Five architectural teams have been selected to take part in the final stage of a design competition to redesign galleries at the British Museum in London. The international competition received more than 60 applications from across the world in its first stage. The design entries, which will  go on display in the museum’s Round Reading Room from December.

A judging panel will select the winning team early in 2025 – this team will then work with British Museum staff to develop designs for the Western Range of galleries  with a brief to “respond to the museum’s sensitive historic buildings, ambitious decarbonisation plans and the ongoing process of reimagining the display and care of collections”.

The Western Range includes  galleries on the western side of the museum that collectively make up a third of the British Museum’s gallery space, and house high-profile parts of the collection such as the Parthenon Sculptures as well as objects from Ancient Egypt and the Middle East.

Read the full article in the Museum Association news.

Eleni Cubitt, founding member of BCRPM at the British Museum, photographed by Nana Varveropoulou for LIFO Magazine in November 2009 . 

What makes today special? Monday, 19 August 2024, is full moon day and there is free entrance to a selection of archaeological sites and monuments in Greece.

The official poster pictured above produced by Greece's Ministry for Culture quotes Sappho and Anne Carson's book 'If Not, Winter - Fragments of Sappho' aptly translates the words as:

full appeared the moon.

The Acropolis Museum in Athens and its restaurant will also open from 8pm until midnight as the celebrations for this August full moon also include a concert by the historic Hellenic Air Force Band performing Greek songs about the moon, film score music and renowned melodies.

The concert will take place in the museum’s entrance courtyard at 9pm. 

The Hellenic Air Force Band is formed by senior and junior officers, high-level musicians who studied at various conservatories of Greece and were admitted into the ranks of the Air Force.

The band takes part in worldwide music festivals including New York's 5th Avenue parade dedicated to Greece's March 25th celebrations.

Major Alexandros Litsardopoulos is the conductor of the band. The singers that will perform are Sofia Zova and Angelos Mousikas.

A letter from Cambridge

A documentary from the journalist Bruce Clark about the Parthenon Marbles

“What about the British classicists of our times? Do they study the Athenian past in a spirit of acquisition and ambition or of friendship and respect? I am glad to say that when I last went back to my old place of learning, things seemed to have changed for the better…”

The observation comes from the journalist Bruce Clark, and it offers a first response to the question which is posed in a short documentary, “From Cambridge with Love: A Call to Mend the Parthenon’s Broken Treasures” which Kathimerini has seen.

However the author and former international security editor of the Economist, who is a Cambridge graduate himself, does not return to his alma mater with the sole purpose of finding out whether old-fashioned mentalities have been set aside.

“Public opinion in the United Kingdom is in favour of reunifying the marbles,” Clark told Kathimerini, “but it is not completely well informed about what exactly the sculptures are, or about the role they played in the civilization of ancient Athens – or about the fact they constitute a single work of art. The idea of the documentary was to inform the public more deeply about the sculptures, about the mysteries they contain and the unresolved scholarly debates they have stimulated – as a way of promoting their eventual reunification.”

The British classicists – and members of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles - whom Clark meets in the film are Paul Cartledge, an emeritus professor of Cambridge University and Edith Hall, a professor of ancient Greek literature at Durham University.

As Clark – who is also a member of the BCRPM – says in the documentary, “[both] helped me to understand one overwhelming fact – all the brilliant cultural products of fifth century Athens reflect the wave of democratic energy which cascaded through the city – that tiny, talented place – after its victory against the huge Persian empire…”

The film alludes to the democratic way in which the construction of the Parthenon was overseen – and also to the frieze which represents the whole population of the city. The “mystery” which stirs debate around the frieze concerns the so-called peplos scene - which might, according to some scholars, show Erechtheus, the first king of Athens, handing over a death-shroud to his daughter, foreshadowing her self-sacrifice for the good off the city.

“It is an unresolved scholarly question,” Clark tells Kathimerini – “just like the question of whether the frieze depicts the Panathenaic procession as it happened at that time, or some idealized notion of the procession in the past.”

The majority of the frieze is, of course, in the British Museum.“The presentation of the frieze is particularly damaging,”   Paul Cartledge explains in the film, “because the designers of that [BM] gallery try to pretend that they have the whole of the frieze when in fact they don’t…” Edith Hall puts it this way: “You might say it’s like trying to read a comic with the pictures in a random order.” 

And the British sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld, who also appears in the documentary, adds that “the most tragic thing for a sculptor is to create a work for a particular place and then find that it’s going to be moved…”

“From Cambridge with Love” – jointly created by Clark and producer Leonidas Liambeys – will make its first appearance in the Ninth “Beyond Borders” Documentary Festival in Kastellorizo. The main conclusion could be summed up in a remark made by Clark to Kathimerini: “It doesn’t require a brilliant brain to see that if there is one single place where the sculptures should be, it is the Acropolis Museum.”

Does Clark have hope that the advent of a new government will make things easier? “The very fact that there is a new government is a sign of hope,” he responds. “We understand that the Labour government will not stand in the way of any deal made by the British Museum – however they do not plan to change the law.  They are at least giving the Museum some room for manoeuvre. I think, though, that some legislative amendment will be needed.”

From Cambridge With Love will be shown at the International Documentary Festival in Kastellorizo on 26 August at 8.30 pm.

Article written by Nikolas Zois for Kathimerini and published on 14 August 2024

Published today, another YouGov poll, sample size:4869 GB adults surveyed, and only 17% believe the Parthenon Marbles currently in the British Museum should be kept in Britain. A tiny minority of the adults surveyed. Good to also see support for the reunification remains strong albeit 26% 'don't mind either way' and 9% 'don't know'. 

The results for region, gender, politics, age and social grade also of interest, to view them all, follow the link here.

As the British Museum looks to reimaging itself as a 'lending library', what is to be the next chapter for the Parthenon Marbles?

Museums as 'lending libraries' is not a bad idea as cultural mobility will ensure that artefacts are seen by those that cannot travel (so long as the countries whose artefacts are being lent are happy for them to travel around the globe). With an estimated 70–80% of the world's population not travelling outside their home country, this would make museum's cultural artefacts accessible by billions. Will this help the British Museum become more universal? Probably. 

On the flip side listening to Zeynep Boz talking about the UK and the BM's claim that the Parthenon Marbles were 'legally acquired by the laws of the time', one asks if it isn't time to recognise Greece's ask as one that is wholly justified. There is no bill of sale from the Ottomans and Elgin's acquisition remains not questionable but debunked.

Is it time to amend the Museums Act, UK House of Coomons, House of Lords, DCMS? Is it time to recognise that Greece has not been asking for anything more and that they are not wanting to denude any Western Museum, not least the British Museum.

The importance of the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles remains key to the holistic understanding of the Parthenon, a unique building which has withstood millennia of history and still stands, crowning the Acropolis, Athens' Sacred Hill. As great symbols of global cultural heritage, should independent Greece not be given the opportunity of showcase this peerless collection of sculptures in the superlative Acropolis Museum? Should the sculptures be deemed fit to travel far and wide, should Greece not be the nation that makes that decision about where they go? Is this about twenty-first cultural co-operation, power sharing when it comes to cultural artefacts whose significance matters globally or is this about a new form of cultural superiority for one nation over another?

As we look to a fairer society in an ever shrinking globe with a rising population, what is the best way to view and understand the cultures of other nations and why will that help promote greater empathy and understanding globally.

All BCRPM members would add that return and restitution cases deserve consideration 'on a case by case basis'.

The British Museum states that it cannot 'give Greece the Parthenon Marbles' back, it can only lend them, as the new Director, Dr Nicholas Cullinan also confirms in today's Independent article. These sculptures were forcibly removed when Greece had no voice and now Türkiye has added her voice to the reunification by emphasising the lack of official permission in the early 19th century by then Ottoman rulers for these sculptures to be removed.

It is up to this new UK Government under the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer, supported by Lisa Nandy as Secretary for Culture, Media and Sport to consider the possibility of doing the right thing and amending the Museum Act? Such an amendment would allow these sculptures to begin their newest chapter. They could be reunited, respectfully with their surviving halves, in the Acropolis Museum, with views to the Parthenon. 

We continue to hope, especially as we are reminded the Labour Party as the governing party of the United Kingdom, having won the July 2024 general election, is currently the largest political party by number of votes cast and number of seats in the House of Commons. Plus their mission statement would and could apply to finding a lasting solution to the plight of the divided Parthenon

Marbles too: