the Parthenon marbles to Greece as a gift in exchange for its loyal bravery, the British Foreign Office conducted an in-depth process of consultation that received positive answers from all involved, including the British Museum itself. The Museum conceded that “the Greeks regard it as a spoliation of their national heritage under Turkish tyranny” and that “the point is that the Acropolis of Athens is the greatest national monument of Greece, and that the buildings to which the Marbles belonged are still standing or have been rebuilt”. The relevant official in the Foreign Office, however, felt that the matter would best be deferred for further consideration until the end of the war, when transport would be safer and the return “would set the seal on Anglo-Greek friendship and collaboration in the way that would most appeal … to Greek patriotic sentiment”.

The long history of friendship and good feeling in Britain towards the cause of the reunification of the marbles is demonstrated by the many British scholars, writers and intellectuals who have made public statements in support of the cause, the most notable being Lord Byron. The BCRPM is continuing a long and honourable philhellenic tradition in seeking to encourage the Aristotelean idea of a just and friendly act: for the return to Athens of the Parthenon Marbles would be just that. It is time.

Jane Suzman

Chair, British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles

25 June 2020

March 2021

On Tuesday 02 March, a four hour 'History Matters' Conference Webinar took places under the auspices of the Policy Exchange and culminated in the final session, a conversation between Sir Trevor Phillips and Oliver Dowden, Minister of Culture, Media and Sport.

There were speakers during the webinar that highlighted the value of listening to the voices, bringing in the viewpoints of those voices to the display materials of museums and institutions. Oliver Dowden howerver  was very robust in asking cultural instittiions not to bend to any pressure groups but to cotinue to preserve Britain's rich heritage: to 'conserve and retain', 'to own our past and enhance collective understanding'.

And yet, the question always remains the same. Why would a nation request the return of artefacts to the country of origin if it did not think it had a valid reason? And as we continue to live in a challenging 21st centrury, we also continue to reflect on the merit of such requests, on a case by case basis.

In this month's The Art Newspaper, a letter by our Chair Dame Janet Suzman, which continues to urge the British Museum to listen to the voices and to spell out the history of the collection in Room 18, so as to allow the visiting public to make up its own minds too.

In her letter, Janet concludes:"We think it is both fair and vital that the full story of these stellar carvings in the British Museum’s huge collection of world treasures is properly told. They are, and have been for well over a century, of prime importance to the people of the Hellenic Republic of Greece."

Respect.

To read the letter you can follow the link herealso. Below this month's The Art Newspaper's Letters page.

Letters Page, The Times, Friday 18 February 2022

Today, 18 October 2020, is an extra special day as it marks the 100th birthday of a visionary actress, activist, campaigner and Minister of Culture for Greece, Melina Mercouri. And although she passed away in 1994, the iconic Melina inspired the world, so much so that Greece's Ministry of Culture declared 2020 as the Melina Mercouri year. To this day we continue to reflect on her tireless campaign to reunite the Parthenon Marbles with special thanks and gratitude to Victoria Solomonidis.

Victoria Solomonidis pictured here in the Houses of Parliament with the late Eddie O'Hara

From 1995 until her retirement in 2015, Victoria Solomonidis was a Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Specialist Consultant on Cultural Affairs, with the rank of Minister Counsellor, serving at the Greek Embassy in London.  The issue of the Parthenon Sculptures was high on her agenda: she worked in close association with the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures from its inception in 1983 and actively promoted in the UK all aspects connected with the design, building and completion of the New Acropolis Museum. In 2015 she joined the Governing Body of the Melina Mercouri Foundation. 

Victoria agreed in 2016 at the request of our then Chair Eddie O'Hara, to present Melina Mrcouri and the campaign for the reunification of the surviving sculptures from the Parthenon, the 200 Commemorative Event held at Senate House.

The presentation had the audience glued to Victoria's words. The final slide was a short clip, a video, which we have added across all our social media platforms: facebook, twitter and Instagram. Do watch it here too. Melina's words are as pertinent today as they were then, the campaign will go on until the day that the sculptures currently in the British Museum are reunited with their surviving halves in the Acropolis Museum.  

Photo from the archives of Victoria Solomonidis. From left to right: Melina Mercouri (Minister of Culture for Greece), Eleni Cubitt (founder of BCRPM), Graham Binns (the then Chair of BCRPM) in the British Museum's Duveen Gallery June 1986

In 1986 Melina made her memorable speech at Oxford Union, when PM Boris Johnson was then President of the Oxford Union. Melina's speech concluded with these timeless words: “We say to the British government: you have kept those sculptures for almost two centuries. You have cared for them as well as you could, for which we thank you. But now in the name of fairness and morality, please give them back. I sincerely believe that such a gesture from Great Britain would ever honour your name.”

Melina Mercouri, the then Minister of Culture for Greece in conversation with Boris Johnson the then President of the Oxford Union, 1986.

Melina Mercouri sadly passed away in 1994 and did not have the chance to see the superlative Acropolis Museum. Nor marvel at the superb display of the peerless sculptures from the Parthenon in the Parthenon Gallery or the uninterrupted views to the Acropolis and the Parthenon.

Janet Suzman's obsevations on  the campaign in February 2019 included the article  published by Yannis Andristsopoulos in Greek on Saturday 09 February 2019, in Ta Nea, Greece's daily newspaper. It was also re-printed in Parikiaki, a Greek Cypriot London community paper. At the start of this article Janet mentions Melina's impact:

"Melina Mercouri 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." To read  Janet Suzman's statement in its entirety, please follow the link here.

"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." Janet Suzman, 2020

With thanks also to Viola Nilsson from SverigeSRadio for her time to interview BCRPM and the Swedish Committee on Melina Mercouri, you can hear the programme 'Stil' dedicated to Melina by following the link here.

 Melina Mercouri – Greece's brightest star and greatest ambassador..... Actress and politician Melina Mercouri put Greece on a whole new map through her passionate commitment to both culture and politics. This year, 2020, she would have turned 100.

07 December 2021

Thanos Davelis, Director of Public Affairs for the Hellenic American Leadership Council, talks to Janet Suzman, the chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, on 'The Greek Current' to discuss Prime Minister Mitsotakis’ recent visit to the UK and the momentum it has given to the campaign for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

Listen to the podcast here 

THE GREEK CURRENT PODCAST EPISODE NOTES
Is there a new momentum for the return of Parthenon Marbles to Greece? That’s what Janet Suzman, the chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, argued in her latest op-ed for Kathimerini. Janet's article came after Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited the United Kingdom, where he raised the issue of the Parthenon Marbles in his meeting with Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Despite Johnson’s refusal, Greece has vowed to use “every means” in its quest to persuade London to relinquish the Parthenon sculptures, with a campaign that will focus on winning over the hearts and minds of Britons. Janet Suzman joins Thanos Davelis on 'The Greek Current' podcast to talk about Prime Minister Mitsotakis’ visit to the UK and the momentum it has given the campaign for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

Read Janet Suzman’s op-ed in Kathimerini here: New momentum for return of Parthenon Marbles.

John Pienaar dedicated the last item of his Sunday 16 February Politics programme on BBC Radio 5 Live programme to the issue of the Parthenon sculptures. One of his guests, actress Dame Janet Suzman spoke about how she came to support the reunification of these sculptures.

"When Melina Mercouri was Culture Minister of Greece (that's how old I am) I was roped into the argument - it's an old argument.

I'll tell you why I'm pro the marbles going back to Greece, its because that building sitting on top of the Acropolis, the Parthenon - George is not wrong in calling it a Pantheon - it is a sort of Pantheon, a kind of model of what we value in the west.

I think that to have the ancient building still standing from the ancient world from which these beautiful sculptures were wrenched, makes it unique.

There isn't another one of them where you can actually see the wound.

I think the Greeks are right in wanting to complete the artefact that for them is the most important in the world and gives us all our values.

It was fairly hectic the way they were stolen and shipped and then put here.

They have been a star attraction in the British Museum - we have had them for a long time. I think Boris Johnson understandably wants to put London first in the star stakes, but the Greeks have now built a stunning museum. I've seen it. A space waiting for the marbles and it is 'their' marbles really."  

The French artist, Auguste Rodin drew inspiration from the headless ancient sculptures. The Parthenon Marbles were his favourite works of art during his 15 visits to the British Museum from 1881 to 1917. Yet this is no argument for the British Museum's director Hartwig Fischer to justify retaining the sculptures from the Parthenon in the British Museum.

The new exhibition Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece (26 April – 29 July 2018) at the British Museum may place the sculptures 'in the context of world cultures' but does not justify the BM's refusal to allow Athens to display the surviving pieces as united as possible, and with views to the Parthenon itself.

'Although the marble stonework of the Parthenon had proven its durability against the ravages of time, it was not indestructible. In 1687, Venetian forces laying siege to Athens shelled the ancient city, igniting a powder magazine stored inside the Parthenon. The resulting explosion was catastrophic, obliterating the cella and the elaborate frieze that had adorned its exterior. Attempts by the Venetians to remove statues from the pediments were similarly disastrous, as multiple sculptures fell to the ground and were shattered beyond repair. Most of the remaining statues and reliefs (known as the "Elgin" or "Parthenon Marbles") were later spirited away in the early 19th Century by Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Controversially, these pieces are displayed in the British Museum to this day. Meanwhile, the Parthenon itself has since undergone rigorous restoration and preservation work, with much of the damaged peristyle reassembled to give modern visitors a glimpse of the temple's ancient splendour atop the hill where it has stood for over two thousand years.' 

If understanding world culture also means understanding history's mistakes, then (where possible) putting right old wrongs can promote cultural and international relations. Reuniting the Parthenon Marbles in Athens ought to be a possibility that supports world cultures for all the right reasons and promotes greater understanding, respect and compassion.

We are certain that Rodin's exhibition at the British Museum will be exquisite and enjoyed by many, however it can never replace the sheer inspiration that would be enjoyed, by many more, if we could hope to see the surviving sculptures reunited in the superlative Acropolis Museum.

Hartwig Fischer, director of the British Museum, is also quoted as saying that although other artists had been inspired by the Parthenon sculptures, Rodin had responded "with a passion that was to last a lifetime". The passion and love for the Parthenon Marbles felt by millions of Acropolis Museum visitors will continue forever. A Rodin's exhibition at the British Museum would be equally possible with a loan from Athens to London too.

Whilst the BM might be trying to recontextualize the sculptures from the Parthenon, a building which still stands - it will never erode the natural thirst of millions of visitors to the Acropolis Museum, hoping to see the unity of this peerless work of art.

Letter from the Greek Ambassador, H E Dimitris Caramitsos-TzirasDimitris Caramitsos-Tziras to Hartwig Fischer, Director of the British Museum, 25 April  2018. 

More articles on this include:

British Museum claims French artist Rodin proves why Parthenon Marbles should stay in Britain

Rodin's work to go on show in London next to Parthenon marbles

Rodin's love of the Parthenon sculptures revealed

Article in the Evening Standard and letter from Chair of the BCRPM to the Evening Standard

Letters Page Evening Standard:

Dear Sirs,

I write as Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, to remind interested parties that although Rodin was much excited by the sculptures he saw in the Museum, and found them inspiring, he nevertheless lamented their exile from the sweet Attic sunlight beloved of Homer: "Toutes les lumières électriques n'ont pas la force de les empêcher de rechercher éternellement la douce lumière d'Homère".

Those sculptures, which we prefer to attribute to the Parthenon from whence they were grabbed rather than to Elgin the grabber, should now be relinquished back to the city they once crowned. They have inspired artists and thrilled the curious in their gloomy rooms in Bloomsbury for long enough and now the country of their origin deserves their glory, in the museum built especially to house them facing the Acropolis and the still miraculously upright building that they once adorned.

Yours sincerely,
Janet Suzman DBE
London NW3 2RN

27 January 2021

'The Armada maps belong in Britain, along with the Elgin Marbles – nothing hypocritical about that', writes Simon Heffer in the Telegraph.

Simon Heffer makes a clear plea: "too many vital pieces of our national heritage have already been lost to overseas buyers. We must keep them, whatever the cost."

His opening paragraph asks: should we rejoice that the Government has banned the sale, to a collector in America, of a series of ink and watercolour maps from the late 16th century that depict the defeat of the Spanish Armada, or is it an act of shocking hypocrisy from a nation that steadfastly refuses to allow Greece to have the Elgin marbles back?

Professor Anthony Snodgrass, rightly points out: The salient point is that there's just no comparison between the two petitioners, in one case "a collector in America" and in the other, “the Greek nation."

Janet Suzman and Perter Thonemann sent letters to the Editor of the Telegraph  in response to Simon Heffer's article. Peter's letter was published in the Telegraph on 30 January 2021 and also in The Week on 06 February 2021.  

Sir,

Simon Heffer on the Elgin Marbles 27th January 2021

I fear Simon Heffer is comparing apples and pears; the Armada maps have a great deal to do with British history, but the Parthenon sculptures were conceived in the time of Pericles & are integrally part of the building that still stands above Athens. Far from being 'perfectly preserved'; they are much damaged by violent detachment from that building by Elgin’s servants.

Heffer fails to tell the BM has one half of the marbles looted by Lord Elgin, and the other half in Athens - neither making any sense without its absent half. Our lot were not kept to 'the most rigorous standards of conservation', once clumsily scrubbed to make them look whiter. They were not meant to look white as driven English snow, but showing up brightly painted in warm Greek sunlight.

Heffer is correct that no written permission has been found giving Elgin the right to steal the Parthenon’s carvings; they are here without the consent of Greece. Demands for their return have been constant since Greece became an independent state. The carvings are as meaningful to the story of Greece as the dolmens of Salisbury plain are to ours. More so.

Sure, they maybe they were saved from further accidents, but the figures left in Greece are pretty fine too. But be it noted Elgin wanted to save them, not for the nation, but for himself in his lordly pile in Scotland. Only when he later got ill and bankrupt he bethought him of selling them to the British Museum.

After two hundred years of captivity in gloomy Room 18 of the British Museum, the Marbles have done their work in reviving classical studies & inspiring the aesthetic, philosophic and political thinking of the West. Their beauty will hardly be diminished by beingby being in the world-class museum awaiting them in Athens . It is high time that the incomplete and inaccurate story told by Simon Heffer and friends was expunged from British urban mythology.

Sincerely,
Janet Suzman DBE
Chair British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Mables

From the Times'  Leading articles on page 27,  12 January 2022

To read the article on line, please visit the link here.

Tweet by Sarah Baxter, former deputy editor of the Sunday Times, who spoke alongside Janet Suzman and Paul Cartledge in Athens for the conference held at the Acropolis Museum on the 15th of April 2019: 

To the comment piece by Richard Morrison, chief culture writer for The Times on 11 January, 2022 and subsequent letter from BCRPM's Professor Paul Cartledge and Janet Suzman, on page 26, the Letters Page,12 January 2022. 

Martin Bailey wrote in The Art Newspaper on Wednesday, 10 May 2023, revealing declassified UK government documents showed the Foreign Office had been dismissive of the British Museum’s lobbying to retain the Parthenon Marbles in 1983. The year when a formal claim was first lodged, after Greece's then Greek culture minister, Melina Mercouri visited London and the British Museum. 

'The Foreign Office recorded that Mercouri argued that the Marbles “are an integral part of a monument that represents the national spirit of Greece”. Wilson responded that they are part of a museum which is a unique international institution that “should not be dismembered”. But the officials concluded that Mercouri “won the argument hands down”.'

Fast forward four decades, and the argument for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles is as compeling today as it has been since the 19th century, and the first request made by Greece after gaining independence. 

Janet Suzman, BCRPM's Chair often speaks of what Melina was like when she first met her in London. "Melina was electric, she swept through Britain in the 80's and captured the hearts and minds of all those that understood the injustice of the removal of these sculptures, their sale to the government by Lord Elgin in 1816, plus their continued display in the British Museum as art pieces, not as a collection of peerless sculptures that will always be intrinsically connected to the Parthenon. A building, which after two and half millennia of history, wars and occupations, still stands proud on the Sacred Hill.

"We could be informed how exactly these stone figures came to be here in this cold gallery in London" suggests Janet Suzman. "Since no proof from the Ottoman Sultanate has yet been found permitting them to be taken from Greece, we could, at the very least, be told that fact. Otherwise we must assume the British Museum has a very tenuous hold on reality when it claims they were legitimately acquired."

"The BCRPM wants to see visitors to the British Museum enlightened, either by a leaflet made available in the Greek galleries, or cogent signage on the plinths themselves, with full information about their acquisition."

"The modern Hellenic Republic, free of the yoke of the Ottomans, desperately wants its cultural heritage - these perticular Parthenon scuptures - returned. For over two hundred years it has wanted them returned. The public deserves to know why; Lord Elgin chopped them off the Parthenon and stole them, silently and clandestinely, and they ought to be back in their own place, where the sun shines." Concludes Janet Suzman.

'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'.