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. 

BCRPM are delighted to welcome two new members: journalist, author, broadcaster and speaker Bruce Clark, and political philosopher Dr Rebecca Lowe. 

Bruce is a broadcaster and speaker on a wide range of subjects including religion and geopolitics, the history of southeastern Europe and the story of textiles. He is the online religion editor of The Economist, and often contributes to other publications. He served on the committee of the Maghera Historical Society and has a strong interest in the local history of my corner of Northern Ireland, especially its linen heritage and its early American connections. He has been an active participant in global debates organised by the Ecumenical Patriarch on the subject of faith and the environment. The early Christian history of Ireland and Scotland is another strong personal interest.

Since 1998, Bruceworked mainly for The Economist, covering everything from conflict in the Balkans to transatlantic relations and comparative religion. Between 2002 and early 2004 he took a sabbatical to research the history of forced migration between Greece and Turkey. In 2006, he launched the international pages of The Economist’s foreign news section, a new editorial feature devoted to broad global topics from disarmament to development.

Before joining The Economist, Bruce also served as diplomatic correspondent for the Financial Times, working in London, Brussels and then Washington DC. From 1990-1993, he was a correspondent for The Times in Moscow, covering the fall of communism and Russia’s post-Soviet transition. In an earlier stint at the Financial Times, he was editor of the European news section. His first job as a journalist was with Reuters, as a junior correspondent in Paris and as the agency’s main correspondent in Athens. Thanks to these jobs early in his career, he has a good working knowledge of French, modern Greek and Russian and says that he can also 'get along in Italian, Dutch, German and Spanish'.

At Saint John’s College, Cambridge, he studied Philosophy and then Social and Political Sciences, graduating with a BA in 1979. Before that he was educated at Maghera Primary School, Brook House School in Dublin and Shrewsbury School.

Bruce Clark has written three books:

An Empire’s New Clothes: The End of Russia’s Liberal Dream was published by Vintage Paperbacks in 1995.

Twice A Stranger: How Forced Migration Forged Modern Greece and Turkey. Published by Granta in the UK in 2005 and Harvard University Press in the USA in 2007.

Athens: City of Wisdom, 2022.

Buce Clark has also written articles on the Parthenon Marbles, includung 'Stealing Beauty' published in 2021 and more recently 'Law, Morals and the Parthenon Marbles'.

Dr Rebecca Lowe

Rebecca is a political philosopher, whose current academic interests range from moral property rights to the value of democracy. She also works on political and economic research issues as a consultant, including an ongoing engagement as Research Director for a patient-capital investment company.

Rebecca is a Senior Reader in the Canterbury Institute in Oxford. She is the former Director of FREER, a think tank advancing economically and socially liberal ideas.

Rebecca has worked for various other research organisations, including Policy Exchange, where she was State and Society Fellow, and convenor of the Research Group on Political Thought.

Professor Paul Cartledge has written the text that will be used for a pamphlet and distributed under the auspices of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM). The puropose of this publication is twofold: to set out briefly, in the light of current and likely future political, cultural and environmental circumstances, the arguments FOR reunification of those Marbles taken from the Parthenon back to Greece to the purpose-built  Acropolis Museumof Athens, and AGAINST the supposed arguments advanced, mainly by the Museum’s Trustees, in favour of their retention and display in the British Museum (BM), where they have been held since 1817.

The stakes are high, both rationally and emotionally. When the well-known US actor George Clooney publicly declared his support for Reunification, he was accused – by a Classically educated politician no less, now the British Prime Minister – of advocating something equivalent to Adolf Hitler’s despoliation of the cultural treasures of occupied European countries. For someone who admits to Turkish blood in his veins, the irony of such a comment is not lost.

Just as Britain’s ambassador to Ottoman Turkey’s occupied land, Lord Elgin, was doing his worst on the Acropolis, other colonial powers were competitively looting giant obelisks from Ottoman Egypt and shipping them to Paris and New York as well as London. In fact, it was mainly because Britain was France’s enemy and France was Turkey’s, that the Ottoman Sultanate looked at all kindly upon Elgin, based not on mutual respect but on the hardnosed realist principle ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’.

What is in fact required now is not hardnosed instrumentalism but rather a supreme generosity of internationalist spirit and moral courage. BCRPM’s campaign – the nature and origins of which are set out in the text of the document - has as a result recently acquired a further wave of international support from various widespread anti-colonialist movements for the repatriation of cultural treasures that for centuries have been variously looted or misappropriated, officially or unofficially, by colonial powers and their merchant venturers either for purely personal gratification or as an instrument of national self-advancement or both together.

To read the text, kindly follow the link here.

Professor Paul Cartledge, Vice-Chair of BCRPM and author of this document

Q:WHY, AS BRITISH CAMPAIGNERS, ARE YOU FOR THE RETURN OF THE PARTHENON MARBLES TO GREECE?

A:The issue of the reunification of these sculptures is a a matter of universal concern. We as British campaigners have a particular responsibility in this as it is a British museum, which holds half of the surviving sculptures from the Parthenon.

We also have a particular responsibility to convince the British press, public and politicians of the need to reunify them with their counterparts in Athens.

We have had much success in persuading the British public, as indicated by numerous opinion polls, and also professional opinion, as demonstrated by a 2012 poll in the Museums Journal showing a majority of 73% in favour of reunification, but less so with politicians and the cultural establishment.

Much of our campaigning is focused on informing and educating a critical mass of the general public which could not be ignored by elected politicians and the cultural establishment.

Q: IS THE MODERN GREEK STATE THE LEGITIMATE OWNER OF THE PARTHENON MARBLES.

A:Legal title to the ownership of these sculptures is extremely difficult to establish conclusively.

It is well documented that The British Government purchased the sculptures legally from Lord Elgin.

However Lord Elgin acquired the sculptures in questionable circumstances, the evidence for which is difficult to determine in full detail. There is much evidence that he exceeded what he had been given authority to remove by the Ottoman authorities.

The Ottoman state could be argued to have had legal title at the time of Elgin's acquisition; but the modern Turkish state is a different entity.

The Greek national state did not exist at the time of Elgin's acquisition of the sculptures and had never existed before that.

The only entity that could be argued to have had undisputed legal title was the demos of ancient Athens, but that did not survive antiquity.

Then there have to be taken into account differences of property ownership across time and countries, including the British Museum Act 1963.

But anyway, this should be seen not as a legal but essentially as a cultural issue. The sculptures belong to the Parthenon.

Q: IS THE BRITISH MUSEUM'S REFUSAL TO RETURN THE MARBLES LEGITIMATE.

A: Over the years the British Museum has advanced a number of arguments which have been described as "historical curiosities discredited variously as inconsequential, disingenuous, debatable, statistically dubious or just plain wrong" (Eddie O'Hara, Museums Journal, 112/06, 01/06/2012).

The one that continues to have specious public resonance is the "floodgates" argument - that to concede to the demand for the return of these sculptures would set a precedent leading to a flood of similar requests which would, if conceded, denude the galleries of the great museums.

This argument is incidentally close to an admission that much of the cultural property in the great museums is of questionable provenance. It is also overstated. The great museums have on permanent display a mere fraction, perhaps 20%, of the property in their collections. Also, not every demand would be of equal merit and each would be considered on its merits.

But anyway, the "floodgates" argument does not apply to the Parthenon Marbles. They are probably uniques in being integral elements of a fixed monument which is a UNESCO world heritage site, sawn off and divided for display, mainly in museums 2,000 miles apart. Thus their reunification would set no precedent.

The British Museum has recently rested its case on its status as a "universal" museum which transcends national cultural boundaries and presents the sculptures in a global context, unlike the "parochial" Acropolis Museum.

The status of "universal" museum is self serving and self designated by the Bizot Group of major museums. It is by no means universally accepted. There is evidence that most visitors do not seek or make the claimed cultural crossconnections. Rather they treat the collections as a smorgasbord of disparate delicacies.

Thus in essence the Parthenon Marbles are at best exemplars in the British Museum's collection and at worst trophies. Whichever way, their presence is essentially elective.

The Acropolis Museum makes no pretensions to being " universal" museum. It is focused on providing a comprehensive and holistic narrative of the Acropolis and is associated monuments. The role of the Parthenon Marbles in this narrative is not elective but integral and essential. This arguably gives the Acropolis Museum greater entitlement than the British Museum to the inclusion of the Parthenon Marbles in its display.

Q: COULD GREECE USE ANY LEGAL MEANS IN THE INTERNATIONAL/EUROPEAN LAW SYSTEM....... TO RECLAIM THE PARTHENON MARBLES.

A: Greece is currently pursuing the matter through the UNESCO mediation process. An approach has been made to the British Government which has said it will respond in due course. However the issue has been on the agenda of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Promotion of the return of Cultural Property since 1987.

Also the Swiss Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculpturesis currently pursuing a number of initiatives through the processes of the European Union.

However it is notoriously difficult to secure a judgement from an international organisation such as these against one of its members.

Q: IS THE MARBLES ISSUE A CULTURAL PROBLEM OR ONE OF MODERN NATIONALISM?

A:It is certainly a matter of visceral concern to the Greek people.

This is sometimes misrepresented and criticised as nationalism, a political concept of dubious pedigree.

In fact it is rather a matter of ethnicity: the Greek state and people regard the Parthenon as an iconic symbol of their ethnic identity. This is a cultural concept.

According to the Faro Convention (2005) an identified cultural group have a human right to the enjoyment of their cultural heritage.

The French artist, Auguste Rodin drew inspiration from the headless ancient sculptures. The Parthenon Marbles were his favourite works of art during his 15 visits to the British Museum from 1881 to 1917. Yet this is no argument for the British Museum's director Hartwig Fischer to justify retaining the sculptures from the Parthenon in the British Museum.

The new exhibition Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece (26 April – 29 July 2018) at the British Museum may place the sculptures 'in the context of world cultures' but does not justify the BM's refusal to allow Athens to display the surviving pieces as united as possible, and with views to the Parthenon itself.

'Although the marble stonework of the Parthenon had proven its durability against the ravages of time, it was not indestructible. In 1687, Venetian forces laying siege to Athens shelled the ancient city, igniting a powder magazine stored inside the Parthenon. The resulting explosion was catastrophic, obliterating the cella and the elaborate frieze that had adorned its exterior. Attempts by the Venetians to remove statues from the pediments were similarly disastrous, as multiple sculptures fell to the ground and were shattered beyond repair. Most of the remaining statues and reliefs (known as the "Elgin" or "Parthenon Marbles") were later spirited away in the early 19th Century by Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Controversially, these pieces are displayed in the British Museum to this day. Meanwhile, the Parthenon itself has since undergone rigorous restoration and preservation work, with much of the damaged peristyle reassembled to give modern visitors a glimpse of the temple's ancient splendour atop the hill where it has stood for over two thousand years.' 

If understanding world culture also means understanding history's mistakes, then (where possible) putting right old wrongs can promote cultural and international relations. Reuniting the Parthenon Marbles in Athens ought to be a possibility that supports world cultures for all the right reasons and promotes greater understanding, respect and compassion.

We are certain that Rodin's exhibition at the British Museum will be exquisite and enjoyed by many, however it can never replace the sheer inspiration that would be enjoyed, by many more, if we could hope to see the surviving sculptures reunited in the superlative Acropolis Museum.

Hartwig Fischer, director of the British Museum, is also quoted as saying that although other artists had been inspired by the Parthenon sculptures, Rodin had responded "with a passion that was to last a lifetime". The passion and love for the Parthenon Marbles felt by millions of Acropolis Museum visitors will continue forever. A Rodin's exhibition at the British Museum would be equally possible with a loan from Athens to London too.

Whilst the BM might be trying to recontextualize the sculptures from the Parthenon, a building which still stands - it will never erode the natural thirst of millions of visitors to the Acropolis Museum, hoping to see the unity of this peerless work of art.

Letter from the Greek Ambassador, H E Dimitris Caramitsos-TzirasDimitris Caramitsos-Tziras to Hartwig Fischer, Director of the British Museum, 25 April  2018. 

More articles on this include:

British Museum claims French artist Rodin proves why Parthenon Marbles should stay in Britain

Rodin's work to go on show in London next to Parthenon marbles

Rodin's love of the Parthenon sculptures revealed

Article in the Evening Standard and letter from Chair of the BCRPM to the Evening Standard

Letters Page Evening Standard:

Dear Sirs,

I write as Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, to remind interested parties that although Rodin was much excited by the sculptures he saw in the Museum, and found them inspiring, he nevertheless lamented their exile from the sweet Attic sunlight beloved of Homer: "Toutes les lumières électriques n'ont pas la force de les empêcher de rechercher éternellement la douce lumière d'Homère".

Those sculptures, which we prefer to attribute to the Parthenon from whence they were grabbed rather than to Elgin the grabber, should now be relinquished back to the city they once crowned. They have inspired artists and thrilled the curious in their gloomy rooms in Bloomsbury for long enough and now the country of their origin deserves their glory, in the museum built especially to house them facing the Acropolis and the still miraculously upright building that they once adorned.

Yours sincerely,
Janet Suzman DBE
London NW3 2RN

Jack Blackburn, The Times: 'The [British] museum is said to be wary of highly accurate copies. Some fear it could make the argument about returning the sculptures unanswerable'.

It is ALREADY unanswerable! Do the decent thing, British Museum Trustees! And soon.

Professor Paul Cartledge, Vice-Chair of BCRPM

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June 11, 2012

The concept of the Universal Museum is at the heart of current debates about cultural property and nowhere more so than in the case of the Parthenon Marbles being held by the British Museum - arguably the definitive example of a 'Universal Museum'. It is a subject that will be examined at the an international colloquy on "The Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles" to be held in London 19 & 20 June, to register please visit http://www.parthenonuk.com

As the start of the London Olympics approaches, pressure is mounting on the British Museum to reunify the Parthenon Marbles in what is universally acknowledged as their rightful home - the new Acropolis Museum in Athens, which opened in 2009. Greece's acute economic plight has merely amplified the need for a cultural gesture that many believe would have an immeasurable impact in kindling a sense of optimism and hope among the Greek people.

Amongst the distinguished speakers at the London colloquy is Dr Tom Flynn, who will sketch a brief history of the concept of the Universal Museumand will survey its current controversial status in relation to the repatriation of objects, and particularly to the case of the Parthenon Marbles. His talk will interrogate the function of these vast encyclopaedic collections in an increasingly 'globalised' world.

Most universal museums are struggling to respond to developing nations seeking to recover the material evidence of their past, much of which was appropriated by western powers during the imperial age. A stock response from western museum directors is to call for the establishment of more 'Universal' museums in developing nations. Is this a realistic aspiration or a strategy designed to deflect attention from a historical imbalance in the custodianship of cultural property? What is to be done?

Dr Tom Flynn will argue that instead of opening the notional 'floodgates' to more requests for return, the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles by the British Museum would light a beacon for a new era in global museum co-operation and cultural diplomacy. Such a gesture would reveal the 'Universal Museum' not as a retardataire institution looking back to the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment, but as a visionary agent of humanitarian change in the twenty-first century.

-ends-

Additional notes for editors:

Dr Tom Flynn teaches the history of the art market and museum studies at Kingston University, and on Masters courses in Art & Business at the Wallace Collection and the Whitechapel Art Gallery, administered by the Institut des Études Supérieures des Arts (IESA) in Paris. He is the author ofThe Body in Sculpture (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997) and co-editor ofColonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum (Routledge, 1998) and The Universal Museum: A valid model for the 21^st century (2012)

The international colloquy on “The Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles” to be held in London 19 & 20 June 2012 has been organised by three campaigning organizations for the Parthenon Marbles, from the UK, USA and Australia. The event is timed to coincide with the third year anniversary of the opening of the new Acropolis Museum and the occasion of the 2012 London Olympics one month later. Registration is now open. To learn more about the  colloquy including program and registration details, please visit www.parthenonuk.com

About The British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM)
A group of British people who having considered the case for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles strongly support it and wish to campaign to achieve it. James Cubitt, a distinguished British architect, met with Melina Mercouri and Jules Dassin before he formed the BCRPM to campaign for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to their rightful home in Athens. The Committee was set up in 1983 under the chairmanship of internationally renowned and universally respected Robert Browning, Emeritus Professor of Greek at the University of London. Then inveterate and accomplished, writer Graham Binns took over as Chairman from 1997-2002, followed 2002-2010 by erudite Prof. Anthony Snodgrass, Fellow of the British Academy, Professor Emeritus of Classical Archaeology, University of Cambridge. Currently, former MP Eddie O’Hara has taken on the role. For more information, visit: http://www.parthenonuk.com.

About The American Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, Inc. (ACRPS)

Formed by international litigation attorney, Michael J. Reppas II, ACRPS is the leader of the American charge for the repatriation of the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece.  Mr. Reppas, a widely cited author and legal scholar, has engaged in a near 15-year grassroots campaign with fellow Board members involving domestic and international lectures to advocate the cause. ACRPS is a duly recognized IRS § 501(C)(3) NOT-FOR-PROFIT organization, whose purpose is to educate the public on a local, state, national and international level on the compelling need to protect, preserve and repatriate looted cultural property to its country of origin – most particularly to effect the return from London to Athens of the Parthenon Sculptures. For more information, on this and ALL SIDES OF THE PARTHENON - A Touring Exhibition, visit www.ParthenonSculpturesUSA.org.

About The International Organizing Committee – Australia – for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, Inc. (IOC-A-RPM)

Formerly known as the AHEPA (Australia) Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles, the committee was formed in 1981 under the chairmanship of Emanuel John Comino AM. It was the first committee in the world set up for the restitution. The Committee aims to bring pressure to bear on governments and influence public opinion to ensure the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. For more information, visit: International Organising Committee – Australia - for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles.

CONTACT:
UK –Marlen Godwin, for the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, Tel 00 44 1780 460145 m. 07789533791, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

USA –Michael Reppas, for The American Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, Inc., Tel +00 1 305 822 8422 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

AUSTRALIA –Emanuel John Comino AM, PSP, JP, for the International Organising Committee – AUSTRALIA – For the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles Inc., Tel + 00 61 2 9546 7726, m + 00 61 418204466 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Russell Darnley OAM, International Liaison for IOC-A-RPM Tel + 00 65 6 638 8573 m +00 65 9 716 8151 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.