Twelve British philhellenes share their thoughts on Greece ahead of 2023, writes Yannis Andritsopoulos, London Correspondent for the Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea. 

The 1821 Greek Revolution against the rule of the Ottoman Turks sparked a wave of sympathy and support in many parts of the world, which came to be known as the ‘Philhellenic movement’ or ‘Philhellenism’ (the love for Greek culture and the Greek people).

April 19, the date on which the poet and great philhellene Lord Byron died, has been declared by the Greek state as Philhellenism and International Solidarity Day.

Two hundred years on, many people around the world continue to love Greece and stand by it.

Twelve acclaimed contemporary British philhellenes send their wishes for the New Year to Greece and the Greek people in this article written exclusively for the Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea. Notably, most of them think that the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles is one of the highest priorities in Greek-British relations.

Sarah Baxter

Journalist, Director of the Marie Colvin Centre for International Reporting, former Deputy Editor of The Sunday Times, Member of the Parthenon Project's Advisory Board

Happy 2023! Here's to a year of friendship and harmony. I'm hoping we will see the Parthenon sculptures begin their permanent journey home, with some wonderful Greek treasures heading in the other direction to the British Museum on loan. We know a "win-win" deal is going to happen eventually. Let's get on with it!

Roderick Beaton

Emeritus Koraes Professor of Modern Greek & Byzantine History, Language & Literature at King’s College London, Chair of the Council of the British School at Athens

A wish that won't come true: for the UK to return to the place it left in the EU following Brexit. Not only would we, the friends of Greece, regain the right we lost to stay close to you without restrictions, but also the voice of a country that had so much to offer to everyone would be heard during the political developments and critical decisions that 2023 will inevitably bring. Just imagine how you Greeks managed your referendum more skilfully than we did!

Paul Cartledge

A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture Emeritus at the University of Cambridge, President of The Hellenic Society, Vice-Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM) and Vice-President of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS)

Greece has become such a major world player in the past century, not to mention the past two centuries, that it's hard to select any contemporary or likely future issue where relations between Britain and Greece in 2024 are not of the utmost significance. In the sphere of international cultural relations and soft diplomacy, one issue stands out above all others for Greece and Britain mutually speaking: 'the Marbles'. A resolution sparked by British generosity is devoutly to be wished.

Bruce Clark

Author, journalist and lecturer, Online Religion Editor of The Economist, BCRPM member

In 2023 it will be 190 years since the Ottoman garrison left the Acropolis and the Holy Rock became an archaeological site which fascinated and dazzled the world. The arguments for reuniting the Parthenon sculptures, for the benefit of people in Greece, Britain and many other countries, become stronger with every passing year.

Alberto Costa MP

Conservative Member of Parliament for South Leicestershire and Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Greece

On behalf of the All-Parliamentary Group for Greece in the British Parliament, I would like to wish our friends in the Greek Parliament, and the Greek people, a very happy New Year. I am delighted that relations between our two countries are stronger than ever and that Greece and her people enjoy a huge amount of support in the British Parliament. We very much look forward to building upon on our relationship, and our shared values and commitments, next year and in further strengthening the historic bonds that our two countries share.

Armand D'Angour

Professor of Classical Languages and Literature at the University of Oxford, Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Jesus College, Oxford, BCRPM member

It is heartening to see that the partnership of the UK and Greece is closer than ever, and that the green light has now been given for the return of the Parthenon sculptures to their rightful home. In these politically fractious times, governments should recognise who their friends are and be generous with both moral and practical support. The return of the sculptures will be a long-awaited gesture of friendship as well as a great morale-booster for both countries.

Hugo Dixon

Journalist, Commentator-at-Large with Reuters

My 2023 wish is that Turkey chooses a new leader and the West finds a way to bring the country in from the cold. A new leader should realise that it is not in Turkey’s interests to play the West off against Russia – especially as Vladimir Putin is a loser. If Turkey comes back to the heart of NATO, Greece will be one of the biggest beneficiaries.

Kevin Featherstone

Director of the Hellenic Observatory at the LSE, Eleftherios Venizelos Professor in Contemporary Greek Studies and Professor in European Politics at the LSE’s European Institute

Dear Greece,

I hope we will agree to send the Marbles back in 2023. Our two countries have a long-term ‘love affair’ and it’s the least we could do after the folly of ‘BREXIT’ – pushing up university fees for Greek students. But we have a favour to ask, please. At present, our prime ministers don’t last as long as a lettuce, and they have much less brain power, so might you have a politician to spare? Not Dimitriadis or Kaili, though, or we’ll go ‘nuclear’ and send you Boris.

Judith Herrin

Archaeologist, byzantinist, historian, Professor Emerita of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies and Constantine Leventis Senior Research Fellow at King's College London, BCRPM member

Dear friends,
As 2022 comes to an end, I send my warmest greetings to Greece hoping for a healthier and more peaceful New Year.
The campaign for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to their rightful place in the new Acropolis Museum gathers momentum, reminding us of the powerful initiative of Melina Mercouri and Eleni Cubitt.
Let's hope for a breakthrough in 2023! Happy New Year!

Victoria Hislop

Author, BCRPM member

I wish all my friends in Greece a Happy New Year. We are living in uncertain times but there is one thing I am becoming more certain of - opinions are beginning to shift significantly on the Parthenon Sculptures and I think we are moving closer to the time when they will be returned to their rightful home in Athens. Many other museums in Britain are recognising that they have objects in their possession that were unlawfully acquired during our colonial past - and the return of Elgin’s “loot” is long overdue. This is my wish for 2023.

Denis MacShane

Former Minister of State for Europe in the Tony Blair government, former President of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), author and commentator

2022 was the year Britain returned to Greece. Up to August 2022, 3 million visitors went from the UK to Greece – a three-fold increase on the previous year. The weak English pound devalued thanks to Brexit has not damaged the love affair of the English with Greece.

But love has its limits. Although Prime Minister Mitsotakis told a packed meeting at the London School of Economics that he hoped soon the looted Parthenon Marbles would rejoin the rest of the sculptures from the Parthenon in the Acropolis Museum, there was no indication from Britain’s Conservative ministers London was willing to move.

The pro-Turkish Boris Johnson was fired by Tory MPs from his post as Prime Minister. But while France’s President Macron has expressed support for Greece as Turkey’s President Erdogan, inspired by Vladimir Putin, steps up his bellicose language threatening Greece, Britain remained silent in 2022 on the need for Europe to stand with Greece against Erdogan’s threats and demagogy.

Dame Janet Suzman

Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM), actor, Honorary Associate Artist at The Royal Shakespeare Company

In a world which seems unremittingly wicked we want tales of powerful gods presiding over squabbling mortals and blissful marriages with happy endings. That’s my dream for the Parthenon Marbles: the Prime Minister will charm the Chairman of the British Museum into a wedding ceremony in the Acropolis Museum, to witness the marriage of the two estranged halves of the glorious Parthenon pediment - accompanied by the cheers of the wedding guests galloping happily round the frieze, now returned home. If only…

This article was published in the Greek daily newspaper Ta Nea (www.tanea.gr) on 30 December 2022.

Dame Janet Suzman talks to Georgia Economou of NEWS 24/7: "The Parthenon sculptures belong to the country that "gave birth" to them, not to a cold museum in England."

Dame Janet Suzman, Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM) and an internationally renowned actress talks to the Magazine about the Parthenon Sculptures and their long-suffering plight, plus the campaign to reunite them in the country that "gave birth" to them, their country of origin.

The Parthenon sculptures continue to make headlines in news outlets all over the world, not least in Greece. One could say that Lord Elgin's bribes and the men he paid to  detach these sculptures from the Sacred Rock of the Acropolis, and their subsequent exhibition at the British Museum constitutes to a great cultural wound. Their return, is a great dream that is constantly being dashed even today when the world shows that it is moving forward, and that museum policies are changing, but also that the basic issues of national cultural heritage have now been resolved.

On 16 December,  it was announced, with the "blessing" of Pope Francis, that three fragments, sculptural decorations from the Parthenon, housed in the Vatican museums would be repatriated, "as a testimony and a sign of the desire to continue the ecumenical course of truth."

About a month ago, once again we experienced hope for the sculptures return to Greece. Many expectations were raised in a large part to the announcement made by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis when he visited London, when he also met with King Charles (and not with the new British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak).

THE ELGIN MARBLES AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM (PHOTO: MARKOS CHOUZOURIS / EUROKINISSI)

We learned of secret meetings between the Prime Minister himself and the Director of the British Museum, George Osborne, while newspaper headlines claimed that we were closer than ever to a repatriation agreement. However, everyone's hopes were yet again dashed when Rishi Sunak's official spokesman made it clear that the British Museum is legally prohibited from dismantling its huge collection and that the British government is not considering amending or changing the museum's law.

It was certain that this would happen. That is why a few days ago we spoke with 4 leading researchers about how feasible a repatriation in the true meaning of the term was possible and not a "repatriation" using the model of the Stern collection.

After the publication of this article, we were contacted by the long established British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, as we had made a distinction  between the "British Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures" to which Matthew Taylor belongs. The latter on November 18, in an article published in "The Scotsman" wrote: "Solution for the "Elgins"? How the American multimillionaire Stern created a model for the reunification of the Parthenon sculptures in Athens". In this article he expressed the opinion that "previous negotiations are stuck for the time being on the issue of property. But what if the British Museum recognised ownership of the works in Greece, while retaining the rights to exhibit them for the time being? Surely this could be a big step forward?"

The BCRPM recently referred to a New York Times report and to the statements of Gary Vikan, former director of the Baltimore Museum, who said: "If someone tells me that by sending the "Elgin Marbles" back to Greece, somehow the British Museum will be emptied, it is nonsense."

Janet Suzman AP

We spoke to the Chair of the British Committee and great actress, Dame Janet Suzman, and asked her questions about the reunification of the Marbles. She claims that the reunification of the Marbles is far from clear: "The road remains long and very unclear. We all need to have patience as diplomacy slowly moves towards a solution we hope for," she tells the Magazine.

What made you want to support the case of the Parthenon Sculptures? What does this "struggle" mean to you?

I was born in South Africa and so early on I was "introduced" to the blatant injustice committed by the strongest elements against a weaker opponent. I am talking about apartheid, of course. We who have lived in a police state know these things very well. In the 18th century, Britain was an extremely powerful country, and it took what it could - because it could - from many parts of the world.

As for the "Parthenon Marbles" that Lord Elgin took from Greece as Ambassador to Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empite - the truth is that no written permission to do so ever came to light. Then, as now, people are open to bribery. And so it happened then. The injustice is clear. These sculptures were part of the Parthenon edifice itself. They were forcibly cut off from the monument and removed from the country, and now it is a matter of pure dignity to return them.

To be honest, I hadn't dealt with Greece at all until I left South Africa to study theatre in the UK. With a group of young graduates from the Department of Fine Arts of my University, we flew on a fine day in 1959 from Johannesburg to Europe. I will never forget the morning when, after a long overnight flight, our plane landed in Athens. Back then there was not the current airport, but a much smaller one. We descended the steps of the plane and walking on the asphalt to enter the arrivals building, the strong sunlight made us blink for a moment.

A beautiful blue sky was above our heads. This clarity "stayed" with us every hour and minute of the 5 days we were in Greece before leaving for London. It was magical. We watched "The Phoenicians", a performance at the Herodes Atticus Theatre starring the great Katina Paxinou and it was unforgettable - it was the best introduction to the ancient classical plays one could wish for. Many years later I played Clytemnestra and Helen of Troy in a renowned production called The Greeks, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1980 at The Aldwych Theatre in London. I was already fascinated by the Ancient World when Melina (Mercouri) stormed my life a few years later.

I quickly understood that these inimitable sculptures belong to the country in which they were created, and not to a cold museum in England.

What are the memories you have of Melina Mercouri?

Melina can only be likened to a force of nature. Her strong presence swirled around us on this trip to the UK in the 80s, when she began the movement for the "liberation" of the Parthenon Sculptures from the "grey" display room in the British Museum. She was asking for their return to Greece, where they belong. Vanessa Redgrave, also known for her commitment to various political causes, supported this issue as I did. I quickly understood that these inimitable sculptures belong to the country in which they were created, and not to a cold museum in England.

Janet Suzman, Melina Mercouri and Vanessa Redgrave at the Greek Ambassador's Residence in London in the 80's. Shutterstock 361013921

What is the purpose of the British Committee of Sculptures and how important is its contribution?

The Parthenon Sculptures are made of stone. They need an advocate to talk about them, particularly in English. Eleni Cubitt founded this committee to do just that. I knew Eleni and she knew I was in complete agreement with this just cause. Much later, when she was in a nursing home in Islington, in October 2016, I was asked to chair the British Committee for their Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

The cultural heritage of Greece has fully done its job in Britain: it has opened the gates of classical science to Europe. After so many years of struggle for the repatriation of these scuptures, they now belongs to where they came from and to the wonderful Acropolis Museum that was built to exhibit them as close as it is physically possible to the Parthenon, which still stands.

We are one of the many committees worldwide that want to see the Marbles reunited with their other halves. Being here in Britain, in the place where half of the surviving  Marbles are currently displayed, we can talk directly with the people holding the keys who will one day "unlock" their forced stay in the British Museum. And most importantly we can continue to feed this "flame" with information on our site, write letters and articles in British newspapers and try to make as much noise as possible, while following the policies of the Greek government itself.

What should be Greece's main argument in order to return the Sculptures to their place?

The cultural heritage of Greece has fully done its work in Britain: that is, it has opened the gates of classical scholarship to Europe. After so many years of struggle for their repatriation, she now belongs to where she came from and to the wonderful Acropolis Museum that was built for this purpose.

BCRPM image

Has the Greek government approached you?

Our Committee is in regular contact with the Greek Embassy in London, with the management of the New Acropolis Museum and of course with the Ministry of Culture in Athens.

Was the committee aware of the secret talks between Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and the British Museum?

They wouldn't be secret if we knew about them.

Recently, solutions have been proposed, such as the exchange of antiquities or the recognition of ownership with an exhibition of the sculptures in London. Do you think it might be one of the avenues to negotiate with the British Museum?

These potential exchanges are long-standing as proposals for the emergence of a 'give and take' agreement. The concept of ownership is separate as a matter and of course the most sensitive, yet to be negotiated.

 BCRPM image

Pope Francis has decided that the Vatican Museums will return three fragments of the Parthenon to Greece, amid a global account in which Western institutions have begun to return objects to their countries of origin. At the same time, we read in many articles that the Marbles belong to the "world" and therefore should be left where "everyone" can enjoy them. What do you think?

The British Museum has a unique collection of global artefacts. It has over 100,000 Greek artefacts. It is the ideal place to study "visually" the cultures of the whole world. However, fashion and opinions are changing...

The return of the Benin Bronzes recently from the Horniman Museum and the University of Cambridge, the fragments of the Parthenon returning to Greece from the Vatican, but also the rethinking of repatriations from other major institutions in the UK and Europe, mark a change of attitude and respect for other cultures. This is something that is to be warmly welcomed.

People are moving forward in Italy and I hope that the British Museum will follow this path.

I would also add that with Mrs. Cubitt, the Honorary Secretary of the BCRPM, we were in contact with the Vatican Museum even before the Acropolis Museum opened. They, too, were surprised that in the UK there was a Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles! At that time their own laws prevented an unconditional return, and therefore they loaned to the Acropolis Museum a fragment of about 20 centimeters. It comes from the northern frieze of the Parthenon and depicts the head of a young man carrying offerings in the Panathenaic procession. In 2008 our committee had contacted the then director of the Vatican Museums, Francesco Buranelli, who at the time spoke of the generosity of the spirit in the reunification of the fragmented marbles.

In 2016 Pope Francis appointed the first female Director of the Vatican Museum (Barbara Jatta, an Italian art historian) and now, in 2022, he has made this great donation to His Beatitude Jerome II, not only with one fragment, but with three. In other words, he did the right thing. People are moving forward in Italy and I hope that the British Museum will follow this path also.

How optimistic are you about the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles?

I am and have always been optimistic. The pressure is rising, the tide is turning, exciting exchanges I am sure will take place and modern technologies will certainly play an important role. All museums have to deal with the changes brought about by history (e.g. the Rijksmuseum in the Netherlands and the Louvre) and some need, as we see, more time to find a way to respond while maintaining their glamour at the same time. And laws may need to be revised.

To read the original ariticle in Greek online, follow the link here.

John Polyzoides was an eminent and gifted orthopaedic surgeon whose career in the West Midlands, England began in 1973. Amongst his very fine surgical achievements he pioneered the development of an original knee joint replacement, the Rotaglide Total Knee System.

With his English wife, Jean, he founded the ‘Friends of the British Committee’ and their total commitment to the return of the Parthenon Marbles would be sustained for decades.

He was also an author and rightly proud when his historical memoir of Alexandria, ’Alexandria City of Gifts and Sorrows’ was published in 2014.

In 2000 John very successfully organised a marathon swim for Christopher Stockdale between the sacred Isle of Delos and the Isle of Paros. The success of the swim raised the international profile of the Marbles and necessary funds to further help the cause.

Sadly, John passed away on the 23rd December and we are able to reflect on John’s contribution as a lifetime friend to the campaign to reunite the Parthenon Marbles  and his unique friendship with Christopher Stockdale.

‘How to sum up fifty years of friendship and express adequate condolences as we try to relate to the awful sense of loss that prevails and will endure since we heard the news of John’s passing.

I have come to the conclusion that the loss of a colleague, acquaintance or friend, though a cause for great sadness bears little comparison to the loss of someone you love.Their death diminishes us in every way and, in short, life both physical and mental takes on differing hues that will permanently alter the many colours in our lives.

My love for him and details of our wonderful friendship are permanently etched at length within the text of my homage to the Marbles ‘Swimming With Hero'.

John touched the lives of an immeasurable number of folk. He was a great and exemplary surgeon and wise physician always able to give patients hope when all seemed lost. People loved him. His knowledge of all things meant he could hold a dinner table in his grasp recounting with authority,wit and wisdom endless stories. He didn’t treat fools lightly but was never quick to judge and enjoyed the company of a huge cohort of loyal and true friends.

Sadly they all will be feeling as I do now.

Over these last few days I have wrestled with the adequacy of any words or memories that can best pay tribute to an unparalleled life. John’s full life has left a lasting sense of difference and just as rivers continually flow so does my gratitude and infinite joy for knowing him.

Our hearts and minds will remain full of love for the dearest of men’.

Christopher Stockdale

Professor Paul Cartledge, also fondly remembers John and Jean hosting an amazing Marbles reunification get-together, starring Nana Mouskouri on Paros.  "John also published an engaging and enlightening memoir of his Alexandria days, which I read for him in draft. RIP John."

 Alexandria, City of Gifts and Sorrows, From Hellenistic Civilization to Multiethnic Metropolis A.J Polyzoides, published in 2014

"I had the pleasure of meeting Dr Polyzoides in 2014. I’d been on an interrail trip after finishing my nursing degree, travelling by trains and tired busses from Munich to Athens. It was the kind of trip where you spend most of your time lost, but stumbling upon perfect experiences. My Grandad Eddie had been passionate about my trip and had recommended that I take a boat from Piraeus to visit his friend on the island of Paros.

August was sun-burnt when I was welcomed to Paros by Apostolos and his wife Jean. We ate at a restaurant on the beach and I can still remember the taste of the grilled squid I had after weeks of dinners eating out of tight pockets. Apostolos reminded me of my Grandad and it was immediately clear why they had been friends. A passionate Paros-phile, he had me travelling by bus to archaeological mines of Parian marble. I bought a small marble heart for my Mum which still sits on the mantelpiece of my Mum & Dad’s house in Liverpool.

Jean, Apostolos and I visited the archeological museum in Paros, where we set eyes on the gorgon medusa. Surviving that experience, Apostolos talked passionately about the ‘Parian Marble’, a revelatory text discovered on the island, a segment of which, Apostolos informed me, is hidden away in a museum in Oxford!

I was captivated by Apostolos’ stories. We walked among the limewashed buildings, passing the church where he and Jean were married and it was clear to me, how happy and full of love their lives were.

I didn’t know Apostolos beyond my brief visit, but it hurt me to hear of his passing. A wonderful man whose memory will live on in the people that he touched.  I’ll never forget my trip to Paros and the love of myself and the O’Haras travels by boat, train and bus this week to Jean and Apostolos’ family.

Apostolos Polyzoides, a great friend to my Grandad: Eddie O’Hara."

With love forever,

Luke

Apostolos (John) Polyzoides, Luke O'Hara and Jean Polyzoides in Paros in 2014

Pope Francis' magnanimous gesture, the return of three pieces from the Parthenon housed in the Vatican Museum, to be gifted to Greece where they will be reunited with the Parthenon Marbles in the Acropolis Museum.

These three fragments of Pentelic marble arrived into the Vatican in the 19th century. Part of the decorative sculpture of the Parthenon, the temple built on the Acropolis in Athens by Pericles (447-432 B.C.), the figurative decoration of the temple is the creative genius of the Athenian sculptor, Phidias.

The head of a horse comes from the west front of the building, on which Athena and Poseidon were shown competing for dominion over Attica; the fragment here has been identified as the fourth horse pulling Athena's chariot. The relief with the head of a boy has been identified as one of the figures from the frieze that went round the cella of the temple: he is carrying a tray of votive cakes which were offered during the Panathenaic procession in honour of Athena. The bearded male head, however, has been attributed to one of the metopes from the southern side of the building where there was a battle between the Lapiths and Centaurs.

This donation is made by the Pope to His Beatitude Ieronymos II, the Orthodox Christian archbishop of Athens and all Greece, “as a concrete sign of his sincere desire to follow in the ecumenical path of truth.”

The Vatican statement reported in a number of news outlets suggestes the Holy See wanted to make clear that it was not a bilateral decision to return the marbles from the Vatican state to Greece, but rather a religiously inspired donation. The statement may have been worded in this way so as to refrain from creating a precedent that could affect other priceless holdings in the Vatican Museums.

On this happy news day,  BCRPM reflects on the Vatican Museum fragment orginally lent to the Acropolis Museum in December 2008 and that the then BCRPM Hon Secretary Eleni Cubitt asked Marlen to telephone Francesco Buranelli. He was delighted to find out that there was a committee in the UK campaigning for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles. His email to BCRPM can be read here, and his article in Italian, published in "Giornale dell'Arte" in July 2008, can also be read here. 

The Sunday Post's Ross Crae wrote an article on the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, to read the article published on Sunday 12 December, kindly follow the link here. 

Isabel Ruffell, professor of Greek drama and culture at Glasgow University, reflects on the Parthenon Marbles. She is quoted as saying: “It is morally indefensible for them to be in London. It’s bizarre that you’ve got all these bits from the same building all over Europe.

These are iconic images of profound significance to the people of Greece. Their removal belongs to the smash-and-grab period of classical archaeology, which is intertwined with our colonial past, and we need to face up to that.

You’ve got these really high stakes pieces of sculpture that matter a great deal to one of our fellow European countries and it seems slightly peculiar that we’re not giving them back. It’s really quite childish in a way.”

She, too, believes the Acropolis Museum in Athens would be the best place to show the marbles in all of their glory. “From an educational point of view, the British Museum display is really unhelpful,” she said.

“The Panathenaic frieze is inside-out, and the other frieze elements dislocated in other ways. The display in Athens, which is waiting for their return, will display the surviving material in a way that is as close as possible to the original layout.

“It is a fabulous museum. It has really good displays of some of the other stuff that was on the site so you get a much better sense of what it was like – it was incredibly crowded. It’s not just the edited highlights, you see the whole lot. A lot of museums have big aesthetic treasures completely divorced from context.

“Having them in this austere white room in the British Museum is a very strange, misleading way of looking at it.

“As someone who has benefited from the school trip to London in my time, it is very educational and useful but you could do that with plaster cast or loans of material. I think museums are quite co-operative on the whole these days, so these kinds of things are not unprecedented, loan deals and plaster casts and so forth.

“If the goal here is to provide a resource to people to learn, which is what it should be, then there are ways of doing it without having to do the ‘it’s mine, you can’t have it back’ kind of thing.”

Professor Isabel Ruffell has now joined BCRPM as a member and we're delighted to welcome her.

An exhibition of photographs showing 70 historical costumes from the 19th century, worn by contemporary Greeks in daily life and in battle, will be shown at the Acropolis Museum from 20 December 2022 to 26 March 2023.

Entitled ‘Raiment of the Soul’, the exibition at the Acropolis Museum is the initiative by the Marianna V. Vardinoyannis Foundation in collaboration with the National Historical Museum of Athens, and under the auspices of Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou. 

Most of the costumes belonged to the National Historical Museum of Athens, and were loaned by the late Ioannis Mazarakis-Ainian, General Secretary of the museum, to photographer Vangelis Kyris and embroidery specialist Anatoli Georgiev.

The photographs would have been presented to the public at the National Historical Museum to commemorate the 200 years of the Greek Independence War of 1821, but the coronavirus pandemic forced this exhibition to be postponed last year. To honour this year’s centennial of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, the exhibition has  also included costumes from Asia Minor.

The exhibit includes costumes which belonged to historic figures; local garments from mainland Greece, the Greek islands and Crete, Cyprus, and areas abroad where Greek communities flourished; costumes and garments relating to the heroes of the revolution of 1821; and eponymous and anonymous protagonists of the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of the photographs included in this exhibition have been exhibited by the artists last year, and again this year in Kalamata, Hydra, Syros, Korea (Seoul), and recently in the Museum of ancient Eleutherna in Crete.

In the exhibition that will take place at the Acropolis Museum, visitors will also see two special creations that subtly refer to antiquity as a small tribute to the museums that are presented: the first artwork refers to the renowned ‘Dame d’ Auxerre’, today on display in the Louvre Museum in Paris, that can be compared with Proto-Archaic sculptures, such as the Eleutherna Kore.

Respectively, a sample was embroidered with ornamental details from the garment of the Archaic Kore of the Acropolis Museum, as they were captured over the white surface of the marble, a small reference to a past that proclaims the community of vested beauty in a timelessfashion to this day. 

Entrance to the exhibition ‘Raiment of the Soul’ is free to the public. A free admission ticket is required from the Museum Ticket Desk.

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More images from the official opening on Tueday 20 December 2022 when Greek President Katerina Sakellaropoulou said: "It is with great pleasure that I inaugurate today the exhibition "Garment of the Soul", the creative re-imagining of our national costume thanks to the inspiration of photographer Vangelis Kyris and artist Anatoly Georgiev. I am very pleased that this exhibition in the Acropolis Museum has the space to be fully developed thanks to the initiative of the Marianna V. Vardinoyannis Foundation, in collaboration with the National Historical Museum and the Historical Museum of Crete. I would also like to congratulate the Director General of the Acropolis Museum, Nikos Stampolidis, who responded enthusiastically to the idea of hosting these exquisite creations in the Museum's Temporary Exhibition Hall. In fact, they are supplemented by two separate works that refer to antiquity. This choice underlines the timeless need of man to decorate the garment based on its symbolic function, personal taste, aesthetic perceptions and the socio-economic conditions of the time, bridging the philokalia of the ancients with the elegance of folk tradition".