“Any holders of Parthenon Sculptures outside Greece to return them forthwith to Athens, where they can be reunited with their brothers and sisters”, the distinguished historian of the University of Cambridge, Dr. Paul Cartledge, stated in Kathimerini. Vice-Chairman of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles and a 50-year scholar of ancient Greek history, he congratulates the tireless struggle of the Greeks for the return of their stolen antiquities, while stressing the favourable climate in the UK for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

“YouGov polls regularly register above 60 percent support for reunification” argues Professor Cartledge, explaining that “The UK’s main journal of record, The Times, has recently flipped its longstanding editorial policy – from a retentionist to a reunificatory stance”.

Regarding the problems of the sculptures' storage at the British Museum, Cartledge, critical of the British Museum, also stresses their poor conservation, focusing among other things on the issue of dampness in Room 18, as well as the series of thefts by the former curator of the Greek and Roman wings. According to Dr. Cartledge, «The Museum’s repeated claim to have been an exemplary caretaker of ‘its’ Marbles since 1817 has also been exploded on two academic fronts: a) by the late William St Clair, exposing the hushed-up, irreparable damage (‘skinning’) inflicted on frieze sculptures on Lord Duveen’s orders in the late 1930s; and lately b) by international human rights lawyer Professor Catharine Titi exposing the fragility of the UK’s original claim to legality of purchase in 1816”.

The timeline of the sale of the sculptures is set four years after the removal of the sculptures from the Acropolis, but personal debts lead Lord Elgin to submit a proposal to the British Museum to sell the stolen sculptures, estimating their value at £35,000, with the British Parliament accepting Elgin's offer. From then on, the sculptures began to be exhibited at the British Museum with the newly-established Greek state making the first request for their return in 1835.

But did Lord Elgin have the right to sell the sculptures? According to Dr. Cartledge, who relies on the legal assumptions presented in the book, “The Parthenon Marbles and International Law”, “the UK does have legal title to ‘ownership’ of the British Museum holdings, but only with regards to domestic law. Contrariwise it is evidenced that Lord Elgin’s title to what he sold to the U.K. for £35,000 in 1816 was anything but Acropolis rock-solid. So far, despite rigorous searches in Ottoman archives, the best that ‘retentionist’ defenders of the UK and the BM can dredge up is an Italian translation of a permit issued by an Ottoman high-up, not formally carrying the imprimatur of the Sultan himself, allowing Elgin’s men to pick up marbles lying around on the ground and copy stones bearing figures – no mention of hacking worked marbles off the extant Temple itself and having them shipped at great risk of further damage to the UK”.

“Conclusively, one of the issues at the heart of that ancient-history debate is the existence or nonexistence of any sort of official Ottoman firman authorizing Elgin and his cohorts to damage the Acropolis. On the other hand,”, Professor Cartledge adds, “the reunification requires at least one, possibly two Acts of Parliament to be either amended or rescinded: a) of “1816” about the purchasing of and the claim to ownership of the Elgin Collection including the Parthenon Sculptures and, b) of “1963”, “Museums Act”. That requires parliamentary time and support. The present (Tory) UK government is dead against even talking about any legislative change, for example, witness the UK PM’s recent extreme discourtesy to the Greek PM. The Chair of the British Museum Trustees is, therefore, unable to help the Greek government directly, even if he wanted to; his talk about a ‘deal’ is just that – “hot air”.

After two centuries of claims by the Greek State, the provocative fashion show in the Duveen Hall, in front of the Greek antiquities, provoked the anger of the Greek Ministry of Culture, with the Minister of Culture Lina Mendonispeaking of "zero respect", while the British media reiterated the conflict between the two governments and the Greek demand for the return of the sculptures.

As vice-chairman of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, Professor Cartledge argues for the reunification of the sculptures on Greek soil, stressing, “Outside Athens and Greece any Parthenon Marbles held abroad risk looking like imperial loot without much if any current cultural-political significance”. At the same time, he underlines, “The Parthenon was a temple of as well as on the Acropolis, so any sculptures therefrom that survive but cannot be re-placed on what remains of the temple itself should be reunited in the dedicated Acropolis Museum”.

Highlighting the historical and cultural value of the Parthenon, the distinguished academic elaborates on the argument of return by explaining that, “due to a series of historic conjunctions, like the liberation of the new state of Greece from the Ottoman empire, end of the Ottoman empire, growth of representative democracy, the increased importance of the Parthenon as a symbol of the world’s first democracy or ‘people-power’, division of Europe – and the world -  between democracies and autocracies, Parthenon stands as a symbol of both cultural excellence and political freedoms, and even more importantly so. Therefore”, he adds, “any holders of Parthenon Marbles/Sculptures outside Greece to return them forthwith to Athens, where they can be reunited with their brothers and sisters in a fully appropriate space”.

In summary, the Emeritus Professor of Cambridge argues that the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece will influence the global debate on the return of stolen antiquities to their place of origin, pointing out that, “The Parthenon Marbles is, in fact, a unique case, without implications for the fate of any other ‘restitution’ case, but, even so, reunifying the Parthenon Marbles back in Athens would have a mega impact on other legitimate claims for repatriation currently being lodged against the British Museum, above all perhaps that for the Benin Bronzes”.

This article was first published in ekathimeriniand writte by Athanasios Katsikidis.

To read the article in Greek, follow the link here.

Boris Johnson has long hailed Pericles as his political hero. How does the British Prime Minister compare to the ancient Athenian statesman?

For Professor Paul Cartledge, it’s straightforward: “Johnson and Pericles? No comparison. Johnson v Pericles? No contest,” he says.

The Cambridge classicist has spent more than 50 years studying the history and civilization of ancient Greece. An eminent Hellenist, a prolific writer (he has written, edited or co-edited more than 30 books) and a long-standing philhellene (he has been visiting Greece since 1970 and he is a staunch supporter of the Parthenon Marbles’ reunification), Cartledge will on Monday be named Commander of the Order of Honour (Ταξιάρχης τοῦ Τάγματος τῆς Τιμῆς). It is one of the highest honours that the Greek state awards. The decision to bestow the title on Cartledge for his “contribution to enhancing Greece’s stature abroad” was taken by Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou.

Cartledge has contributed to several television and radio programmes and publications on issues related to ancient Greece.

The renowned academic is author of popular history books such as The Spartans: An Epic History, Thermopylae: The Battle that Changed the World, The Greeks: A Portrait of Self and Others, Alexander the Great: The Hunt for a New Past and Democracy: A Life. His latest book is Thebes: The forgotten city of Ancient Greece (Picador, 2020). In 1998 he was the joint winner of the Criticos (now London Hellenic) Prize for The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece.

Cartledge, 74, is A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture emeritus at the University of Cambridge, A.G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge, and Member of the European Advisory Board of Princeton University Press.

He is Vice-Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM) and elected Vice-President of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS). He is also President of The Hellenic Society, Chair of the London Hellenic Prize, member of the International Honorary Committee of the Thermopylae-Salamis 2500 Anniversary framework and Honorary Citizen of Sparta.

In an interview with Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea, Professor Paul Cartledge spoke about his relationship with Greece, ancient history (including its connection and relevance to our times), democracy (ancient and modern) and the Parthenon Marbles.

Q: Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou has named you Commander of the Order of Honour in recognition of your contribution in enhancing Greece's stature abroad. What does it mean to you to receive this award?

A: It means the world to me, since it's a public and visible confirmation that somehow both my academic research (and publications) and my attempted media interventions on cultural and other issues affecting modern as well as ancient Greece have been to a satisfactory degree successful. I see myself, perhaps rather grandiosely, as a 'public intellectual', and since around 1990 I have both tried to publish work that, though academically based and scrupulously researched, is also 'accessible' to a wider public than just my specialist university colleagues and students, and to intervene on major public cultural issues, such as the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, a cause very dear to my heart. I tried to sum up these points as part of my Inaugural Lecture as the founding A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture in the University of Cambridge (delivered 2009, and published by the C.U.P., 2009): 'Forever Young: Why Cambridge has a Professorship of Greek Culture'.

Q: When did you first become interested in Greek history and culture? Why did you choose to study the Classics?

A: I can almost pinpoint the moment to a precise year: I was given for my 8th birthday (1955) a copy of a simplified, children's version of Homer's Odyssey. We all know the famous episode when Odysseus, after 20 years away, at last returns to his island-kingdom of Ithaca, only to find that his palace has been taken over and is being trashed by 108 'suitors' (of his faithful Spartan wife Penelope). Outside the palace back door, full of ticks and generally in a very bad way, lies amid the dirt and squalor a dog - Argos. Once he had been Odysseus' favourite hunting dog, but now he is abandoned and degraded. Odysseus comes upon him and, though he is in disguise as a poor beggar man, Argos recognises his master! But the effort is too much - Argos has a heart attack and dies. Odysseus secretly sheds a tear - I wept out loud for half an hour...

That's the symbolic moment of origin of my classical career. Just as crucial, obviously, was the fact that I attended private schools in which the teaching of Latin was begun at the very same age - 8, and of Greek at age 11. And the learning of Latin and Greek was privileged: if you were good at these languages, as I was, then you found yourself placed in the 'top' forms or sets. And so it went, as I progressed from Colet Court in London to the senior St Paul's School, a famous Classics school founded in 1509 by humanist John Colet, a friend of Erasmus. And from there on to New College Oxford, to read 'Mods' and 'Greats', i.e. Classics (1965-69). I graduated with a 'Double First' and, since by 1969 I'd decided I wanted as a career to teach ancient history at university, I embarked on a course of doctoral (DPhil) research into early Spartan history and archaeology under the supervision of John Boardman - then plain 'Mr Boardman', now 'Sir John'.

Q: When did you first visit Greece and what do you recall from your first visit to the country?

A: I am rather ashamed - retrospectively - that I did not visit Greece until 1970 - as part of my doctoral programme. My first serious venture on Greek soil was on Crete, to take part in (in fact oversee the pottery shed for) Hugh Sackett & Mervyn Popham's excavation for the BSA (British School at Athens) of the so-called Unexplored Mansion site at Knossos. Mainly Roman levels were what we were hitting in summer 1970 - but that's not all we British and American students were hitting, by any means. A couple of local mpouats (boîtes) engaged our interest of an evening, and at weekends we went on ekdhromes, expeditions, either solo (as I did once - and when I asked directions, a local farmer asked me very fiercely 'Germanos eisai?' 'Oxi, Anglos!', I replied. Huge smiles all round - this was only a generation after the Nazi occupation) or in a group.

Participation in that excavation gave me a series of lasting and deep friendships, some now interrupted by distance or death but others still alive and well. It was also my introduction to Greek politics - under the 'dictatorship' of 'the Colonels'. Members of the BSA were required - by the Greek state - to swear that they wouldn't get involved in any political activity. I duly signed, but did not abide by my oath, not on Crete (where I listened and learned to how the fiercely independent Cretans saw Athens, regardless of which regime held power there) so much as back in Athens.

I signed the oath at the British School under the watchful eye of the then Director, Mr PM Fraser (All Souls Oxford). That would have been in about June 1970, when I arrived in Greece for the very first time. On Crete (BSA dig at Knossos) in summer 1970 I talked a lot of politics - the Cretans I spoke with (workers on the dig) were openly contemptuous of the Colonels. (Except for the Dig Foreman, Andonis - who was a Colonels' supporter. He had gained the position because his brother, a communist, had been sacked from it...) We weren't supposed even to 'talk' politics. Back in Athens in 1971 I had friends who were part of the underground resistance. e.g. I attended with them a 'secret' talk given by Cambridge economics prof Joan Robinson and went around with them distributing resistance literature to private addresses in the city. (No mobile phones, no internet...). On one occasion I agreed to act as a courier - between the resistance and (Lady) Amalia Fleming, widow of Sir Alexander (discoverer of penicillin), who lived in London. I was given - I can't now remember by whom - a fairly large packet (no idea what it contained!) to take through customs at Athens airport and then on to London, where I mailed it to Lady Fleming through the normal post. I was very very nervous going through Athens airport security and customs - but my carry-on bag wasn't searched.

Q: In Greece we have debates from time to time about the usefulness of studying Ancient Greek. Do you think that there is value in learning this ancient language?

A: I could hardly say 'no', could I? Let me start from the fact - I believe it is one - that the Greek poetic tradition is the longest continuous poetic tradition in the world, barring only - possibly - the Chinese. From Homer to the present day. One easy way of assimilating this is through The Penguin Book of Greek Verse, expertly edited and translated in 1971 by Constantine Trypanis. There are other such compendiums, but that one has the original Greek versions as well as a serviceable English (prose) translation. Then there is the fact - of this I have no doubt - that ancient Greek is the richest member of the Indo-European language family, capable of expressing the minutest nuances of emotion and description, blessed with several voices and moods and declensions and conjugations... Then - and directly consequent upon that latter fact - it's a fact that, if you don't know Greek, you can't speak a whole slew of English: so many are the loan words or invented words taken from Greek into English - e.g. photography ('light-writing/drawing') or xenophobia ('fear of strangers/foreigners/outsiders'). But of course, the chief value of learning ancient Greek is to read ancient Greek texts in the original - Homer, the world's greatest epic poet, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, some of the world's greatest tragic dramatists, Hippocrates, father of Western medicine, Herodotus and Thucydides, founding fathers of my own discipline of History, Plato and Aristotle, twin founders of Western philosophy - need I continue??

Q: Britain has a rich tradition over many centuries in teaching and studying the Classics – from which you have benefited and to which you have contributed immensely. Why would someone study ancient history now? How is it relevant to us?

A: In my last answer I mentioned my intellectual roots in ancient Greece: the Histories of Herodotus of Halicarnassus (c. 484-425 BCE), the History of the Atheno-Peloponnesian war by Thucydides of Athens (c. 460-400). Most people who become professional classicists do not become as I did ancient historians; for them, the literature or the philosophy are what attract and engage them. But - like one of my own English history heroes, Edward Gibbon - I have known from the age of 8 or so that I wanted to be a historian, and, since I'm a Classicist, that means I'm an 'ancient' historian. But I insist: I am a historian who happens to specialise in ancient (Graeco-Roman, Mediterranean) history, not some peculiar species of historian. Like Herodotus what engages me above all are causality and causation - why did things happen, and happen the way they did, and in no other way? I mean really significant things such as the birth, development, spread and demise of (ancient, direct) democracy, the conquest of Greece by Republican Rome, the fall of the Roman Empire in the West and East. Like Thucydides, I'm particularly preoccupied with trying to understand and explain politics - the political process, the methods of politicians, the involvement of the masses in decision-making.

Q: Which ancient Greek figure stands out for you, and why?

A: May I choose two, please? One female, one male. My female choice is a Spartan, not just any Spartan female, I admit, but a princess of the blood (more precisely, of the Eurypontid blood). Sparta uniquely in the 5th and 4th centuries - still - had two royal houses, the senior males of which ruled as joint kings (basileis). Women in Sparta were unusually empowered, by contrast to the relatively lowly status of Greek women in others of the 1000 or so Greek cities. But even Sparta couldn't contemplate a ruling Queen. Nor - I am assuming - did wives choose the names of their daughters, so I am assuming that it was her father, King Archidamus II (r. c. 465-427), who chose the name of his daughter - my female choice - Kyniska. The name means 'little dog' or 'puppy', and it's the female equivalent of Kyniskos, a name attested elsewhere in the 5th-century Peloponnese. I infer that the name gives a nod to the fact that Spartans bred particularly excellent hunting dogs, especially females, which they used in pursuit of the greatest of all 'big game', the wild boar of the lower Taygetus mountain slopes. We don't know exactly when Kyniska was born - her full brother Agesilaus II saw the light of day in about 445, so I suppose that 440 or so would be a reasonable birthdate. In which case she was about 45 when she made the biggest possible splash in the world of sports normally restricted exclusively to Greek males: the equestrian competition at the Olympic Games. In 396 she won the top-notch 4-horse chariot race - and four years later repeated that amazing feat. And she was no shrinking violet. A statue base happens to have survived from Olympia on which Kyniska had engraved a boastful epigram, telling anyone who'd listen that she was 'the first woman in all Hellas (the Greek world) to have won this crown' - the victor's olive wreath. Of course, she hadn't actually driven the winning chariots, but she had reared and trained the horses in her own stables in Sparta, where there was a considerable number of successful (male) owners and trainers already. So just to ram the point home, she opened her epigram by stating her own aristocratic breeding pedigree and bloodline: 'kings are my father and brothers', that is, the aforementioned Archidamus II and Agesilaus II and her half-brother Agis II. By 396 both Archidamus and Agis were dead: how well did Kyniska's boast go down with her full brother, reigning co-king Agesilaus? Not well at all, I think. Agesilaus's encomiastic biographer, the Athenian Xenophon, took time out to insist that, although Kyniska had indeed won an Olympic victory, it was Agesilaus's idea in the first place that she compete at all, and anyway rearing race-horses was far less important than rearing war-horses!

My male choice is a different kettle of fish altogether: not a Spartan - nor an Athenian, nor a Syracusan, nor even a Macedonian but... a Theban. We don't know exactly when he was born, some time in the last quarter of the 5th century, nor do we know much about his family background or upbringing because - unlike that of his contemporary and sidekick Pelopidas - Epaminondas's biography by fellow-Boeotian Plutarch is lost. We assume he was high status and well educated, so his career and alleged espousal of Pythagoreanism would suggest. What we do know that, unlike Pelopidas again, who went into exile, Epameinondas remained in Thebes while it was under Spartan military occupation between 382 and 379 and did what he could to keep up Theban morale and resistance from the inside - until the daring stroke of Pelopidas and a small band of brothers effected Thebes's liberation in winter 379/8. Thereafter Epaminondas was in the frontline both physically and morally. On three fronts mainly: 1. the field of battle - he was a strategist and tactician of genius, winning for Thebes and its allies two major battles, Leuktra (371) and Mantineia (362); 2. federalism: Thebes was itself the chief city of a - moderately - democratic federal state, the Boeotians; in the 360s Epameinondas extended that principle to the Peloponnese with the foundation of Megalopolis as capital of the federal state of the Arcadians; and, not least, 3: liberation: in 369 Epameinondas was key to liberating the Helots of Messenia, Greeks who for centuries had been the unfree compulsory labour-force of the Spartans. Nor was he unconventional only in religion; so too in his private life. He never married, and he died (on the battlefield of Mantineia) and was buried side by side with his current male lover.

Q: In your recently released book Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece you write that democracy in ancient Greece "was not just a matter of institutions but also a matter of deep culture". What do you mean by that and, given recent political developments in several parts of the world, is democracy still deeply ingrained in our culture?

A: I'm almost inclined to say that the difference between any ancient form of democracy and any modern version is like the difference between chalk and cheese, or apples and pears... All ancient versions of demokratia were direct - in antiquity 'we the people' (demos) did not merely choose others to rule for/instead of them but ruled directly themselves. That in itself gave ancient Greek democratic citizens - free, legitimate adult males only, of course - a participatory stake in governance that is not available to the vast majority of citizens in representative democratic systems like our own today. That participatory stake was not felt or exercised only occasionally but almost on an everyday basis: in the 4th century BCE the Athenian Assembly met every 9 days, yes, really, the decision-making organ of the Athenian democratic state made major decisions of religious and other political policy every 9 days. The 6000 citizens who put themselves forward to be enrolled, by lot, on the annual panel of jurors might sit on average every other day - for which they were paid a small fee out of state funds. Every year the Athenians staged two religious play-festivals, for which audience members who were too poor to afford the entrance fee to the Theatre of Dionysus were given a small subsidy. Decisions as to who were the winning playwrights and impresarios - the ancient Athenian Oscars - were made by democratic majority vote. All that implies that democracy was for them not just a matter of institutions but also a matter of deep culture. That implication was made manifest in the second half of the 4th century when a new goddess was added to the official Athenian democratic pantheon, the personification of none other than Demokratia, herself.

Q: The title of a BBC Radio 4 series you recently participated in was Could an ancient Athenian Fix Britain? What is the answer to that question? And, do you think an ancient Athenian could fix modern Greece as well?

A: There is no answer to that question! I mean, no answer to 'how could or should Britain be fixed?', if by that is meant - how do we overcome the utterly disgraceful and shameful class divide between rich and poor (which in Covid-ridden Britain equates pretty much to healthy and unhealthy Britain)? or between the well and the less well educated? or between the rich and poor regions of not just England but also Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland? or between those regions - in favour of the strengthening or shoring-up of our now very shaky Union? I could go on. The ancient Athenian polis and the modern British state are simply not commensurable. However, at another level, there are ways in which, it could be suggested, ancient Athenian practices - I mean democratic political practices - could and should be re-evaluated with a view to seeing whether and how they might improve our own. Take the present - unelected - House of Lords: scandalously un-democratic as such (and that's without mentioning the 80-plus 'hereditaries'!!). And what about having far more in the way of genuinely democratic input into legislation - via constitutional assemblies of bodies selected by lot to be genuinely representative of all relevant sections of society, who would then put forward measured recommendations to Parliament? What about genuinely democratic referendums or plebiscites - in which all parties to a debate have to put forward a manifesto for which, if they win, they will be held responsible and accountable, if necessary through the courts?

Q: Boris Johnson, the British Prime Minister, has made no secret of his classical education and love for Greece. He has also said that Pericles is his hero. Do you see any similarities between the two statesmen? What is your opinion of Mr Johnson?

A: I am an academic, not a politician, but I am also a committed citizen, and not a supporter of the Party that chose Mr Johnson as its leader and thereby - at a stroke - originally as our Prime Minister. Very undemocratic, that. The office of the UK Prime Minister has infinitely more discretionary powers than Pericles ever held. Pericles was regularly elected to the top executive Athenian office, but he was as such a member of a board of ten, and any moment almost of any day he might be impeached - as he in fact was in 429 (deposed and fined). For ancient Athenian democrats, all officials however selected had to be made constantly to realise they were accountable - to the People. Johnson and Pericles? No comparison. Johnson v Pericles? No contest.

Q: In his recent interview with Ta Nea, Johnson said that “the (Parthenon) Sculptures were legally acquired by Lord Elginand have been legally owned by the British Museum’s Trustees since their acquisition.” I know that you have been campaigning for decades for the Marbles’ reunification. What did you think when you read his comments? Why do you think that the Parthenon Marbles should return to Greece?

A: How would a French person feel if the Bayeux tapestry were cut in half, and half were to remain in Bayeux, while the other half was transported to Berlin? How would an Italian feel if the Mona Lisa were cut in half and one half was transported and permanently housed in Milan while the other half remained in Paris? How would one feel about either of those - as a cultured European, or as a citizen of the world? What the British Museum currently holds of the Parthenon Marbles were removed when Athens was part of the Ottoman Empire, a power whose local functionaries on the spot could not give a fig for what Britain's Ambassador to the Sublime Porte, Lord Elgin, did to or with the Parthenon Marbles. There is no evidence yet discovered to prove that what Elgin in fact did (sheer vandalism, according to Lord Byron and many of us since) was literally authorised by the Ottoman Sultan. But, even if there were, so what? What - moral - authority could possibly legitimise the removal of artefacts from a building under alien control to the jurisdiction of a foreign power which then claims them as spoils by a supposedly legal enactment? There is in Athens on the Acropolis the very substantial remnant of a once aesthetically magnificent temple, the shadow of which extends from antiquity to modernity. There is in Athens a simply amazing modern Museum with a dedicated gallery intervisible with the Acropolis in which what the Greeks hold of the Parthenon sculptures are properly - I mean scientifically, art-historically correctly - displayed. Reunification? Q.E.D.

Q: Greece is celebrating this year the bicentennial of its War of Independence, as well as the 2,500th anniversary of the Battle of Thermopylae and naval battle of Salamis. How do you evaluate the historic importance of the War of Independence and do you agree that Thermopylae and Salamis were of seminal importance for the course of Western Civilisation as we know it?

A: I am a historian of ancient Greece and Rome, not of early 19th-century Greece and Europe - and by extension the world. But I have of course read widely in the accessible literature and am aware that there has been a ton of new research issuing forth especially since the 150th anniversary, in 1971, and now at the bicentennial. As I understand it, that research tends to emphasise the singularity, the crucially influential singularity, of what Greeks both inside and outside the boundaries of the Ottoman empire achieved during the crucial first three decades of the 19th century (not coincidentally precisely the period of Lord Elgin's vandalism). In short, the Rising of 1821 saw the birth of modernity, political modernity, both in Greece and elsewhere.

As for the 2500th anniversary - or rather the anniversaries in 2021 of the two battles of 480 BCE and the anniversary in 2022 of the finally decisive battle of Plataea in 479 BCE - the issue hinges on a massive 'what if?' What if the invading Persians under Xerxes had won, rather than the 32 or 33 resisting Greek cities? (And what if at precisely the same moment, in 480 BCE, the Carthaginians of north Africa had defeated Greek Syracuse and taken over Greek Sicily?) There are many imponderables here, and as a historian I have to insist first that we must not talk of 'Greece' or 'Greeks' as if they were a unitary political force in the way that 'the Persians' were. Most Greeks of the Aegean area did NOT choose to resist the Persian invasion, and many of them fought for rather than against the Persians. Consider only Thebes: rather than join Sparta and Athens, the leading resisters, Thebes sided with almost all Greeks from Boeotia to the Hellespont and took the Persian side. And it would be hard to find two Greek cities more UNalike than Sparta and Athens in 480-479 BCE. No doubt all the resisters agreed equally that they were fighting for freedom FROM a potential Persian takeover; but within Sparta and Athens 'freedom' could have very different meanings for different sectors of the population - for male citizens as opposed to female; for all citizens as opposed to legally unfree Helots or chattel slaves. So, for me, the question of what difference did the loyalist Greeks' victory over the Persians make on a grand, world-historical/civilisational scale boils down to - would the Athenians' precious and still infant democracy have been allowed to survive, had the Persians won? To which my answer is: unquestionably not. And - therefore - but for the loyalist Greeks' victory, there would have been no "Persians" tragedy by Aeschylus (472 BCE), and indeed no flowering of the tragic and later comic drama that constitutes the very foundation of all Western drama. No democracy would have meant no free speech, no free exchange of scientific and philosophical and other ideas, ideas which sometimes challenged even the very basis of conventional norms not least in religion. But even so, it is not of course the ancient Greeks or Athenians themselves who directly ensured that their original creations should influence subsequent civilisations including our own today - for that, we have to thank the Romans, the Byzantine Greeks, the European Renaissance, the European and American Enlightenments... 'Legacy' or cultural inheritance is a dynamic, two-way, dialectical and constantly renegotiable process - currently being rather fiercely debated so far as 'Classics' is concerned, along the two axes of racism and sexism above all. Let a thousand flowers bloom...

This interview was written by  Ioannis Andritsopoulos, UK Correspondent for Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea and published on 17 April 2021

Professor Paul Cartledge received his Commander of the Order of Honour from H.E Ambassador Ioannis Raptakis in London on 22 April 2021, at the Ambassador's Residence . This  was organised on the occasion of Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day and Greece's 1821 Bicentennial. John Kittmer,  Kevin Featherstone, Stephen Fry and Robin Lane Fox  were awarded the Commander of the Order of Phoenix and Professor Paul Cartledge with the Commander of the Order of Honour . H. E Ambassador of Greece, Ioannis Raptakis, presented the medals on behalf of the President of the Hellenic Republic, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, recognising each distinguished philhellene for their contribution in enhancing knowledge about Greece in the UK and reinforcing the ties between the two countries.

H.E. Ambassador Raptakis with Professor Cartledge, awarded  the medal of Commander of the Order of Honour  and  second photo John Kitmer with Ambassador Raptakis and Professor Cartledge.

Stephen Fry with Ambassador Raptakis, second photo Ambassador Raptais with Kevin Featherstone and  last image is Lane Fox.

Paul Scully, Minister of State at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and Minister for London, was interviewed by Yannis Andritsopoulos, UK Correspondent for Ta Nea, and calls for dialogue to begin on the continued division of the Parthenon Sculptures.

The UK Minister called for a "mature discussion" on the matter.

This is the first time that a member of the Conservative Government has called for dialogue to be initiated in order to find a solution to an issue that has been pending since 1816,  and since the time when British Parliament bought the ancient Greek artifacts from Lord Elgin, who had previously removed them from the Parthenon.

To this day, the UK Government claims that "the Parthenon Sculptures were legally acquired and belong to the British Museum", while it recently "refuted" UNESCO's ICPRCP decision for intergovernmental dialogue on the issue.

"Recently I was lucky enough to see the Parthenon Sculptures up close. It was a real privilege. I fully understand the issue that has arisen," commented Paul Scully .

Clarifying that, from his portfolio, "I am not in the right department to take decisions on this issue", he stressed: "I hope that we will be able to ensure that there will be a mature discussion on the Sculptures". He added: "This is a discussion that the Foreign Minister should have with her Greek counterpart."

The 54-year-old Minister (holds an autonomous portfolio that does not come under another ministry) noted that "the Parthenon Sculptures, wherever they are, exist for the whole world", implying that he would hardly support their permanent return to Greece. "I hope that we will all be able to learn the history, heritage and the past of these sculptures", he added.

Yannis Andritsopoulos asked him what kind of solution could emerge from the dialogue he proposes to take place between Greece and Britain, and MP Scully replied: "We do not want this issue to be the subject of a division between the two countries. The wonderful Parthenon Sculptures are amazing in terms of their history and everything they represent", he tells me, praising the culture and history of Ancient Greece.

"I'll tell you something: I've been guiding people around the British Parliament all the time. When I tour Americans and talk to them about Westminster Hall, which is almost 1,000 years old, they are in awe. When I say this to Greek visitors, they just shrugg their shoulders. You see, it's not that ancient  whencompared to the ancients of Greece."

He then addresses the Greek Cypriot community in Britain: "Greeks and Cypriots contribute so much to our economy and society. They are highly educated and always hard workinf. They are welcome in London and across the country."

ON THE CYPRUS ISSUE. Referring to the Cyprus problem, the British minister called on Ankara to do more in order to find a solution.

"I urge Turkey to find a constructive approach and a way forward for the negotiations for the settlement of the Cyprus' division. It definitely has to do this. Quite simply, we cannot continue with the stagnation that has been observed for so many decades, which is causing tensions between the two countries," Paul Scully stressed.

He added: "We absolutely must end the partition. We have to listen, to learn, to understand what is happening in Cyprus. The Foreign Ministry has been supporting the efforts from the very beginning. But members can also be active. It is important that they learn the story and then share it with their colleagues in parliament. Their experience can contribute to decision-making and pressure from Britain. We must work together with Turkey and Greece in order to find a solution that leads to a meaningful reunification."

To read the article in Ta Nea, follow the link here .

BCRPM also notes the breakthrough decision negotiated by the Greek team, after the initiatve of the representative of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This decision adopted by UNESCO's ICPRCPis an excellent example of the preparation invested by Greece in the continued efforts to find a solutuon to the unecessary division of the Parthenon sculptures. Just two weeks ago a celebration of the 13th anniversary of the Acropolis Museumwas organised by BCRPM and Greeks in the UK, at the British Museum. Victoria Hislop, Professor Edith Hall, George Gabriel and Marlen Godwin, members of BCRPM joined Avgoustinos Galiassos  and supporters to ask that the Parthenon Marbles be reunited in Athens.

Robert Peston on his ITV programme last night, Monday 28 November covered a number of topics from China to the nurses strike, housing and.... the 'Elgin' Marbles. Ed Vaizey and Emily Thornberry were of opposite views with regards to reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

Christopher Price and Eddie O'Hara would be unhappy that a Labour MP should not 'see' the merits of reuniting the Parthenon Marbles in the superlative Acropolis Museum. Both Labour MPs in their time, Chris and Eddie had visited the new museum in Athens on a number of occassions. Chris was there for the official opening in June 2009, as Vice-Chair of BCRPM with Eleni Cubitt (Founder and Secretary), Professor Anthony Snodgrass (Chair), Dr Christopher Stockdale (who swam for the reunification in 2000 and cycled in 2005), and Marlen Godwin.

BCRPM has written to Emily Thornberry to ask if she would reconsider her stance and review what was being asked for in the context not just of the history of the removal of these sculptures but more importantly looking at cultural heritage today. Not as a means of power but more about understanding the importance of cultural heritage in relation to the Parthenon, which still stands. Understanding Greece, a country whose peerless collection, the surviving Parthenon Marbles were sawn almost in half, at a time when Greece had no voice.

Greece's ask is wholly justified and we do hope that Emily will revisit the plight of these sculptures.   

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."  

12 March 2021

Yannis Andritsopoulos, London Correspondent for the Greek daily newspaper Ta Neain an exclusive interview asked UK Prime Minister Johnson about the Parthenon Marbles.

Prime Minister Johnson was asked specificlly about Prime Minister Mitsotakis' plea to have the Parthenon Marbles back in Greece.

Sadly PM Johnson chose to answer the question by repeating that the UK governments standpoint is based on legal ownership. Yet the question remains, if the legality was uncontestable, why did the UK government not retain ownership and instead transfered it to the British Museum?

In today's exclusive interview with the Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea, when asked about the Parthenon Marbles, British PM Johnson said: “I understand the strong feelings of the Greek people – and indeed Prime Minister Mitsotakis – on the issue.But the UK Government has a firm longstanding position on the sculptures, which is that they were legally acquired by Lord Elgin under the appropriate laws of the time and have been legally owned by the British Museum’s Trustees since their acquisition.” 

In this wide-ranging interview, Prime Minister Johnson also covered topics from post-Brexit Britain to ‘Global Britain’ serving UK citizens and defending UK values by extending the UK’s international influence.

He also said the UK: "remains committed to working alongside our partners in the region and the UN to find a just and sustainable solution to the Cyprus problem.” Adding that Britain is following developments in the region closely and "welcomes the resumption of Greece-Turkey talks" urging all all parties to prioritise dialogue and diplomacy.

"I am of course a keen scholar of Greek history, the decisive impact of Navarino on the success of the Greek War of Independence and Britain’s crucial role in it. The Ancient Greeks founded western civilisation and gave us science, culture, philosophy, comedy, tragedy, poetry, mathematics, literature, democracy – to name just a few. But modern Greece’s emergence on the international scene as an independent nation state has also had enormous significance for the world. Greece plays an important role in Europe, NATO and in a pivotal region connecting Europe to the Middle East.

Despite some of the challenges the country has faced over the past two hundred years, Greece today is a well-governed, prosperous, creative, peace-loving international partner in the family of nations and makes a crucial contribution to the world stage." Concluded Prime Minister Johnson.

And BCRPM would add: the halves from the Parthenon currently displayed the wrong way round in the British Museum's Room 18, were removed when Greece had no voice. As an independent nation, Greece has been asking politely for some time for the UK to find a way to reunite the sculptures in Athens, so that the surviving pieces may be viewed as close as possible to the Parthenon. The BCRPM sincerely hopes that the UK can begin talks to find a solution to this unecessary division of this peerless collection of sculptures from the Parthenon.   

The interview by Yannis Andritsopoulos was published in the Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea (www.tanea.gr), today 12 March 2021. To read the interview in English, visit the linkhere. 

November is one of those long months, almost at the end of yet another year. It certainly has caused plenty of media frenzy in past years, and this year seems to be no exception.

Our own enthusiasm with regards to the dialogue that has been ongoing between Greece and the UK on the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles was resting on 'British fair play', and Greece's magnanimous gesture of more Greek artefacts not seen outside of Greece to be exhibited at the British Museum, a gesture made over 23 years ago and repeated ever since.

There was concern for George Osborne's suggestion of a 'Parthenon Partnership', exchanges of cultural artefacts with rotating loans that would enable the British Museum to continue to hang onto the sculptures already in Room 18. This 'new' British Museum vision, falling short on the call to reunify the surviving Parthenon Marbles, in the Acropolis Museum. 

This weekend's interview between Laura Kuenssberg and PM Mitsotakis, followed more coverage on Monday, and the cancellation of the meeting with PM Sunak. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised but what is more of an affront was that PM Sunak suggested PM Mitsotakis meet with Oliver Dowden, the Deputy Prime Minister.

Many of you will remember that for 19 months from Feb 2020 to Sept 2021, Mr Dowden was also Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. There have been so many in that specific post during these past 13 years, that one could be forgiven for not remembering.

The Times interviewed Mr Dowden in March 2021: "Dowden said that while he loved the Benin Bronzes, he had “never related that much to the Parthenon Sculptures". He added: “Would they have survived the Nazis rampaging through Athens during World War II. It is a slightly trite argument but there is a truth. Would the Benin Bronzes have survived various international conflicts?”

Needless to say some of our members took to what was then twitter to express their disappointment at Oliver Dowden's comments.

PM Sunak's decision to cancel his meeting with PM Mitsotakis today, Tuesday 28 November, was made late in the day, and the suggestion that the meeting could take place with Oliver Dowden, a person that two years ago was unaware of how the Greeks safeguarded their artefacts during WWII, was not going to make PM Mitsotakis any happier.

Maggie Dietz's 'November' poem begins with 'Show's over, folks', and the media's coverage of PM Mitsotakis London visit this November simply highlights the regressive stance of the UK with regards to the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. For now we will continue to hang onto Janet Suzman, our Chair's words: la luta continua.

Professor Armand D'Angour, is Professor of Classics at Jesus College Oxford, and as the newest member of BCRPM, outlines his thoughts on the continued plight of the Parthenon Marbles: 

When I was at school studying Classics in the 1970s, the general view in the UK was that the Elgin Marbles had been legally acquired from the Greeks (via the Turks), that they were the essential centrepiece of the British Museum collection, that they had been nobly rescued from destruction by Elgin, that they were far safer in the clean air of London than in traffic-plagued Athens, and that returning them would set a terrible precedent that could lead to the world's museums being denuded.

Now, as a Classics Professor, I know that none of those arguments hold true. First, the acquisition by Elgin was for his personal profit and aggrandisement, and was dubiously legal - his alleged firman seems not even to exist; and it was completed through agreement with Turkish rulers of Greece and not Greeks themselves. Secondly, the display of the marbles in the Duveen Gallery is far from ideal; a colourful and well lit set of replicas would be much more appealing - not to mention the wonderful objects Greece might offer on loan in return, or a display of some of the BM's many other millions of objects currently in storage. Thirdly, the Marbles were not kept safe, but damaged with inappropriate cleaning fluids; the beautiful new museum on the Acropolis is a much worthier site today, and traffic is far worse in London than it is in Athens! Few objects have such iconic national status - and if they do, there would be a strong case for their return too to their place of origin.

These are arguments from common sense and history. The main arguments, though, that have persuaded me personally that the time has come for the reunification of the marbles in Athens are moral and emotional. It feels to many, Greeks and non-Greeks as if they are a vital part of the Greek land and soul; and that their theft by Elgin, compounded by a high-handed attitude to their return, remains an open wound.

The tale is told that when the Greeks were fighting for their independence, a group of soldiers observed the Turks stripping lead from between the stones of the Parthenon for use as bullets. Relatively uneducated and rustic Christians as the soldiers were, they felt strongly that this was a dreadful desecration of this pagan monument that had eternal significance to Greeks. They sent a delegation to the Turkish commander with a box of bullets - the very means of their own possible deaths - telling him that they would prefer them to be used than for the great ancient monument to be fatally damaged. Unhistorical as this anecdote undoubtedly is, the fact that it has often been told by Greeks is indicative of their strong feelings about this unique monument.

The emotional resonance of the Parthenon to Greeks - something increasingly recognised and appreciated by British people - makes for me one of the strongest cases for the reunification of the Marbles.

Context Matters: Collecting the Past

Context Matters is based on the twenty essays contributed to the Journal of Art Crime over its first ten years of publication. The contributions are supplemented by articles and review articles that were published alongside them. The chapters were written as museums in Europe and North America were facing a series of claims on recently acquired objects in their collections in the light of the photographic dossiers that had been seized from dealers in Switzerland and Greece. The volume contributes to the wider discussion about the appropriate due diligence process that should be conducted prior to the acquisition of archaeological material.To look at the table of contents, please see the link here.

The essays draw on research undertaken for more than 30 years. One of the major themes relates to the impact of looting on how archaeological material has been interpreted. Lost contexts cannot be replaced, and information can be corrupted as it enters the corpus of knowledge. This is particularly true when the market supplies demonstrably incorrect information to objects that are being offered for sale. Some of the processes by which material enters museum collections is indeed shocking: complete or semi-complete figure-decorated pottery is broken into small fragments. Equally disturbing is the way that archaeological material from Syria and northern Iraq appears to have been surfacing on the London market.

The book also discusses how some modern commentators like James Cuno confuse historic claims over cultural property, such as the Parthenon or the Rosetta stone, with contemporary claims over material that has been looted from archaeological sites in recent years. Alongside this are the intellectual issues relating to cultural property. Whereas we know, in the case of the Parthenon architectural marbles, from which building these sculptures were taken, so many objects that surface on the market will have lost their archaeological contexts and settings for good, and this information will never be reclaimed.

David Gill also reviews Tiffany Jenkins book:Keeping Their Marbles: How the Treasures of the Past Ended up in Museums … And Why They Should Stay There.To read the extract from that review, please follow the link here.

David Gill is Honorary Professor in the Centre for Heritage in the Kent Law School, University of Kent, and Academic Associate in the Centre for Archaeology and Heritage in the Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures at the University of East Anglia (UEA). He is a former Rome Scholar at the British School at Rome, and was a Sir James Knott Fellow at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He was previously a member of the Department of Antiquities at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, and Reader in Mediterranean Archaeology at Swansea University. He was awarded his chair in Archaeological Heritage through UEA, and was Director of the Heritage Futures Research Unit at the University of Suffolk. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and is a regional lead for the RSA Heritage Network. He is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (FSA).

David has a regular column in the Journal of Art Crime. He is the holder of the 2012 Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) Outstanding Public Service Award in recognition of his research on cultural property.

To read Professor David Gill's blog and how to order his book 'Context Matters:Collecting the Past', please follow the link here or to order the book visit the link here.

Professor John Tasioulas, Director of the Yeoh Tiong Lay Centre for Politics, Philosophy and Law, King's College London is a BCRPM member and was one of two speakers at a panel discussion held at Kings College London on 06 February 2020.

To read about this panel discussion, please visit our Past Events section. 

Professor John Tasioulas' paper covered key points in international law as he also made his own strong for reunite the Parthenon Marbles on moral grounds.

In concluding, Professor Tasioulas said that "the key to the return of the Parthenon marbles is the recognition that the UK stands to gain a tremendous amount by relinquishing them. But to achieve those gains – the gains of acting and being seen to act in accordance with one’s deepest values – it must give them up freely, generously, and in the spirit of friendship, not one darkened by the shadow of legal obligation."

To read Professor John Tasioulas' paper in full  please visit our Past Events section and click on the Panel Discussion at Kings College London: "Who Owns History?

05 January 2022, CGTN Live

Were the Parthenon marbles acquired legally by the UK? 'No.'

Professor Paul Cartledge spoke on Global Business Europe today with presenter Robyn Dwyer about the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. To watch the interview, please use the link below:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJNE1qzokIQ

The 14 texts which follow, each reflecting the writer’s viewpoint, are so rich and comprehensive that it is impossible for an introduction to fully encompass their essence. In most cases, the beginning, middle and end of the text refers to the barbaric act committed by Elgin.

I have therefore chosen not to repeat those well-known, well-rehearsed and well-discussed issues. Instead, I chose to contribute certain new arguments to the cause of returning and reunifying the marbles or sculptures of the Parthenon in the Acropolis Museum, which is their newly designated place of protection and display, a place that stands in close dialogue with the very monument from which those severed members originally came.

As a rich body of international bibliography on the subject makes clear, it is now obvious to all that the so-called firman which Thomas Bruce, the Earl of Elgin and ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1799-1803, is supposed to have procured from the Supreme Porte, in other words from Sultan Selim III, does not exist. If such a document had existed, it would have been submitted to the examining committee of the British House of Commons in 1816 – and the whole question of legality, and restitution claims by the Greek state, would have taken a different turn.

According to Elgin’s testimony to the committee, the original document sent by the Turkish authorities to Athens was lost. The Reverend Philip Hunt, the ambassador’s assistant, offered in testimony what he could recollect, 14 years later, of a translation of a French version of the original firman into Italian and later rendered into English.

However:

ONE

Official firmans of the sultan were always made in two copies, of which one was kept in the official archives and the other was sent to the designated recipient. In the course ofall the investigations made hitherto, the original, archived version of the firman has never been found.

TWO
Genuine firmans were despatched through a special designated messenger or an authorized individual or delivered by captains of the Turkish navy. In this case the so-called firman was brought to Athens by Philip Hunt, Elgin’s assistant.

THREE
For the actions that Elgin was seeking to undertake on the Acropolis, formal permission was indeed necessary because according to an unwritten Ottoman law, marble in all its forms – works of art, ancient or otherwise, and the raw material itself – belonged to the sultan. All the more so if marbles were to be removed from such a well preserved surviving decoration of a monument that was well respected by Ottoman officials as a “temple of the idols” – namely the Parthenon.

Thanks to the authentic firmans that were issued over the years for various purposes, we can ascertain what a genuine sultan’s firman looked like, what formalities it observed, what turns of phrase and calligraphy were used, and all its other features. I will not enumerate the hundreds of examples that might be mentioned. I will focus instead on two sultan’s firmans which are of immediate relevance, because they concern two protagonists of our story – Lord Elgin and Lord Byron. They are also, of course, close chronologically. The first is dated 1802 and was brought to light by Dyfri Williams. It is the official passport-firman granted to Elgin which authorized his trip to Athens and the Aegean archipelago. The second was granted to Byron in 1810 and is presented here for the first time, thanks to the generosity of a particular individual. It is the official travel document which was issued to Byron: its interpretation and presentation are the work of Ilias Kolovos, a scholar of Ottoman history.

When one compares these two original passport-firmans, they turn out to be very much alike in format, despite the fact that Sultan Selim III died in 1808 and was replaced on the throne by Mustafa IV. If we then compare those two documents – the one issued to Elgin and the one granted to Byron, which is available to us in Turkish (in Roman script) as well as English translation – with the so-called firman granted to Elgin which supposedly allowed him to remove sculptures from the Parthenon – at least according to the Italian translation, and its later English rendering. It becomes clear – as was demonstrated by the Ottomanist scholar Vasilis Dimitriadis at a conference on the Parthenon and its sculptures – that Elgin’s so-called permit is anything but a genuine sultan’s firman. He would have needed to get the personal authorization of the sultan, instead of merely relying – as he did - on the deputy to the Grand Vizier, Sejid Abdullah. That deputy was standing in because the actual Grand Vizier – Kor Yusuf Ziyauddin Pasha, otherwise known as Djezzar, (the butcher) – was at the time in Egypt.

Given that the so-called permit for the removal of the sculptures was not a genuine sultan’s act, but merely a decision issued by the deputy to the Grand Vizier – assuming that the Italian translation is real and accurate –how can anyone justify the still-adamant denial by the British authorities and the British Museum that what took place was an act of vandalism – indeed, a plundering of sculptures that were integral to the monument, constituent parts of the Parthenon? Or justify their refusal to return and reunify the marbles in the Acropolis Museum?

To put it more bluntly, how is it that certain officials – in the British Museum and elsewhere in Britain – still regard as acceptable a flawed purchase in 1816, and an arbitrary decision by Parliament in 1963, insofar as these relate to the ongoing captivity of the Parthenon marbles?

This is not the place to delve deep into the reasons for that insistence. Let me focus instead on some initiatives aimed at resolving the issue, in accordance with the realities of the 21st century. In addition to the strong and respectable arguments laid out by many people over two centuries – especially by Melina Mercouri in 1982-83 – all the way up to 2021, a number of developments stand out.

ONE
In September 2021, UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Property (ICPRCP) adopted a decision which clearly recognizes Greece’s aspirations as rational, justified and ethical. It also affirmed the intergovernmental nature of the dispute and called for consultations between Britain and Greece.

TWO
A particular methodology was followed in the return and reintegration of the so-called Fagan fragment from Palermo. This was the first return which was treated as a matter from State to State. Initially, in January 2022, the return was presented as an unspecified “deposit” – and then, in June 2022, came the permanent reintegration of the fragment into the Parthenon frieze: an act that was underpinned not merely by legal norms and technicalities but also by the friendship between two nations - Greece on one hand, Italy and in particular Sicily on the other – who share common values.

THREE
In March 2023, Pope Francis returned three fragments of the Parthenon, as an expression of universal truth, for the definitive reunification of the monument’s scattered sculptures.
The British government and the British Museum would do well to ponder the significance all these developments, while also considering certain other factors such as:

ONE
The consistent majority of British public opinion [in favour of return]

TWO
The continued support expressed by the near-entirety of the British press

THREE
International public opinion, which favours the reunification of this world-renowned monument…so that it can be properly presented in all its integrity as a work of supreme architectural and sculptural beauty; and experienced as a symbol of democracy by people of allgenerations and national origins.

And in case those arguments fail to persuade doubters of the moral soundness of Greece’s case, I will add yet another one.

Over the past few decades, there have been some well-known cases of restitution of art works – for example to Italy or to Africa. Such returns have even been made by Britain. Let me specify one example.

On August 1, 2008, the upper section of a funerary monument was returned to Greece from New York.

It was made of Pentelic marble and it dates from the late fifth century – about 410 BCE, shortly after the completion of the Parthenon. Μy Professor George Despinis, as early as 1993, had proven that the piece came from a funerary monument whose lower half had been discovered in the soil of Attica – in Porto Rafti – and was then conserved in the Museum of Βrauron in Attica.

After some negotiations, the purchasers of the upper part – who were American citizens –gave that segment back to Greece, while Greece acknowledged that the purchase had been made in good faith. The matter was settled and the two parts of the funerary monument are reunited in a Greek museum.

I will now refer to a rather similar case, concerning the Parthenon. The lower part of segment number XXVII of the Parthenon frieze – showing a charioteer, part of a chariot and a stable lad –is in the Parthenon Gallery, while the upper part is in the Duveen Gallery of the British Museum.

Just about anybody will readily understand the similarity of the two stories. In particular, the morally equivalent fate of the piece of marble that was broken off and plundered by Elgin’s team and the severed upper part of the funerary monument – while in both cases, the lower sections remained in the place where the works had been fashioned.

So given that the principle of repatriation was applied in the case of the artefact in New York, exactly the same norm should apply in the case of the broken segment from the northern side of the Parthenon frieze.

One could of course take the argument further and note that in the case of the funerary monument, the buyer was in legal terms an individual rather than a state; and then observe that under international law, no state can retroactively justify illegal acts by one of its citizens on foreign soil - given that in such cases international law supersedes anything enacted by local or national legislatures.

In view of all that, how can it be that a state, in this instance the British state, vindicates the vandalism and plunder perpetrated by one of its subjects? Considering that Elgin, as a private individual, committed an act of vandalism, along with his associates, and broke off sculptures from the Parthenon - only to transport them to England in order to decorate his home, where they would have stayed if he had not gone bankrupt.

People who persist in justifying the purchase of 1816 must surely accept this: the mostone might say is that this decision amounted to a “receipt of stolen goods” in good faith – as was the case with the purchase of upper part of the funerary monument from Brauron.

In no way can they justify the illegal actions of a British subject, Lord Elgin – in view of the considerations I have laid out.

Nor, by the same token, should any government οr state wish to carry the moral burden that results from such tainted acts. I believe the moment has come for our British friends to take a noble decision and rid themselves of the moral burden which Elgin - rashly, and in pursuit of personal gain – laid on Britain, the British Museum and the people of Britain.

The above text was the lead article in a Kathimerini supplement published 17 March 2024, entitled:H AΡΠΑΓΗ, 'Tthe Grab, Elgin and the Parthenon Sculptures'

In the same supplement BCRPM member Bruce Clark's article 'Laws, democracy and hypocrisy' was also plublished.

Photo credit for the images of Professor Stampolidis: Paris Tavitian 

Wednesday 29 January 2020 at the Acropolis Museum, the launch of the published proceedings of the 15 April 2019 International Conference: 'The Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures'. The conference was held under the auspices of the President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopios Pavlopoulos. A number of campaigning committees attended and some also spoke at the conference, including Professor Louis Godart, Chair of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS), Dame Janet Suzman as Chair of the BCRPM and Professor Paul Cartledge as Vice Chair of the BCRPM.  

Both Professor Louis Godart as the Former Chair for the International Assciation and the current Chair Christiiane Tytgat, spoke at the event held on the 29th of January this year and their respective speeches can be read below. 

Chair of the International Association, Christiane Tytgat's address:

President of the International Association, Dr Christiane Tytgat's address at the launch of the Proceedings of the International Conference on the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, held at the Acropolis Museum on April 15, 2019:
Your Excellency, Mr President, Your Excellency, Madam Minister, Dear Friends and Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, first of all I would like to thank His Excellency, the President of the Hellenic Republic, Mr Pavlopoulos, the Minister of Culture and Sports, Dr Mendoni and the President of the Acropolis Museum, Professor Pantermalis for the honour of inviting me to be here with you today.

It is a great pleasure to be here again, in this wonderful Museum which celebrated its 10th anniversary last year with a series of events. Among these events, the key event was the opening of the archaeological excavation beneath the museum on the 20th of June 2019. Hence the Museum adds again an element to its precious wealth and shows, once again, that it is a museum always in motion, a museum that offers continually something new to its visitors. I wonder, how many other museums can say this without organising a temporary exhibition and bringing artefacts from elsewhere? Increasingly the Acropolis Museum evokes the image of the sacred rock: the Parthenon Room, at the top of the Acropolis Museum, which is waiting for more than 10 years to be completed, now dominates an ancient neighbourhood of Athens, as in ancient times the Acropolis was dominating the ancient city.

The conference "Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures" was part of these anniversary festivities. I would add that after 10 years of the Museum's operation, it is a pity that we still have to hold another conference on this subject, however we can look at this in a positive way too. Many speakers from Greece, but also from all over the world made the journey to participate in the conference and show their interest in the issue of reunification. Each intervention embraced the issue from a different perspective, from the results of recent research and proposals for a solution to actions to keep the case in the news until we achieve our goal. The conference was resounding in its message, delivered so eloquently by so many speakers.

But "words are transient, yet the written texts remain forever". That is why it is very important that the Proceedings of the conference were published. There is also no better time to present them, since today begins the Year of Melina Mercouri, the great protagonist for the return of the Sculptures. We cannot honour her in a better way: her campaign for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures from the British Museum continues and her vision is more alive than ever.

Melina's campaign is no longer the struggle of any one person or the Hellenic Government who made the first request to the British Museum for the return in 1842. The struggle was transferred - and rightly so - globally, since the Parthenon and its Sculptures are a world cultural heritage.

In 1981, the first Committee was established in Australia, headed up by its President Emanuel Comino. It remains very active to this day. Following Melina's passionate appeal to UNESCO in 1982, the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles was founded in 1983. This was followed by the formation of many more committees worldwide.

At a conference organized in November 2005 by the Hellenic Government, 12 national committees established the International Association for the Reunification of Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS) with the aim of supporting the Hellenic Government in its repatriation efforts and the reunification of all the surviving parts of the Sculptures in the new Acropolis Museum. Since then, other new national committees have joined the International Association, most recently France (2016), Austria (2017), and - as strange as it may seem - the oldest committee from Australia (2018). In January 2020 we were delighted to also welcome the new Luxembourg committee.

Today, the IARPS has a total of 21 national committees spanning 19 countries. Every now and then a committee, like Russia in recent years, had fallen by the wayside but Moscow has given the committee a new impetus for the last six months and with great enthusiasm is organising its first lecture in February this year under the auspices of the Greek Ambassador in Moscow.

The IARPS works closely with the Greek authorities and supports the policy of cultural diplomacy, which Greece has been pursuing for years. The return of the Sculptures is a moral problem rather than a legal one. The International Association, which coordinates the activities of the national committees, observes that the public interest continues to grow, clearly illustrated by the continuously growing number of participants in our activities. The general climate helps us probably: the call for the repatriation of cultural heritage artefacts is global. There isn’t a day when a new article is not published and new activities are taking place. And in England, key voices grow louder too. Big museums are under pressure every day. So we are all optimistic that the time will come when theses museums will be able to do nothing less than return the stolen parts of the Parthenon to the place they rightfully belong: the Acropolis Museum in Athens, where one can see the sculptures by Pheidias on display in the best possible conditions, in direct visual contact with the Parthenon, where they are an integral part of. It would be a very happy coincidence if this would happen in 2021, the 200nd anniversary of the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence.

In conclusion, as Chair of the International Association and its 21 national Committees, I extend a very warm thank you to H.E. the President of the Hellenic Republic, Mr Pavlopoulos for his support over the years for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures.

 To read more about the conference held on 15 April 2019, click here.

Professor Louis Godart, Former Chair of the International Association (2016-2019)

The stars in the skies of Attica and Greece saw the birth of Western Civilization, just as they saw the watchman above the palace of Mycenae catch the first evidence of the fall of Troy, and as they witnessed the enthusiasm of Pericles and of all the Athenians, when after 480 BC the city reinvented democracy, and rebuilt the monuments of Acropolis, the only place in the world where spirit and courage dwell together.

These are the very stars that also witnessed Elgin's assault when without any respect from 1801 to 1804 he violated the sanctity of the Parthenon, the temple, a global symbol of Democracy.

Inside the Acropolis Museum there is the stele of Mourning Athena. She is standing in front of another small stele. She is not wearing her aegis breastplate, her helmet doesn't cover her face. Her spear has its point on the base of the stele. What did the sculptor want to tell us when in about 460 BCE he carved this masterpiece?

Athena is the goddess of the intellect. She is also the goddess who is ready at all times for battle.

I believe that the stele bore the names of those Athenians who died at Marathon, Salamis and Plataea. Mourning Athena is showing the Athenians respect for those who saved Greece and Western Civilization. In our midst, the notion that Democracy must always be fought for is being honoured. We must always be ready, like the goddess, with our spear close to hand if we want to defend something of value and distinction.

So anyone who loves Greece and democracy - the Parthenon being as I said a symbol of Greece - must fight for the repatriation of Pheidias' sculptures.

I do not forget that in 1940 England - glory to the pilots of the RAF - saved European democracy. That Churchill said at the time: "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few." England cannot today fail to heed the cry of everyone in the world who wants the sculptures to be near to the temple of the goddess. Today a lot of people in England are fighting alongside us. We will help them.

I hope that soon the stars of the heavens of Greece will again see the goddess' marbles beside the sacred rock.

Wednesday 06 March 2024 and our thoughts are with the Hellenic spirit that was Melina Mercouri.

Three decades since Melina passed away, at every protest, every campaign, every thought that is directed at the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, also embraces Melina's soulful and heartfelt pleas.

As Greece's Minister of Culture and Science, Melina Mercouri's commitment for the return of the sculptures removed from the Acropolis in the 19th century continue to inspire all that also feel strongly and view this long-standing request as a just cause.

“I hope to see the marbles return to Athens before I die. But if they return later, I will be reborn to see them.” Melina Mercouri said, a phrase repeated by other women whose lifetime dedication to this cause continues. 

The reunification of the Parthenon Marbles campaign began at the UNESCO General Policy Conference in Mexico (1982) when Mercouri, then Minister of Culture and Science for Greece, put forward Greece's request for the return of the sculptures. And it is at UNESCO's ICPRCP meetings that this request continues to dominate.

On 29 September 2021, UNESCO ICPRCP Intergovernmental Committee, for the first time in its history, adopted by consensus Decision 22 COM 6, which is specifically dedicated to the Parthenon Marbles issue. The added value of that Decision is that for the first time the committee: "Recognized expressly the legitimate and rightful demand of Greece. Recognized that the case has an intergovernmental character and, therefore, the obligation to return the Parthenon Sculptures lies squarely on the UK Government and expressed its disappointment that its respective previous Recommendations have not been observed by the UK."

There is global support for the reunification, especially post the opening of the superlative Acropolis Museum, and yet there is no British political will to amend the museum's law that could see these sculptures returning to Athens. Of the 50% of the original sculptures that survive, about half are in the British Museum and half in the Acropolis Museum. There are a few fragments in a few museums: the Louvre in Paris, the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the Martin von Wagner Museum in the University of Würzburg.

The good and great news is that some fragments have been returned and that the campaign continues. Despite the lack of political will in the UK, there is plenty of public support and in fairness, that has been there for many decades.

Greece has also made repeated offers to provide the British Museum with Greek artefacts not seen outside of Greece, should the surviving Parthenon Marbles be reunited in the Acropolis Museum.

There are ongoing talks between PM Mitsotakis and the British Museum.

We continue to hope.

22 September 2018

When the Parthenon in Athens fell into ruins in early the 1800s, a British ambassador with permission from the Ottoman Empire preserved about half the sculptures, which are now at the British Museum. But Greeks for centuries have wanted them back; the deal was made before their country fought for independence from the monarchy. NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Christopher Livesay reports.

Watch the PBS Newshour podcast here or listen to the audio here.

Read the Full Transcript

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

A highlight of London's British Museum is one of its earliest acquisitions, the Parthenon Marbles. These sculptures once decorated the great 5th century BCE temple on the Acropolis in Greece. Considered among the great achievements of the classical world, they depict mythical creatures, stories of the gods along with average people.

• HANNAH BOULTON:

They are very significant and important masterpieces, really, of the ancient Greek world.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

Hannah Boulton is the spokesperson for the British Museum. She admits that how these classical works came to be in England is a sensitive subject, one the museum takes some pains to explain.

• HANNAH BOULTON:

I think it, obviously, has always been a topic of debate ever since the objects came to London and into the British Museum. It's not a new debate.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

The story starts in the early 1800s. The Parthenon had fallen to ruin. Half the marbles were destroyed by neglect and war. Then, a British ambassador, Lord Elgin, made an agreement with Ottoman authorities who were in control of Athens at the time to remove some of statues and friezes. He took about half of the remaining sculptures.

• HANNAH BOULTON:

And then he shipped that back to the UK. For a long time it remained part of his personal collection so he put it on display and then he made the decision to sell the collection to the nation. And the Parliament chose to acquire it and then pass it on the British Museum. So we would certainly say that Lord Elgin had performed a great service in terms of rescuing some of these examples.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

But Greeks don't see it that way. For decades now, they have argued that the Ottomans were occupiers, so the deal with Elgin wasn't valid, and the marbles belong in Greece. Why does Greece want to have the Parthenon Marbles back in Athens?

• LYDIA KONIORDOU:

It's not just bringing them back to Athens or to Greece. That's where they were created. But this is not our claim. Our claim is to put back a unique piece of art. To put it back together. Bring it back together.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

Lydia Koniordou was Greece's Minister of Culture from 2016 to 2018. We met her at the Acropolis where the Parthenon temple stands overlooking Athens.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

So first it was Lord Elgin who removed 50 percent.

• LYDIA KONIORDOU:

Almost 50 percent.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

All of the marbles, she says, have now been removed from the monument for protection from the elements. Then it was Greece that consciously decided to remove the remaining.

• LYDIA KONIORDOU:

Yes, the scientists that were responsible decided to remove and take them to the Acropolis Museum. It was nine years ago when the Acropolis Museum was completed.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

In fact, the Acropolis Museum was built in part as a response to the British Museum's claim that Greece did not have a proper place to display the sculptures. The glass and steel structure has a dramatic view of the Acropolis, so while you're observing the art you can see the actual Parthenon. The third floor is set up just like the Parthenon, with the same proportions. These friezes, from the west side of the temple, are nearly all original. On the other three sides, there are some originals but also a lot of gaps, as well as white plaster copies of the friezes and statues now in Britain.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

We believe that one day we could replace the copies with the orginals to show all this unique art in its grandeur. Every block has two or three figures and here is only one.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

Dimitrios Pandermalis is the Director of the Acropolis Museum where the story of the missing marbles differs widely from that of the British Museum. Presentations for visitors portray Lord Elgin critically. One film shows the marbles flying off the Parthenon and calls it the uncontrollable plundering of the Acropolis. You have these videos that actually show how the pieces were removed. Another film depicts how one of the marbles was crudely split by Elgin's workmen.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

He damaged the art pieces, yes.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

He did damage some of these pieces.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

Of course, it was to be expected.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

The British Museum disputes the claim Elgin damaged the sculptures. It also sees it as a plus that half the collection is in Britain and half in Greece.

• HANNAH BOULTON:

I think the situation we find ourselves in now we feel is quite beneficial. It ensures that examples of the wonderful sculptures from the Parthenon can be seen by a world audience here at the British Museum and in a world context in terms of being able to compare with Egypt and Rome and so on and so forth. But we feel the two narratives we are able to tell with the objects being in two different places is beneficial to everybody.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

But Pandermalis says rather than being in two places the sculptures should be reunified, literally. He showed us examples around the museum, including one that is almost complete save for one thing.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

So this sculpture is original except the right foot.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

And this. The chest of the god Poseidon. So the marble portion in the center where we can see clearly defined the abdomen, that's original but the surrounding portion in plaster, the shoulders, that's in London. So the piece has been completely split in half.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

Yes.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

And perhaps most dramatic, this frieze. So the darker stone is the original and the white plaster that represents what's in the British Museum.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

Yes. Exactly.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

And here it is in the British Museum. The missing marble head and chest floating in a display space.

• LYDIA KONIORDOU:

It just doesn't make sense. It's like cutting, for instance, the Last Supper of Da Vinci and taking one apostle to one museum and another apostle to another museum. We feel also it's a symbolic act today to bring back this emblem of our world. To put it back together.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

If you bring back this emblem, aren't there untold other emblems that need to be brought back. Is this a slippery slope?

• LYDIA KONIORDOU:

We do not claim, as Greek state, we do not claim other treasures. We feel that this is unique. This claim will never be abandoned by this country because we feel this is our duty.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

As for visitors to the Acropolis museum. How do you feel about the fact that half the collection is in the British Museum?

• MAN:

Not good.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

The Roscoe family is from Ohio. What do you guys think?

• JIM ROSCOE:

I think it would be nice to have them in one spot where they originated.

• EMMA ROSCOE:

You're coming here to see the history of it so it would be nice to see the complete history rather than replicas.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

You've seen them in the British Museum. So what do you think about the fact that the collection is kind of split.

• TIM:

It's sad. When you see this. I think this museum is a phenomenal place to display them. It's beautiful and they way it's been built almost waiting to have them back. It's interesting.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

As recently as May the Greek President, Prokopios Pavlopoulos, told Prince Charles that he hoped the Marbles would be returned. And the British opposition Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn has said he too is in favor of returning the Marbles to Greece. But the British Museum's position is the marbles in its collection are legally theirs. They would, however, consider a loan. After all, the British Museum regularly loans pieces from its collection to other museums around the world.

• HANNAH BOULTON:

I think we would certainly see there being a great benefit in extending that lending and trying to find ways to collaborate with colleagues, not just in Greece but elsewhere in the world to share the Parthenon sculptures that we have in our collection.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

But sharing the sculptures is not what the ancient Greeks who created them would have wanted claims Pandermalis.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

They would be very angry.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

The ancient Greeks would be very angry?

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

Yes

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

Why?

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

Because they were crazy for perfection. It was a perfection but today it is not.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

As for whether he will ever see all the remaining Parthenon Marbles together under this roof.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

I'm sure.

• CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY:

You' re sure that you will see them.

• DIMITRIOS PANDERMALIS:

But I don't know when.

It is one of the wonders of antiquity and reunifying it would be an act of reverence, writes Alf Dubs.Letter published in the Guardian 27 February 2022.

It was with some surprise that I read the reunification of parts of one of the greatest works of classic antiquity described as a herald of “cultural cleansing” in a letter (16 February) on the question of the return of the Parthenon sculptures.

The removal of 75 metres of the Parthenon’s frieze, 15 metopes and 17 pedimental figures from Athens represents at best an abuse of power by Lord Elgin, and at worst an act of vandalism and spoliation that far exceeded the bounds of the dubious permission granted to him to “take away some pieces of stone” which were “preserved in rubble” around the Parthenon.

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

The Right Honourable Robert Jenrick published his thoughts in the Daily Telegraph on Saturday 07 April. You can also read the entire article on MP Jenrick's website.

The article, 'Our Museums have fallen into the hands of a careless generation', caused concern amongst all generations represented in today's electorate of the UK. It would seem that Robert Jenrick did not appreciate the British Museum talking to another nation about artefacts from countries of origin in the museum's collection. 

"As was revealed last week the museum is in talks with four foreign governments to part with its collections.

The published minutes of the board tell us less about their plans than parish council minutes would of changes to verge cutting. We do know, however, that it is negotiating the long term loan of its most celebrated objects, the Elgin Marbles." Writes Robert Jenricks

“Long term loan” is a legal fiction constructed to circumvent the museum’s statutory duty to maintain its collection. There is surely no realistic prospect of the marbles returning from Greece should they ever be sent there. Parliament, like the nation, is being treated like a fool." He concludes going on to suggest that UK's curators are happy to denude museum, that the 'slippery slope' and 'floodgates' is 'corrosive post-colonial guilt wracking the progressive Left.'

Janet Suzman, BCRPM's Chair responded: 

Robert Jenrick's petulant essay on his website about the Parthenon Marbles - one might dub them the star steal - is typically high Tory; feigning ignorance of the full story of the steal. Their continuing presence in Bloomsbury is lumped with Jenrick's 'finders keepers' philosophy about all the other objects in the BM which were questionably obtained by a once powerful empire. His nationalism is depressing since these Marbles have a unique history, but with any luck a more generous solution might be achieved by more thoughtful actors.  

And many took to Twitter including BCRPM member Stuart O'Hara.

You can read all of Stuart's thread, here. 

Mark Stephens added his response too:

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

02 November 2020, Janet Suzman in conversation with Yannis Andritsopoulos of Ta Nea

This is sad news indeed, wonderful charismatic handsome Connery - gone. But happily the mischievous gleam in his eye is immortalised on film for posterity to sigh over.

Alas, I never worked with him but admired him from the stalls just like the rest of the world. The legendary Sean fashioned an image of the not-to-be-messed-with British gentleman that far exceeded the reality, if indeed there ever existed such an exotic creature; there is certainly no sighting of the species at the present time.

Nineteen years have passed and the British government remains as obdurate as ever it was, nor the hint of a gentlemanly feeling to be spied amongst the Trustees of the British Museum which still keeps the Marbles captive.

For that is basically all it would take to have those Marbles returned; a sense of fair play and decency to override the tatters of empire and colonialism which hangs about the place.

No matter Acts of Parliament and de-accessions and all the superfluous commentary which obscures the basic argument; the Parthenon Marbles belong where they started, in Athens.

To the dishevelled apparatchiks of empire, Sean would surely murmur in his inimitable Scottish burr: “Give those shtatues back or you might like ataste of thish” - bang-bang. Lights of empire out.

Sean Connery had added his voice to the campaign in 2001. He was visiting Athens for the first time and discussed the issue with the then Greek Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos.

He told Venizelos he was "confident that the British government will change its position" and the minister thanked Connery for his efforts on the matter.

Sean Connery visited the sacred rock of  the Acropolis to view the Parthenon with Jules Dassin and Vangelis Papathanassiou. He also spoke to journalists about the importance of the return of the Marbles to their homeland. "They had them for two centuries," Connery said referring to the British government "and should return them." 

You can read more on Sean Connery's 2001 historic visit to Athens and the Acropolis, here. 

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