Festive season at the Acropolis Museum, December 2019

The Acropolis Museum invites visitors to a festive season full of activities during December 2019. Creative mobile workshops for children, gallery talks for adults, Christmas music from the Jazz Octet, famous musical songs from the S.T.A.B. saxophone quartet and special gifts at the Acropolis Museum shops, means there is something for everyone to enjoy during this festive season.

Children’s workshop “Festive stories”

What kind of festivals did the ancient Athenians have and which were the children's favourite? Let’s discover them at the Acropolis Museum and bring to life the emotions that these feasts brought to children and adults alike. 

Days & hours: Saturday 21/12, Sunday 22/12, Saturday 28/12 & Sunday 29/12, 11 a.m., 1 p.m. & 5 p.m. 

Duration: 90 mins

Ages: 6-11 years old

Participacion: Participation for children is free. A general admission fee (5€) is required for parents/escorts

Reservations: For registration, please visit the Information Desk at the Museum entrance on the same day (25 children per workshop)

The workshops are held by the Department of Educational Programme – Acropolis Museum and the Department of Information & Education – Acropolis Restoration Service (YSMA).

Gallery talks “The lost statue of Athena Parthenos”

The Acropolis Museum brings to life, digitally, the statue of Athena Parthenos. Made of gold and ivory, this masterpiece was designed by Phidias for the Parthenon. The Museum invites you on a walk of discovery about its construction materials and techniques, its myths, radiance and adventures.

 Days & hours: Saturday 7/12, Saturday 14/12, Saturday 21/12 & Saturday 28/12, at 11 a.m. in English and at 1 p.m. 

Duration: 50 mins

Participation: The gallery talk is free of charge. Only the permanent exhibition ticket is required (5€). Limited to 30 visitors per session. For registration, please visit the Information Desk at the Museum entrance on the same day.  

Gallery talks at the exhibition “Chisel and memory. The contribution of marble craftsmanship to the restoration of the Acropolis monuments”

Visitors will have the opportunity to attend presentations of an exceptional exhibition of photographs of the marble craftsmen of the Acropolis at work. The temporary exhibition was organized by the Committee for the Conservation of the Acropolis Monuments and the Acropolis Restoration Service (YSMA).

Days & hours: Saturday 14/12, Saturday 21/12 & Saturday 28/12, at 12 noon

Duration: 40 mins

Participation: The gallery talk is free of charge. Limited to 25 visitors per session. For registration, please  isit the Information Desk at the Museum entrance on the same day.  

n Sunday 22 December, at 12 noon, the Acropolis Museum will host the Jazz Octet of the Athens Military Guard for a music concert including jazz and Christmas world renowned melodies,on the ground floor of the Museum .

On Sunday 29 December, at 12 noon, the Acropolis Museum will host the well-known S.T.A.B. saxophone quartet for a New Year’s music concert  ncluding renowned musical songs, on the ground floor of the Museum.

 On Tuesday 31 December, at 12 noon, the Association of Asia Minor “Nees Kydonies” will sing traditional New Year’s carols on the ground floor of the Museum.

The Acropolis Museum Charm for 2020
According to myth the tortoise won the race over the hare, the former with his patience and dedication winning over the flippant self confidence of the hare. The ancients considered that the benevolent tortoise protected them from the evil eye and that its blood was an antidote to poison. A tortoise lead weight featuring a tortoise in relief of the 3rd to 1st century BC inspired the Museum’s charm of 2020. You can see the original exhibit in showcase 2 (no.11) of the Gallery of the Slopes at the Acropolis Museum.

Festive meals and Christmas mood at the restaurant

During the festive season, the Museum restaurant will serve traditional festive meals and sweets. Christmas jazz nights are also taking place every Friday night by famous jazz music ensembles. For reservations please contact the restaurant during Museum opening hours on +30 210 9000915.

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

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

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

RE: Returning Plundered Treasure 

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Australian woman who wrote to Queen Elizabeth requesting her to help return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece has received a reply from Buckingham Palace.

In the letter, obtained by Ta Nea, Greece’s daily newspaper, a palace official said that the Queen had taken “careful note” of the request to return the 2,500-year-old sculptures that Lord Elgin removed from the Acropolis temple.

Mary Drost OAM of Melbourne wrote to Queen Elizabeth on August 1, 2019, asking her to facilitate the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Athens “where they belong.”

“Your Majesty, I speak for the Greek community in Melbourne Australia. They appeal to you to arrange to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece where they belong. The Duke of Edinburgh, I am sure, would agree,” the letter reads.

The reply, written by a palace official, said: “Dear Mrs Drost, The Queen has asked me to thank you for your letter from which Her Majesty has taken careful note of the views you express regarding the Elgin Marbles.”
“I must explain, however, that as a constitutional Sovereign, The Queen acts on the advice of her Ministers and remains strictly non-political at all times. This is, therefore, not a matter in which Her Majesty would intervene,” the official added.

The letter, sent on August 21, 2019, was signed by Miss Jennie Vine, MVO, Deputy Correspondence Coordinator at the palace.

Mrs Drost, who has received the Order of Australia Medal, also sent a letter to the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson asking him to facilitate the return of the Marbles.

“Dear Prime Minister, I speak for the Greek Community of Melbourne Australia and urgently request that you arrange for the Elgin Marbles that are now in the British Museum be returned to Greece where they belong,” the letter, sent on August 9, reads.

“This issue causes great anger among those of Greek origin. The Marbles should never have been taken, people say they were stolen. It would certainly put your name up high if you undertook to send them back, in fact take them back yourself. Think of the wonderful publicity you would get worldwide. Please give this serious consideration”.

Mr Johnson has yet to reply.

Asked what made her send these letters, Mrs Drost told Ta Nea: “I feel for the Greeks and their desire to see the carvings back where they belong, so I decided to write to the Queen and the Prime Minister as they are the two most important people in the UK. I felt sure the Queen would be interested, as her husband has Greek roots”.

Mrs Drost visited the British Museum twice this August. “When I was in the museum talking to the guard, he told me that the Duke of Edinburgh had come to see the marbles and commented that they were really like an Ambassador for Greece.”

“I really don’t know what the Duke meant, but I guess ambassadors do eventually go home, don’t they?” said Mrs Drost, adding that the guard also told her that “he thought it might be just the sort of thing Prime Minister Boris Johnson might enjoy doing.”

When asked to comment on Queen Elizabeth’s response, Mrs Drost said: “The Queen of course could not do anything, it is not in her power, but the letter showed that she was certainly interested, as I am sure her husband is.”

Mrs Drost lives in Australia where she is “dedicated to protecting Melbourne from inappropriate and excessive development, serving as Convenor of Planning Backlash Inc, a coalition of 300 resident groups across city coast and country.”

She has several Greek friends who have alerted her to the Parthenon Marbles reunification request. “Melbourne is a city that has a large Greek community. Years ago there was a joke saying that Melbourne was the largest Greek city in the world after Athens. So of course I heard about the Parthenon Marbles or the ‘Elgin Marbles’ as they are known, as it was Lord Elgin who ‘stole’ them and brought them to London,” she said.

“I go each year to Europe and of course have been in Athens and heard the mourning over the loss of so much of the ancient carvings that were taken to London.”

While in London, Mrs Drost met with Marlen Taffarello Godwin of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. “We discussed setting up a big protest in the museum next year, demanding that the collection be returned to Athens,” she said.

This article was written by Yannis Andritsopoulos, London Correspondent for Ta Nea, Greece's daily newspaper, and published on 12 October 2019. 

Mary Drost visiting the BM in the summer of 2019, on 21 August with BCRPM member, Marlen Godwin

09 October 2019, City of London University Seminar 

The Parthenon Marbles - Can An Amicable Settlement be Found?

Panel :

Dr Tatiana Flessas (LSE)

Dr Florian Schmidt-Gabain (Attorney, Zurich, Lecturer in Art Law, Universities of Basel and Zurich)

Jonathan Jones (The Guardian)

Professor Oliver Taplin (BCRPM, University of Oxford)

Moderator: Dr Luke Mcdonagh (City, University of London)

When 200 years plus have passed without a solution to the division of a peerless collection that makes up the survivig sculptures from the Parthenon, there is a need to hear from those that look at such matters with an open mind and to explore a way forward.

For those gathered at City University London on Wednesday 09 October, the hope was plentiful.

The seminar included:

‘An Introduction to the Historical and Legal Issues Surrounding the Parthenon Marbles’
Dr Tatiana Flessas (London School of Economics)

‘A Proposal for an Amicable Settlement for the Case of the Parthenon Marbles’
Dr Florian Schmidt-Gabain (Attorney, Zurich, Lecturer in Art Law, Universities of Basel and Zurich)

Dr Florian Schmidt-Gabain's presentation spelt out the lack of any meaningful discussion continued to yield no solution and we might be organising such events for many more years to come. To move beyond that binary nature of the discussion and examine possibilities for a compromise solution is conceivable, namely a division of individual items between Greece and the United Kingdom could be such a solution. But, of course, a compromise solution is not only a possibility because the possibility of a compromise exists, but also because both the United Kingdom and Greece can bring forward good arguments for why the Parthenon Marbles should either stay in London or go back to Athens.

The panel discussion included a short explanation by Prof Oliver Taplin as to why reunification was sought with as much conviction today as when the first request was made in 1833 but more so in the last decade with the opening of the Acropolis Museum. Jonathan Jones also added to the panel discussion his continued support to keep the sculptures divided between two museums, yet how he veers towards reunification every tme he visited the Acropolis Museum. Dr Luke Mcdonagh moderated and then opened the floor to the audience for Q&A.

There were just a few hands at the end of the seminar in support of a compromise along the lines described by Dr Florian Schmidt-Gabain but perhaps fewer than had the compromise been along the lines of the proposals Greece has made to the British government and the BM before the Acropolis Museum was opened, and since then too. Room for compromise is there but the most telling observation during this discussion is that the BM insists on Greece acknowledging the BM’s ownership of the marbles and it knows that is something Greece can never do. Catch 22. While that remains the case there can be no movement whatsoever towards useful discussions, and unless the Trustees start a meaningful debate amongst themselves, we are in stasis.

So what next?

Dr Tatiana Flessas showed us a map of Europe that included western and eastern parts with the changing borders through the centuries, a reimnder that at the time of Lord Elgin's actions, Greece was not an independent state and not in authority - one of the key reasons why it is impossible for Greece to acknowledge the BM's ownership. Tatiana also reminded us of the law and that we must all appreciate that it may not provide the right vehicle to end this high profile cultural dispute. She asked us to reflect on the fact that legal tools do not reach the root of this conflict.   

Without a doubt the panel and the audience would be encouraged to hear that bilateral discussions and mediation might take place - sometime. As Dr Florian Schmidt-Gabain stressed that such discussions would be over a long period and need for both parties to come to the talks with open hearts and minds. He acknowledged that Greece's strategy to date had not worked and that the UK's standing on this issue was very poor internationally. He mentioned the need for political decency. He spoke of both sides coming together and working on a three tier wish list, with non biased motivation he is suggeting that both parties will be motivated to move on, and by the third stage also reduce the number of artefacts that both sides would argue about. He also stressed the need for diplomacy and for the talks to take place privately without recourse for huge media hype or coverage. He also spoke of an eternal touring exhibition that would tour the world with some parts of the disputed Parthenon Marbles. He ended, by reminding us that compromise was invented by the Greeks.

Currently, the mindset of the BM remains firm and no further discussions will take place until Greece acknowledges ownership, something the BM knows full well Greece cannot do. For the BCRPM and many more campaigners, Greece's ask is wholly justified. Greece's Prime Minister  Mitsotakis took the opportunity of a French state visit  in September to ask President Macron for a loan from the Louvre for the 2021 celebrations taking place in Greece. A similar request to the UK was featured in an article by Helena Smith in the Guardian.

Professor Taplin reflected when the sculptures were made, they were an integral part of a building, the Parthenon, which still stands, proud and glorious on the Acropolis. And a timely reminder also for all those that appreciate heritage and culture, that the case of these sculptures is simply unique and that the Parthenon Gallery in the Acropolis Museum is the one place on earth where it is possible to have a single and aesthetic experience simultaneously of the Parthenon and its sculptures. He went on to say that over these last three years, when visiting the Acropolis Museum, he felt a great sense of shame seeing the plaster casts next to the orginals that Lord Elgin left behind.

For admirers of sculptures such as Jonathan Jones, the fact that when he visits Athens, he can 'see' the merit for reunification, we as BCRPM would add, isn't it time to allow all visitors to do the same and appreciate the moral argument  made a difference - at the same time, Greece generous offer still stands.

Dr Luke Mcdonagh summing up the panels contributions and looking to the audience for their questions

Dr Florian Schmidt-Gabain a keen advocate for compromise with discussions behind closed doors and no publicity.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Deep cultural trauma’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Publication date: 21 September 2019   

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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