Athens, 12 March 2020

Minister of Culture and Sport, Lina Mendoni held a meeting to discuss the progress of the continued developments taking place at the archaeological site of the Acropolis, which welcomes 1.5 million visitors per year.

Currently there are 8 individual projects being implemented at the Acropolis Archaeological Site, aimed at protecting and upgrading the space and quality of services for visitors.

Two of these are aimed at helping wheelchair users to visit the ancient citadel, with the installation of a new lift, access ramps and paths. Improvements will also be made to the lighting on the Acropolis, both for making it safer for pedestrians and for showing the Parthenon in the best light. These are expected to be installed in August and completed by next July. The new lighting system will be more sustainable as it will use less power and fewer bulbs. The improved lighting is being supported by the Onassis Foundation.

The former Acropolis museum will be used to enhance visitors’ outlook with a new interactive experience to be added. This follows on from an international tender for this museum's relaunch. In the meantime, the ticket sales system will also be made more efficient and the gift shops stocked with more attractive souvenirs.

The Acropolis Museum announced a two-week postponement of three planned events as a precaution against the spread of the coronavirus. The events include: “A Walk in the Museum with an Archaeologist,” “The Lost Statue of Athena Parthenos,” and “Chisel and Memory – The Contribution of Marble Craftsmanship to the Restoration of the Acropolis Monuments.”

For more information visit the Hellenic Republic Ministry of Culture and Sport.

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 Verso in 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

23 Februray 2020, Opinion Editorial in the Guardian is headed: The Guardian view on the Parthenon marbles: not just a Brexit sideshow. A government that stresses the importance of national pride should understand Greek claims.

In a week were it seemed that every title under the sun was claiming Greece , with Italy’s backing, had inserted a special clause in the EU’s draft negotiating mandate for a trade deal with Britain. The clause called for the return of “unlawfully removed cultural objects” to their place of origin. It did not mention the marbles by name, and the move was explicitly directed at illegal trade in antiquities in London auction houses.

To read the full article in the Guardia please clik here.

Greece's offficial response to the media frenzy:
Greece distanced itself from suggestions that it planned to drag a centuries-old dispute over the return of the Parthenon marbles into Brexit negotiations.
Government spokesman Stelios Petsas said Athens would keep up its campaign for the return of the 2,500-year-old treasures and would consider which tools could support its cause.
“Greece’s request for the return of the Parthenon marbles remains strong and it is not linked to a Brexit deal,” Mr Petsas said, asked if the issue could be a stumbling point in talks with Britain on its future relationship with the European Union.
“We’ll continue to call for their return and if this is a tool we can use, we’ll consider it in due course,” he said.

British Museum, Room 18, The Parthenon Galleries, at 16:07,  after the voices of the women of Troy had concluded their stories, readings from a novel 'A thousand Ships' by Natalie Haynes,part of Project Season Women, directed by Magdalena Zira and Athina Kasiou, Professor Edith Hall unfurled a flag with a heartfelt request: Reunite the Parthenon Marbles.

A team of twenty actresses from Cyprus and the UK performed readings in both English and in Greek over a period of five hours in three different locations of the British Museum.

Professor Edith Hall described the day of readings as a "grand epic gesture .... reclaiming the stories of the Trojan War" and after the readings, Edith with the help of two students, unfurled a flag with the image of the Parthenon Gallery on the top floor of the Acropolis Museum and the words: Reunite the Parthenon Marbles. To reunite the surviving sculptures from the British Museum with those in the Acropolis Museum, would be a grand epic gesture, especially as this request has been voiced by Greece since 1843. 

This year is also Melina Mercouri's year and just two Saturdays prior, during the 'BP or not BP?' protest, again in Room 18, three presentations were made to state the case for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

On this Saturday, after the staged readings from Natalie Haynes novel 'A Thousand Ships' in the context of Creative Responses to Troy, accmpanying the current exhibition Troy:myth and reality, Edith Hall added the following statement as Kitty Cooke and Lucy Bilson held up the flag:

"I have been involved in this amazing production of 'A Thousand Ships' as mentor and friend of Natalie Haynes and PhD supervisor to two of the directors, Magdalena Zira and Helen Eastman. But what I am going to say is entirely as an individual, a Professor of Classics at London University and most of all as a proud member of the BCRPM. This intervention has nothing to do with the theatre companies and actors involved today. Listening to these beautiful stories, born in the poetry of Homer in ancient Greece, I cannot pass up the opportunity to argue that these equally beautiful sculptures from ancient Greece, crow-barred and stolen from their homeland two hundred years ago, deserve to be reunited in their homeland with the total work of art that is the Athenian Parthenon. Thanks to my brave allies Kitty Cooke and Lucy Bilson, brave undergraduates studying Classics at University College London."

Photos courtesy of Sarah Pynder.

Helen Glynn, from BP or not BP? said:

‘The Troy exhibition has inspired us to create this magnificent beast, because the Trojan Horse is the perfect metaphor for BP sponsorship. On its surface the sponsorship looks like a generous gift, but inside lurks death and destruction. This is our 40th performance intervention at the British Museum: for eight years our peaceful creative protests have been dismissed and the museum has continued to back BP. Now the planet is literally burning. So we invite everyone to come along to our mass action tomorrow and make sure the museum can no longer ignore the fact that, in order to have a liveable planet, BP Must Fall.’

Those that gathered on Saturday 08 February 2020 to support the activists and the performers, were all targeting BP’s sponsorship of the museum’s current Troy: Myth and Reality exhibition.

Multiple groups from around the world came together in the museum to make the links between climate change, fossil fuel extraction, colonialism, human rights abuses and workers’ rights, using the museum as a backdrop for calls for justice and decolonisation and reimagining what a truly enlightened, responsible and engaged British Museum could look like.

Room 18, The Parthenon Galleries was no exception. Groups gathered to hear Danny Chivers of BP or not BP? helped by Marlen Godwin of the BCRPM, to explain the connection of Saturday's protest againt BP sponsorship of exhibitions at the British Museum, with the unfair 200 year plus division of the Parthenon Marbles. The peerless collection of the sculptures from the Parthenon are mainly exhibited between the British Museum in London and the Acropolis Museum in Athens.

BCRPM has been campaigning for the return of the sculptures from London to Athens, since 1983. The 'new' Acropolis Museum was officially opened in June 2009, picking up an award in London in November 2010. In June 2019, it celebrated it's 10th anniversary and BCRPM helped Hellena Micy sing her song for the Parthenon Marbles in Room 18. Hellena sang  her song 10 times, once for every year that the museum in Athens has welcomed visitors from all over the world. To listen to Hellena's song, please follow the link here.

2020 is also Melina Mercouri year. With that in mind, BCRPM had t-shirts printed for the day and included in the presentations in Room 18 the background to Melina's pleas for the return of the sculptures. We would like to thank the Melina Mercouri Foundation for their kind permission to use the image of Melina on the t-shirt. If you would like to order one, kindly email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Celebrating the activist Melina Mercouri, who had championed for all freedoms, from the freedom of speech and to more, BCRPM also remembered their Chair, Dame Janet Suzman when she had campaigned and protested against  aparththeid in South Africa. These two activist women share a great deal, from acting to their passionate protests, to their love for the Parthenon and its sculptures. To this day Janet continues to be enthusiastic about protests in the BM, so much so that in 2018, she wrote words that Danny Chivers read out in Room 18.

In 2019 at another BP or not BP? protest, Cambridge University stdent Petros Papadopoulos also quoted Janet during his passionate plea for the 'RETURN' of the marbles to Athens.

 And so to the protest on 08 February 2020, Janet's words were heard in Room 18 once again: 

These unmatched sculptures that you see before you have a home waiting for them. These figures, part of an ancient belief system, have been stranded in the grandest refugee centre you’ve ever seen - the great British Museum itself. But home is where they were created two and a half thousand years ago.

In Athens stands a fine building especially built to house them, and this year in June, the New Acropolis Museum will celebrate its eleventh anniversary. On its top floor there are yearning gaps where these very sculptures should be sitting, joined with the other half of the pedimental carvings and in direct sight of the ancient building from which they were chopped, and which, astonishingly, still stands proud on its ancient rock. That fact alone makes these sculptures unique; we can still see exactly where they first displayed themselves, for they were never intended as separate 'works of art', but as part of the mighty whole of Athena’s glorious temple. Who, one wonders, was a mere occupying Sultan to sign away the genius of Periclean Athens?

Now is the time to do the right thing. SIMPLE JUSTICE DEMANDS IT! GO BM! Do it! 

The protest was also covered in Ta Nea with an article by Yannis Andritsopoulos, UK Correspondent for Ta Nea, based in London. 

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?