Like a doting parent, Dr Stavros Vlizos doesn't play favourites. All of the 163 figurines, ceramics, toys, icons, weapons, paintings and jewellery in the exhibition Greek treasures: from the Benaki Museum in Athens are his babies.

"They are all important - we brought the most representative and qualitative items," the assistant to the Benaki Museum's director says. As he walks around the Powerhouse Museum exhibition, he lovingly describes the pieces, including a marble female figurine from between 2700 and 2300 BC and an exquisite gold cup from 15th century BC decorated with three galloping dogs. Vlizos is in Sydney to launch the exhibition. He's also here to campaign for some other objects he loves.

Yesterday, he spoke to the national conference of Museums Australia, the professional association for museum and gallery workers, about the Greek bid to have the British Museum return the controversial Parthenon sculptures (or Elgin marbles) to Greece. His talk was part of a morning dedicated to an enormous problem facing modern museums - the repatriation of cultural material.

"It's the best way to display [the Parthenon sculptures], to have them in a good condition preserved in connection with their original site," Vlizos says. To that end, Athens is building a museum next to the Parthenon to display the sculptures.

The dispute dates back to 1801, when the British ambassador to the Ottoman empire, Thomas Bruce, the seventh earl of Elgin, began removing half of the surviving Parthenon frieze and many of its statues. He sold them to the British Museum in 1816. The Greeks first demanded the return of the sculptures after independence from Turkey in 1829. Greece's last concerted effort was for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. The British Museum argues the statues were legally acquired, that the rich setting of the British Museum is the best place for them, and the restoration of the Parthenon is unachievable.

"The Greek position is that this transaction [between Lord Elgin and the Ottoman authority he dealt with] was not official," Vlizos says. "It was just between two men, not between the governments of that time."

Repatriation is also a hot topic in Australia. Early last year, the British Museum and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, loaned two Aboriginal bark etchings and a ceremonial carved emu figure to Museum Victoria. Last July, the Dja Dja Wurrung Native Title Group from Victoria claimed ownership and secured an emergency heritage declaration to keep the items in the state. Museum Victoria argued it was legally obliged to send the objects back. The matter has not been resolved.

Because of the legal case, the head of Museum Victoria, Dr Patrick Greene, had to withdraw from the conference. Another no-show was the director-general of Iraqi Museums, Dr Donny George. George, who was to talk about the looting of Iraq's national museum, was not able to travel from Baghdad to Jordan to obtain his Australian visa.

Vlizos says the Greek push for the Parthenon sculptures will continue. "It's not only the nationalistic point, that they belong to Greece, it's about involvement in culture in general, that we want to see monuments completed in the right context."

Vlizos is hoping there will be no dispute over the objects loaned to the Powerhouse Museum. "You will give us back our art treasures, won't you?" he asks, smiling.

Sponsors may be invited to pay for Acropolis works
Government says project will take another 16 years, 70 million euros
Dismayed by spiraling costs and a seemingly open-ended completion schedule for conservation works on Greece's most iconic archaeological site, the government is thinking of seeking private sponsorship to expedite the Acropolis project.

If the intention voiced late on Wednesday by Deputy Culture Minister Petros Tatoulis should materialize, it would constitute a major departure from the policy of the past three decades - the massive program started in 1975.

Then, the prime minister of the day, Constantine Karamanlis, had refused to accept private or foreign funding for the works as a matter of national pride, although this principle was later diluted to let the European Union help foot the bill.

A Culture Ministry statement on Wednesday said the ministry body overseeing works on the capital's ancient citadel - the Service for the Conservation of the Acropolis Monuments (YSMA) - had proposed turning to private sponsorship to help defray the costs, which in 1992-2004 alone reached 30.6 million euros in current prices.

The ministry said Tatoulis's response was «positive, in principle.»

But there is little likelihood of future visitors to the fortified hilltop, which is dotted with some of the most outstanding examples of Classical Greek architecture, facing signs where the monument's name is twinned with a corporate sponsor's logo.

«[Tatoulis] believes that sponsorship for monuments should not be allowed without a framework to lay out rules, preconditions and obligations,» the ministry said. «Publicity given to sponsors cannot overshadow the contribution of the main fund sources [i.e. Greece and the EU].»

According to the ministry, YSMA believes that the works will take at least another 16 years to finish, and will cost an additional 70 million euros - without taking into account repairs to the defensive walls or earthworks around the marble temples.

So far, since 1975, the only Acropolis monument to have been fully conserved - and partially restored - is the Erectheion temple, at the citadel's northern end. Work on the Parthenon is 36 percent complete, the Propylaea monumental gates are 50 percent finished, the Temple of Athena Nike - which has been totally dismantled - is 65 percent done, and work on the walls has advanced only 8 percent.

In December 2004, Tatoulis complained that YSMA's schedule had to be «rationalized» and rendered «credible,» and cut 4.5 million euros from the body's 10-million budget for 2005. Earlier this month, the ministry decided to charge multinational electronics giant Philips 7,043 euros for using the Acropolis in a global advertising campaign.

THE British Museum would rather export cultural diplomacy than return artefacts taken from countries around the world, its director, Neil Macgregor, has said.

Macgregor was speaking in an interview at the British Museum ahead of a media briefing on its Africa programme, which is aimed at stimulating debate about African issues across the UK.

He said that the whole essence of cultural diplomacy was to use the museum's collection of about 7 million artefacts and its expertise to promote not only the UK's achievements but to enable other countries to examine their own in a wider international context.

Asked whether items taken from other countries would be returned to them, Macgregor said: "When governments make a request, we discuss their demands because we are interested in sharing our collection with the rest of the world."

The British Museum Act, enacted in the 1960s, notes that the museum will hold its collection in trust for the rest of the world, thereby placing legal restrictions on other countries gaining permanent access to artefacts originally taken from them.

Macgregor said, in the interests of cultural diplomacy, the British Museum was working closely with the Kenyan government to take some of its collection to the East African country for exhibitions there.

Macgregor said that a curator from Kenya was in London to select pieces for exhibition.

And the curator of ethnography at the National Museum of Kenya, Kiprop Lagat, said in an interview that the collaboration with the British Museum was a more practical way of sharing cultural artefacts with the rest of the world.

"Our governments can't preserve these artefacts the way they should.

And then there is the problem of funding and the lack of the necessary infrastructure. By keeping these things at the museum, we have a forum for exposing Kenya to the rest of the world," he said.

One of the main attractions in the African collection at the British Museum is the Tree of Life, a metallic sculpture made by Mozambican artists from AK 47s and other weapons.

New Acropolis Museum
The Culture Ministry is reportedly concerned about the financial problems of construction firm ALTE, the contractor for the new Acropolis Museum. The project is currently continuing at a relatively brisk pace, but the ministry recently discussed ways of avoiding a possible deadlock for the project whose budget approaches 50 million euros. Proposals included the participation of other construction companies, although the 19 percent discount offered by ALTE for the project is considered a disincentive.

Source: ekathimerini

Dr Christopher Stockdale is no stranger to pushing his physical limits to do his bit for the campaign to reunite the sculptures of the Parthenon. He swam for the Parthenon marbles from Delos to Paros on 01 July 2000 and on 15 April 2005 he rode his bicycle from the courtyard of the British Museum in central London to the Parthenon in Athens.

“Bottom line is you work hard, you have to get up and be motivated. Your body and the weather conditions bring their limitations to your own determination. Just 150 miles into France I had an awful accident and hurt my shoulder bruised my thigh. That injury and problems with my front wheel made it a challenging ride in more ways than one!” Concludes Dr Stockdale.

It started on 15 April 2005 with an early, 5:48 am train from the Midlands which arrived into Marylebone Station at 7:36 am. A short taxi ride with Margaret , 3 panniers and the bicycle took Chris and Margaret to Bloomsbury and the British Museum where Eleni Cubitt came to meet them at Starbucks for coffee and blueberry muffins.

Chris had not told Eleni what he was going to do be doing so as not to make her anxious but judging by the expression on her face in the photo, she was worried, not because she did not believe in Chris’ outstanding abilities but because she was very fond of him.

Chris mentions that his inspiration came from Anne Mustoe and the start of the journey was uneventful as was the first 150 miles in France. Then disaster, Chris’ front wheel locked into a tram line just outside Rimes and he went headlong over his bicycle causing damage to his shoulder. It rained every day in France and the terrain plus his injury made the cycling tedious.

Memorable moments where plentiful including crossing the St Bernard pass…. It was still snowing. The cycle ride down to Aosta was another big challenge, Chris was suffering from hypothermia, he couldn’t remember where he was, he stopped in what he thought was a bar but in fact it was a tire shop. His front wheel was in need of repair and Carlo took this in hand and helpful souls took Chris in, got him to change out of his wet clothes, parked him by a warm log fire and plied him with strong coffee. Carlo Aribone with his dog Oliver rebuilt Chris’ front wheel and did such a great job that he also took away any uncertainty Chris had travelled with since his accident back in France.

Milan, Bologna, all flashed by then he crossed at Brindisi by ferry to Patras and he regrets not having made the detour to Messolonghi to pay tribute to Byron but there might be another time…

Once in Greece he tried the motorway, soon to realise this was going to be another hazard so he took the old the national road but when the two join up, he felt his life was not in his hands. As if by miracle he made it, riding into Plaka, feeling on top of the world…. Then there was the Acropolis. At the entrance gate he tried to tell the ticket officer that he had been riding his bicycle for weeks and for the campaign of the Parthenon Marbles, the man looked him up and down and simply said “Would you like a brochure?”. Chris did take this brochure and made it up the 39 marble steps too, as a happy bedraggled soul, and he held his bicycle over his head in front of the Parthenon.

Cycle run accomplished in 3 weeks, 3 days, 5 hours and 26 minutes! Chris had cycled a total of just under 2,000 miles, from 9 am to 4 pm daily, about 60-80 miles per day with a few rest days, some enforced as a result of his fall and injury in France. He fondly remembers the wonderful people en route, the many places that the bicycle, a 50^th birthday present - Greg Lemond Alpe’d'huez - was stored, the great sense of achievement at the end.

A wonderful post cycle reception was organised in Athens by Elena Korka for the Greek Ministry of Culture.