On Thursday 28 March the announcement of the the appointment of a new Director for the British Museum.This followed on from Wednesday's news that on Tuesday, London's High Court ordered former curator at the British Museum, Peter Higgs accused of stealing hundreds of artefacts to provide the museum with a list of all items he is suspected of taking and to return those still in his possession.

Over 1,800 items were stolen from the British Museum and so far 356 have been returned.

Interim Director Sir Mark Joneswas appointed last September in the wake of the crisis over thefts from the institution's collection. He set a target of five years for the BM’s complete collection, eight million objects, to be catalogued online, each with an image. With 60% of the BM's objects already digitalised, this target will be met.

To read the press release from the British Museum on the appointment of Dr Cullinan, follow the link here.

Dame Janet Suzman, Chair of BCRPM and Paul Cartledge, Vice-Chair of BCRPM and the IARPS welcomed the appointment of Mark Jones last year and following on from yesterday's announcement, a letter to welcome Dr Cullinan. Paul remembered Dr Cullinan giving him "a most gracious tour of an NPG exhibition." Janet is looking forward to the reimaging of the British Museum as it remains out of step with the cultural changes evolving in the rest of the museum world. "Of course the Parthenon Marbles case is unique, and we realise that Dr Cullinan will have a multitude of other issues to contend with and BCRPM wish him every success."

In the Times, George Osborne said Nicholas Cullinan had been chosen because of his “proven leadership today and great potential for tomorrow,” adding that the new director would help put the museum “back on the front foot.”

“He has shown his capacity as director of the National Portrait Gallery to oversee both a major physical renovation and a compelling renewal of purpose in a way that doesn’t take sides, but brings people together — and won universal acclaim. We believe he can achieve this, and more, on the bigger scale of the British Museum as we undertake a once-in-a-generation redevelopment.”

The Guardian describes Dr Cullinan as an energetic leader tasked with the British Museum overhaul. The profile article by David Batty highlights Cullinan's new role as needing "to draw on his fundraising skills to oversee its ambitious masterplan, a 10-year project, estimated to cost £1bn, to modernise its building in Bloomsbury, central London, and redisplay the entire collection." And mention of Dr Cullinan's friendship with Courtney Love, plus his favourite piece of music Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Tristes apprêts, from his 1737 opera Castor et Pollux, his love for Michael Jackson’s debut solo album, Off the Wall, and the American teen comedy Mean Girls.

In the New York Times, Alex Marshall writes that Cullinan is looking forward to taking the British Museum “into a new chapter.” Under his leadership, he expects the museum to undergo “significant transformations, both architectural and intellectual,” he added. “I can’t imagine a better challenge or opportunity to build on that than collectively reimagining the British Museum for the widest possible audience,” he said.

On the Museums Association article Cullinan said of the BM:“One of the greatest museums in the world, it is an honour to become the next director of the British Museum. I look forward to joining its wonderful and dedicated staff and to work with its hugely impressive board in leading it into a new chapter."

 “I want to pay tribute to my predecessors, most recently Sir Mark Jones, and look forward to building on their extraordinary achievements. Leading the remarkable transformation of the National Portrait Gallery over the last decade with its wonderful trustees, staff and supporters has been the honour of a lifetime and I can’t imagine a better challenge or opportunity to build on that than collectively reimagining the British Museum for the widest possible audience and future generations.”

Geraldine Kendall Adams in this artcle adds a section at the end aptly entitled: What’s on the agenda for the new director? There are four headings: theft scandal, masterplan, sponsorship and protest, repatriation.

Under Repatriation, Geraldine writes: Cullinan’s tenure at the British Museum could see significant developments in some of the UK’s longest-running repatriation disputes. Despite several setbacks, there is hope that the museum is close to reaching a “mutually beneficial” deal with the Greek authorities that would see the Parthenon sculptures return to Athens in exchange for rolling loans of other treasures from Ancient Greece.

The museum also recently announced plans to loan Asante royal regalia back to Ghana and is involved in projects to return other disputed artefacts on loan, including its Benin bronzeholdings to Nigeria. Other high-profile repatriation cases include Rapa Nui’s demand for the return of two moai statues, Ethiopia’s bid to repatriate the Maqdala collection, and the Aboriginal Australian campaign for the return of the Gweagal Shield.

There are calls for a change in legislation to allow the British Museum and other nationals to fully repatriate objects rather than simply loaning them. This debate is likely to intensify in the coming years.

The campaign for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles continues, and with that in mind, a reminder of what Richard Morrison wrote in The Times, last summer (11 August 2023)

"So the new director [of the British Musem] needs to be someone with acute diplomatic skills, excellent connections with whoever governs Britain after 2024, brilliant fundraising capabilities and a bold, inspiring vision for museums in the 21st century. I can think of only one person in Britain who has all of that, plus youth and energy. That’s Nicholas Cullinan, the director of the National Portrait Gallery, who has just finished supervising an intelligent and beautiful restoration of the NPG — on time, within budget and with a deftness that won praise from people on all sides of the cultural and political divides."

Image of Dr Nicholas Cullinan by Zoë Law, 2018 © Zoë Law

Elgin Marbles
Volume 834: debated on Thursday 14 December 2023

2:06 pm

Lord Lexden: "To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of proposals to loan the Elgin Marbles to Greece."

And Lord Lexden began with:

"My Lords, the Elgin marbles—or Parthenon sculptures, as some prefer—are famous for two reasons. The first reason is of course because they are magnificent treasures of civilization, part of the heritage of our world. The second reason that they are famous is as regrettable as it is persistent. These great treasures have an almost infinite capacity to provoke heated arguments about their ownership and their location. It is almost impossible to mention them in everyday conversation without instigating a dispute on these points."

To read the entire exchange in the House of Lords, follow the link here.

BCRPM wishes to thank Baroness Chakrabarti for her input, including:

" Regardless of arguments about legality, past or present, the British people know better than too many of their leaders how to make friends by being the bigger person. Most of them support returning the artefacts to the people to whom they mean so much more. A few minutes, let alone hours, at the Acropolis Museum in Athens would lead any noble Lord to understand just how much these artefacts mean to the people of Greece. Few have been fooled by years of buck-passing between museum and government around this issue, when technological advancement should make sharing and return so much easier than ever before."

And Lord Dubs, whose support for our campaign stretches back to when Eddie O'Hara was our Chair, also made pertinent points including: 

"Then there is the argument about loaning or returning them. I appreciate that there is a difficulty because of the 1963 Act. Nevertheless, I think the right answer, in the fullness of time, will be to return the marbles to their rightful place in Athens. If it needs a change in legislation, that could be achieved—but, for heaven’s sake, we cannot forever fall out with our Greek friends on this issue."

Lord Allan of Hallam must be thanked too for pointing out that there are new stories waiting to be made, and remembering our founder Eleni Cubitt:

"Artefacts also add new elements to their stories over time; this is especially true for the Parthenon sculptures. As well as Lord Elgin himself, their story now includes Melina Mercouri, who kicked off that campaign 40 years ago, and Eleni Cubitt, who ran the UK campaign for their return over many years. Our current Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, has now become part of the story; George Osborne may be an even bigger figure if he leads the trustees to agree to some form of display in Athens. It is certainly my hope that we will find a way to have the entire set of sculptures singing their story out from the new Acropolis Museum, while the British Museum continues to tell its rich stories through other fabulous Greek objects from its own collection or from loans."

Lord Frost has received most of the coverage in the UK media as he voiced his personal view:

"Personally, I have never been so convinced by the moral, artistic and cultural arguments for the position we take. The Parthenon marbles are a special situation and we should try to find a special solution. They are one of the supreme expressions of ancient Greek, hence western, art. They were created for a specific building and a specific cultural context. In contrast to much ancient sculpture, we know exactly what that context was and what the work of art was intended to signify. These are not just random museum exhibits and, for as long as they are not seen as a whole, they are less than the sum of their parts."

Adding: "My personal view is that it is a time for a grand gesture, and only the Government can make it." Indedd, the magnanimous gesture called for by so many over such a long period of time has yet to find a UK Prime Minister to support it. Whilst the public support grows, the political will at the top remains fixed.

Most of the voices yesterday afternoon in the House of Lords accepted that there was a unique case in the division of these sculptures. With many supporting the reunification. We urge more voices to join these right thinking folks on a matter of cultural heritage that deserves our collective respect. Greece's ask is wholly justified.

How the Much-Debated Elgin Marbles Ended Up in England
The author of a new book, Bruce Clarkand his latest article published 11 January 2022, in the Smithsonian Magazine.

When Thomas Bruce, Seventh Earl of Elgin, arrived in the city he knew as Constantinople—today’s Istanbul—in November 1799, he had every reason to hope that his mission as Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman sultan would be a spectacular success.

A year earlier, Napoleon had invadedOttoman Egypt, and Britain hoped to become the sultan’s main ally in reversing the French conquest. The dispatch from London of a well-connected diplomat descended from the kings of Scotland was itself a gesture of friendship toward the Turks. Then 33 years old, Elgin was an experienced statesman who had previously served as a British envoy in Brussels and Berlin.

As well as competing in geopolitics, the British were vying with the French for access to whatever remained of the great civilizations of antiquity. On this front, too, Elgin was confident of faring well. His marriage in March 1799 to a wealthy heiress, Mary Nisbet, had given him the financial means to sponsor ambitious cultural projects. While traveling through Europe en route to Constantinople, he recruited a team of mostly Italian artists led by the Neapolitan painter Giovanni-Battista Lusieri. Their initial task was to draw, document and mold antiquities in the Ottoman-controlled territory of Greece, thus preserving these ancient treasures on paper and canvas, in part for the edification of Elgin’s countrymen, most of whom would never otherwise see Athens’ statues, temples and friezes.

From the start, though, the artists’ mandate was shrouded in careful ambivalence. Elgin declaredthat simply capturing images of the treasures would be “beneficial to the progress of the fine arts” in his home country. But in more private moments, he didn’t conceal his determination to decorate his home in Scotland with artifacts extracted from Greece. “This … offers me the means of placing, in a useful, distinguished and agreeable way, the various things that you may perhaps be able to procure for me,” he wrote to Lusieri.

The initially cloudy mission of Elgin’s artistic team culminated in a massive campaign to dismantle artworks from the temples on the Acropolis and transport them to Britain. Elgin’s haul—representing more than half of the surviving sculptures on the Athenian citadel—included most of the art adorning the Parthenon, the greatest of the Acropolis temples, and one of the six robed maidens, or caryatids, that adorned the smaller Erechtheion temple. Large sections of the Parthenon frieze, an extraordinary series of relief sculptures depicting a mysterious procession of chariots, animals and people, numbered among the loot.

Among critics, the removal of the so-called Elgin Marbles has long been described as an egregious act of imperial plunder. Greeks find it especially galling that Elgin negotiated the removal of such treasures with the Ottoman Empire, a foreign power that cared little for Hellenic heritage. Calls to return the sculptures to Athens began in Elgin’s own day and continue now: While in London in November 2021, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis stated plainly that Elgin “stole” the ancient artworks. (The British Museum, for its part, has always insisted that its mandate of displaying its collections for the purpose of public education does not allow it to simply give objects away.)

Does Elgin deserve his terrible reputation? He certainly derived little personal happiness from his antiquarian acquisitions. While making his way back to Britain in 1803, he was detained in France by the government. He returned to his native shores three years later, in 1806, only to find that many of the artifacts he had collected were still stuck in Greece. Getting them to England would take six more years: Beginning in 1807, the earl was involved in acrimonious divorce proceedings that left his finances in ruins, and he had to implore the state to buy the objects whose extraction he had financed. In the end, the government acquired the trove for £35,000—less than half of what Elgin claimed to have spent employing Lusieri and his team, arranging sea transport, and bribing Ottoman officials. He was denounced as a vandal in sonorous verses by the poet Lord Byron, a fellow member of the Anglo-Scottish aristocracy, and the broader British public alike. If Elgin deserved punishment, he got a good deal of it in his own lifetime. But in the eyes of posterity, he has fared still worse.

In blurring the line between documenting the antiquities of Greece and taking them away, Elgin was following a template created two decades earlier by the French. A promising French artist, Louis-Francois-Sebastian Fauvel, received an assignment in 1784 from his country’s ambassador to the Ottoman sultan to make exact drawings and casts of Greek antiquities. By 1788, the French envoy was urging his young protégé, then at work on the Acropolis, to go much further than drawing or molding: “Remove all that you can, do not neglect any means, my dear Fauvel, of plundering in Athens and its territory all that is to be plundered.” After his diplomatic boss fell out of grace amid the French Revolution, Fauvel became an antiquarian and energetic looter in his own right. When Elgin took up his post in Istanbul in 1799, he and his compatriots saw it as their patriotic duty to outdo the French in this race to grab history.

Also of note is the fact that Elgin was often surrounded by people whose zeal for the removal of Greek antiquities outpaced his own. These individuals included his ultra-wealthy parents-in-law, whose money ultimately made the operation possible, and the shrewd English clergyman Philip Hunt, who worked as Elgin’s personal assistant. When he learned of his appointment to Elgin’s staff, Hunt explained to his father that the job seemed a “brilliant opportunity of improving my mind and laying the foundation of a splendid fortune.”

In spring 1801, Hunt went to Athens to assess the progress being made by Lusieri and his artistic team. He realized that simply gaining access to the Acropolis, which also served as the Ottoman garrison, would require a burdensome series of presents and bribes to local officials. The only solution, he concluded, was to secure an all-purpose permit from some high-ranking person in the entourage of the sultan. By early July, Hunt had induced the deputy to the grand vizier to issue a paper that would allow Elgin’s team to work unimpeded on the Acropolis: to draw, excavate, erect scaffolding and “take away some pieces of stone with old figures or inscriptions,” as the permit put it.

Over the following month, the situation devolved rapidly. With Napoleon apparently on the verge of invading Greece, Hunt was sent back to Athens on a fresh mission: to reassure Ottoman officials of British support and ward off any temptation to collaborate with the French. Seeing how highly the Ottomans valued their alliance with the British, Hunt spotted an opportunity for a further, decisive extension of the Acropolis project. With a nod from the sultan’s representative in Athens—who at the time would have been scared to deny a Briton anything—Hunt set about removing the sculptures that still adorned the upper reaches of the Parthenon. This went much further than anyone had imagined possible a few weeks earlier. On July 31, the first of the high-standing sculptures was hauled down, inaugurating a program of systematic stripping, with scores of locals working under Lusieri’s enthusiastic supervision.

Whatever the roles of Hunt and Lusieri, Elgin himself cannot escape ultimate responsibility for the dismantling of the Acropolis. Hunt at one point suggested removing all six of the caryatid maidens if a ship could be found to take them away; Elgin duly tried find a vessel, but none were available.

Still, once back in England, Elgin adamantly claimed that he had merely been securing the survival of precious objects that would otherwise have disappeared. In evidence provided to a parliamentary committee, he insisted that “in amassing these remains of antiquity for the benefit of my country, and in rescuing them from imminent and unavoidable destruction with which they were threatened, … I have been actuated by no motives of private emolument.” Betraying the bigotries of the day, Elgin argued that if the sculptures had remained in Athens, they would have been “the prey of mischievous Turks who mutilated [them] for wanton amusement, or for the purpose of selling them to piecemeal to occasional travelers.” He outlined examples of numerous important Greek monuments that had disappeared or been damaged during the previous half-century. In offering these justifications, he was trying to persuade the committee that he had enlarged the scope of his antiquarian project—from merely drawing or molding ancient sculptures to taking them away—only when it became clear to him that the unique treasures were in danger.

There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of these claims. Upon his arrival in Istanbul, the earl had declared an interest in decorating his own house with ancient treasures. But even if Elgin’s argument was dishonest, his point about the likely fate of the artifacts, given the geopolitical situation at the dawn of the 19th century, is a serious one. We can assess its merit in light of what actually happened to the sculptures that stayed on the Acropolis (because Elgin’s people didn’t quite manage to remove them all) versus those that were shipped to England.

Contrary to Elgin’s stated fears, the sculptures that remained in Athens did not vanish. After 1833, when the Ottomans left the Acropolis and handed it to the new nation of Greece, the great citadel and its monuments became a focus of national pride. Protecting, restoring and showcasing the legacy of the Athenian golden age has been the highest priority for every Greek government since then.

 Of course, the monuments and artifacts of the Holy Rock, as Greeks call it, have not entirely escaped damage. Scorch marks from a fire during the 1820s Greek War of Independence, during which the Acropolis changed hands several times, remain visible today. In recent years, the contours of some sculptures have been worn away by air pollution—a problem that was particularly acute in the 1980s. But Elgin’s people also caused damage, both to the sculptures they removed and to the underlying structure of the Parthenon. (“I have been obliged to be a little barbarous,” Lusieri once wrote to Elgin.) Then there were the marbles that sankon one of Elgin’s ships in 1802 and were only salvaged three years later. Even after they arrived at the British Museum, the sculptures received imperfect care. In 1938, for example, they were “cleaned” with an acid solution.

With the benefit of two centuries of hindsight, Elgin’s claim that his removal of treasures from the Acropolis was a noble act, in either its intention or its result, is dubious at best. Still, the earl’s professed concern for the preservation of the glories of ancient Athens raises an interesting line of thought. Suppose that among his mixture of motives—personal aggrandizement, rivalry with the French and so on—the welfare of the sculptures actually had been Elgin’s primary concern. How could that purpose best be served today? Perhaps by placing the Acropolis sculptures in a place where they would be extremely safe, extremely well conserved and superbly displayed for the enjoyment of all? The Acropolis Museum, which opened in 2009 at the foot of the Parthenon, is an ideal candidate; it was built with the goal of eventually housing all of the surviving elements of the Parthenon frieze.

Of the original 524-foot-long frieze, about half is now in London, while another third is in Athens. Much smaller fragments are scattered elsewhere around the globe. The Acropolis Museum’s magnificent glass gallery, bathed in Greek sunlight and offering a clear view of the Parthenon, would be a perfect place to reintegrate the frieze and allow visitors to ponder its meaning. After all, British scholars and cultural figures who advocate for the sculptures’ return to Athens are careful to frame their arguments in terms of “reunifying” a single work of art that should never have been broken up.

That, surely, is a vision that all manner of people can reasonably embrace, regardless of whether they see Elgin as a robber or give him some credit as a preservationist. If the earl really cared about the marbles, and if he were with us today, he would want to see them in Athens now.

Bruce Clark wrote this article for the Smithsonian Magazine and it was published online on 11 Janyary 2022.

The Greek daily newspaper,Ta Nea featured an interview by Yannis Andritsopoulos with Former Shadow Culture Secretary Thangam Debbonaire in their Saturday edition. In the interview, Thangam Debbonaire refers to the 'theft' of the Parthenon Marbles and that the Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer, now UK's PM, is keen to see a solution to this long running impasse.

Thangam Debbonaire views the Acropolis Museum as the right place to display the surviving sculptures and is looking forward to visiting Athens this weekend as she is will be speaking on Monday at an event organised by the Parthenon Project.

Thangam Debbonaire reiterates in the interview that it is the Labour governments continued position to see the British Museum find a solution that is acceptable to both Greece and UK's cultural institution.

Thangam Debbonaire also used the same analogy that PM Mitotakis used during his Novembervisit to the UK last year, where reference was made to the Mona Lisa and what we would all say if we had to view her in two halves. She also feels that most UK parliamentarians would wish to see a solution as the request for reunification has raged on for so long and is encouraged by Nicholas Cullinan's views for the future of the British Museum.

The Parthenon Project campaign includes the transformation of the Duveen Gallery at the British Museum into a gallery that would be renamed the “Prince Philip Hellenic Gallery” to display never-before-seen Greek artefacts, a proposal that excites Thangam Debbonaire, and we remind ourselves that it is 24 years since the first Greek minister, voiced the will of Greece to offer the British Museum artefacts from Greece not seen outside of Greece (should the sculptures in London be reunited with those in Athens).

More on this story also in Daily Mail & MSN.

Plus in The Times on Monday 30 September 2024, Oliver Wright adds: 'government sources played down the prospect of an early solution, saying that Debbonaire was not speaking on behalf of ministers'.

“We have no plans to change the law that would permit a permanent move of the Parthenon sculptures,” said a spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

Looks as though the campaigns, yes there are more than one (!), continue, apace.

A letter from Cambridge

A documentary from the journalist Bruce Clark about the Parthenon Marbles

“What about the British classicists of our times? Do they study the Athenian past in a spirit of acquisition and ambition or of friendship and respect? I am glad to say that when I last went back to my old place of learning, things seemed to have changed for the better…”

The observation comes from the journalist Bruce Clark, and it offers a first response to the question which is posed in a short documentary, “From Cambridge with Love: A Call to Mend the Parthenon’s Broken Treasures” which Kathimerini has seen.

However the author and former international security editor of the Economist, who is a Cambridge graduate himself, does not return to his alma materwith the sole purpose of finding out whether old-fashioned mentalities have been set aside.

“Public opinion in the United Kingdom is in favour of reunifying the marbles,” Clark told Kathimerini, “but it is not completely well informed about what exactly the sculptures are, or about the role they played in the civilization of ancient Athens – or about the fact they constitute a single work of art. The idea of the documentary was to inform the public more deeply about the sculptures, about the mysteries they contain and the unresolved scholarly debates they have stimulated – as a way of promoting their eventual reunification.”

The British classicists – and members of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles - whom Clark meets in the film are Paul Cartledge, an emeritus professor of Cambridge University and Edith Hall, a professor of ancient Greek literature at Durham University.

As Clark – who is also a member of the BCRPM – says in the documentary, “[both] helped me to understand one overwhelming fact – all the brilliant cultural products of fifth century Athens reflect the wave of democratic energy which cascaded through the city – that tiny, talented place – after its victory against the huge Persian empire…”

The film alludes to the democratic way in which the construction of the Parthenon was overseen – and also to the frieze which represents the whole population of the city. The “mystery” which stirs debate around the frieze concerns the so-called peplos scene - which might, according to some scholars, show Erechtheus, the first king of Athens, handing over a death-shroud to his daughter, foreshadowing her self-sacrifice for the good off the city.

“It is an unresolved scholarly question,” Clark tells Kathimerini – “just like the question of whether the frieze depicts the Panathenaic procession as it happened at that time, or some idealized notion of the procession in the past.”

The majority of the frieze is, of course, in the British Museum.“The presentation of the frieze is particularly damaging,”   Paul Cartledge explains in the film, “because the designers of that [BM] gallery try to pretend that they have the whole of the frieze when in fact they don’t…” Edith Hall puts it this way: “You might say it’s like trying to read a comic with the pictures in a random order.” 

And the British sculptor Helaine Blumenfeld, who also appears in the documentary, adds that “the most tragic thing for a sculptor is to create a work for a particular place and then find that it’s going to be moved…”

“From Cambridge with Love” – jointly created by Clark and producer Leonidas Liambeys – will make its first appearance in the Ninth “Beyond Borders” Documentary Festival in Kastellorizo. The main conclusion could be summed up in a remark made by Clark to Kathimerini: “It doesn’t require a brilliant brain to see that if there is one single place where the sculptures should be, it is the Acropolis Museum.”

Does Clark have hope that the advent of a new government will make things easier? “The very fact that there is a new government is a sign of hope,” he responds. “We understand that the Labour government will not stand in the way of any deal made by the British Museum – however they do not plan to change the law.  They are at least giving the Museum some room for manoeuvre. I think, though, that some legislative amendment will be needed.”

From Cambridge With Love will be shown at the International Documentary Festival in Kastellorizo on 26 August at 8.30 pm.

Article written by Nikolas Zois for Kathimerini and published on 14 August 2024

"There are a lot of historical artefacts that should be returned to their original owners, but none more important than the Parthenon Marbles.”

George Clooney writing to Janet on the 8th of January this year.

His latest film 'The Midnight Sky' was released a month earlier on 09 December 2020 and there were a number of articles in the weeks that followed including one in the Guardian, written by Tom Lamont. To read that, you can use the link here.

George Clooney remembers when he met Amal in February 2014 and that in the same month he was also in the UK for the launch of 'The Monuments Men', a film about soldiers at the tail-end of the Second World War who were tasked to protect priceless works of European art from Nazi looters.At this time Clooney also viced his  belief that the United Kingdom might return the Parthenon Marbles to Greece. The then Mayor of London Boris Johnson retaliated by comparing the actor to Adolf Hitler. That evening he met with Amal for dinner and she gave George lots more facts about the plight of the Marbles including an update on UNESCO rulings.

Journalist Tom Lamont suggests to Clooney, that the actor owes everything to UK's Prime Minister Johnson: marriage, kids and present state of domestic contentment. George agrees and then suggests he might send a thank you note to  the PM..... plus a comb. We would concurr that a comb would be useful and we sincerely hope that the thank you note may persuade the PM to be more magnanimous when it comes to considering the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles too.

We live in hope and agree with George Clooney that despite the current challenges, here's to better days for all.

Chris Hastings in the Mail on Sunday, 04 December 2022 writes: 

George Osborne is in secret discussions with Greece's Prime Minister over returning the Elgin Marbles

• George Osborne, chairman of the British Museum, in talks over Elgin Marbles
• Believed he and Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis discussed their return last month
• The marbles were removed by Lord Elgin between 1801 and 1812 from Greece

British Museum chairman George Osborne has been discussing the possible return of the Elgin Marbles to Greece with its prime minister.

The talks between the former Chancellor and Kyriakos Mitsotakis are believed to have taken place last month during the Greek leader’s visit to the UK.

The talks have led to renewed speculation that the museum could announce the return of some or all of the Elgin Marbles to Greece either as a loan or as part of a permanent repatriation.

The marbles, dating back to the 5th Century BC, were removed by Lord Elgin between 1801 and 1812.

Greece, which would place them in a museum close to the Parthenon from where they were taken, has said it will offer the British Museum antiquities never before seen outside the country.

Actress Dame Janet Suzman, who chairs the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, said: ‘This is a very positive step forward. 

'George Osborne might be interested in a legacy and this might be a very enlightened one.’

Letter in the Financial Times 10 January, 2024: Give Parthenon marbles a one-way ticket home

One of your predictions for 2024 (FT Report, December 30) is that Britain will return the Parthenon marbles to Greece, albeit via a loan agreement rather than a full return.

You are probably right but I don’t think it is so much a question of if, but only when the marbles will eventually return to their home country. However, the idea of a temporary loan is not the solution.

The sculptures are far too fragile to be shipped between the two countries on a frequent basis. It is a forgone conclusion that it will have to be a one-way ticket.

The Elgin marbles have been well cared for by the British Museum but circumstances have changed. It is now widely acknowledged that the new Acropolis Museum is the appropriate home for the sculptures. This is also backed by a large majority of the British population.

Put it another way. The Parthenon marbles have been on loan to Britain for more than a century and now the time has come to return them to their country of origin.

Angus Neill Art Dealer, London 

22 August 2019 during a State visit to France, Greece's Prime Minister Mitsotakis asked President Macron for the loan from the Louvre of a metope.This request was made for Greece's bicentennial independence celebrations in 2021. The Louvre would, in return, receive a collection of bronze artefacts from Greece. 

Paul Cartledge, professor of Greek Culture at the University of Cambridge and the vice chairman of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles and the IARPS (International Association) commented to The Art Newspaper: " We hope for and expect much more: the reunification in the Acropolis Museum of all bits of the Parthenon held in museums outside Greece—not only [the sculptures] from the British Museum. The Greek government will certainly reciprocate most handsomely with spectacular loans, such as those going to the Louvre no doubt will be.”

To read The Art Newspaper article, please follow the link here.

On 22 March, Alexander Herman wrote an article also in The Art Newspaper explaining the difficulties that surround recognition and admission of title. If the British Museum were ever to consider a long-term loan of the pieces, Greece would need to first accept that the trustees hold title, an acceptance successive Greek governments have never been willing to make.

"But title need not be so contentious. Perhaps the Greek government could accept the simple premise that the trustees hold title under English law, but go no further? This would not have to relate to the circumstances of acquisition in Athens. It need only be a recognition that a run-of-the-mill Act of Parliament settled the question of English title back in 1816. Likewise, the British Museum would need to understand that title is a nationally derived right and does not automatically guarantee rights at an international level. This could perhaps allow the parties to put the question of title aside" writes Alexander Herman.

While a loan might not result in Greece's long awaited permanent restitution, it would bring some pieces back to the Acropolis Museum, where they would be seen by millions in their original context with views to the Parthenon, which still stands. Marking a memorable event and breaking of the deadlock by starting a dialogue between London and Athens.

Read more on this article here.

31 August & 01 September Helena Smith reported in the Guardian and Observer that Prime Minister Mitsotakis would be looking for a loan from the British Museum to coincide with Greece's bicentennial independence celebrations in 2021.

Prime Minister Mitsotakis explained that “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 artefacts that have never left Greece to be exhibited in the British Museum’.”

Adding: “Of course our demand for the return of the sculptures remains in place. I don’t think [Britain] should be fighting a losing battle. Eventually this is going to be a losing battle. At the end of the day there is going to be mounting pressure on this issue.”

There are 21,000 known archaeological sites in Greece,” said the culture minister, Lina Mendoni, a classical archaeologist. “We have 10 times more than we can possibly exhibit. Almost every day something valuable is found. We want to export these cultural assets.”

Read the updated Guardian (04 September 2019) article here.

I was asked to be the Chair of the BCRPM because of my long-standing sympathy with the magnificent fury of Melina Mercouri, who came whirling into Britain many years ago like a mighty wind, to stir up the clouds of dead leaves that often litter the venerable institutions of this land. She demanded the return of the marbles. She is long gone, but the wind still blows, sometimes stronger, sometimes just a breeze to disturb the quiet. Those winds have started up again as the arguments about Brexit swirl this way and that, and they have started up in France as it recognises certain acquisitions in its own collections need justifying, and the windy debates continue in other far countries once colonised by Great Britain in its Empire heyday.

One of the most mightiest of those Institutions, The British Museum, is the keeper of so many of the world’s treasures they are almost beyond counting, because Empire-builders brought back wondrous artefacts from across the world when Britain ruled the waves. As we know the star attractions of the British Museum's astonishing collection are the Parthenon marbles, those breath-taking fractions of a breath-taking whole. The Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Lord Elgin, brought them to England and for two hundred years they have awed the millions of visitors who shuffle across the floors of the mighty Museum. They are seen in a severely walled gallery, sitting with great respect and decorum on harsh concrete plinths, with greyish light partly revealing their astonishing beauty.

Last year some of these pieces of sculpture were brought down to another larger gallery to show Rodin’s work alongside them, and how inspired he was by them. A breath of fresh air rushed round the figures and we saw anew how wonderful they are, in fact unmatchable. Emotionally charged, muscled Rodin figures paled beside the stillness of their haunting super-reality. The curators had presented the figures as solo works of art separated from their original function of being parts of a larger whole, wrenched from an integral part of an ancient belief-system.

Melina was an actress, I am an actress; that probably means we are basically open-minded. Acting requires you to be non-judgemental about a character and thus to depict its point of view, often very far from your own in real life, as truthfully as possible. I am no scholar, no academic. My position on the BCRPM Committee is one of a perfectly ordinary museum visitor and as such I can see so clearly that the marbles are in the wrong room. They need the sweet Attic sunlight shining on them and a blue sky beyond; they ask to be re-connected to their other half in the New Acropolis Museum where a space for them awaits. They need to be seen in sight of the Parthenon itself, which still astonishingly stands, in full view of that space, so that I, the visitor could turn my head and exclaim “Now I see - that’s where they came from!” No more gloomy light, no more orphaned statuary. They need to be re-joined to their other pedimental half which sits in this fine museum so that I, the visitor, can understand the whole silent conversation between them.

I simply do not trust the jargon of art historians or artistic directors however eminent who enlarge rather pompously on ‘creative acts’ - meaning the marble figures take on another equally important resonance by having been violently parted from their siblings. Chopped off in fact; the wounds are visible. I have no reason to disrespect the director of the British Museum but if I were playing him I would have to understand his motivation in speaking such transparently suspect words. It’s clear that it would be more than his job is worth if he allowed his natural intelligence to win over his enforced hypocrisy; he is required to speak diplomatically. So it is not he who is at fault; it is the Trustees of the British Museum who must surely be rather smug closet colonialists that they still don't choose to entertain what is only right and just. After more than two centuries, it is high time those marbles were returned to their rightful place.

I end by quoting from an eminent member of BCRPM, Alexi Kaye Campbell, who wrote most eloquently in The Guardianrecently: “Asking for something back of huge significance which has been taken from you when you were under foreign occupation is a demand for simple justice”. Europe has felt the dread hand of occupation far too often, and it behoves Britain and its premier institutions to start to accommodate the other point of view.

Greece’s ask is wholly justified. It must keep blowing zephyrous winds towards England.

Janet Suzman

The above article was published in Greek , Saturday 9 February 2019, in Ta Nea, Greece's daily newspaper.  It was also re-printed in Parikiaki.

Reaching an agreement for the permanent return of the Parthenon Sculptures from the British Museum to Greece  “is difficult, but not impossible,” said Greek Culture Minister Lina Mendoni in Parliament on Monday, 23 January 2023. Dr Mendoni reiterated the government’s stance that this specific cultural request “remains national, unanimous, consistent and clear.”

Greece does not recognize the British Museum's claim of ownership with regards to the Parthenon Scultptures currently exibited in Room 18, as they comprise a product of theft. Dr Mendoni added that “the government has been working from the start systematically, responsibly, and effectively to achieve the national goal – the return and reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures to the Acropolis Museum in Athens.”

ANA-MPA news

On August 2016, H E Ambassador Dimitris Caramitsos-Tziras came to London to start his term as Ambassador of Greece in the UK. In these three years that he has lived and worked in the UK, he has witnessed a sea change, from the outcome of the UK's Referendum and the on going Brext negotiations, to the election of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, plus the ongoing plight of the Parthenon Marbles, sadly still divided bettween Athens and London.

Yannis Andritsopoulos, UK correspondendant for Ta Nea, interviewed Ambassdor Dimitris Caramitsos-Tziras and the article can be read in Greek online here: https://www.tanea.gr/print/2020/09/26/world/brexit-mia-tainiacrdixos-xapi-ent/.

Taking up his post in London in the summer of 2016,  Ambassador Dimitris Caramitsos-Tziras experienced Britain's post Brexit Referendum division. This was followed by a myriad of consultations and challenges. Now as he prepares to return to Athens, the final outcome is still uncertain. "The British people were divided and the civil service unprepared. The lack of a plan was obvious. The further the negotiation progressed, the more the goal posts were moved. It was more of a process of internal political controversy. This is a disappointment for a country so big and powerful." Commented Ambassador Caramitsos-Tziras in Ta Nea.

"Recently, the no deal debate has reignited... I have always believed that this was part of the negotiating tactic and not a substantive intention. Personally, I believe that neither side wants a no deal, nor does it want to bear the burden of a deadlocked negotiation that would have economic, political and social implications for both. Clearly, though, the possibility of no deal has not gone off the table."

And on Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Ambassador acknowledges that Johnson is 'a product of the British educational establishment' and yet has "elements of modernity in his politics - a policy not always of principles and beliefs, but of realism, sometimes cynical. As a personality, he's very interesting. I've met him a few times. He always felt the need to show or demonstrate his ability to speak the Greek language. We covered the classical poets to the irregular verbs in Ancient Greek, which he  test my knowledge!" Adds the Ambassador.

And on the matter of the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, Yannis asked the Ambassador: "Do you think the British will return them?"

The Ambassador's reply sums up the current position:"Thanks to Greece's efforts, the pressing issue remains in the public debate. There is hope that some British leaders will see it differently. I believe that Britain is missing the opportunity to be at the forefront of international developments, at a time when everyone is talking about the return of certain cultural treasures. Prime Minister Johnson has the opportunity to make a magnanimous gesture that would be a reflection of the true spirit of these times."

H E Ambassador Dimitris Caramitsos-Tziras concludes his term of office in the UK on 30 September 2020

On our part, Chair Janet Suzman and Vice-Chair Professor Paul Cartledge plus the 13 members of our Committee (BCRPM), wish to thank the Ambassdor for his help and support over these past three years. Most memorable was the Ambassador's letter to Dr Hatwig Fischer, Director of the British Museum on 26 April 2018. The  Ambassador poliely turned down the opportunity to attend the opening of the 'Rodin and the Art of Ancient Greece' exhibition. You can read the letter heretoo. For BCRPM's press release on the Rodin exhibition, kindly follow the link or read more on articles written at that time, check out https://www.parthenonuk.com/latest-news/41-2018-news/393-rodin-bm-exhibition-not-a-justification-for-keeping-them-in-london and https://www.parthenonuk.com/component/content/article/26-articles-and-research/400-the-rodin-exhibition-at-the-british-museum-is-now-open?Itemid=101

Ian Jenkins (Senior Curator of Antiquities, British Museum) died suddenly last Saturday 28 November 2020.

We disagreed of course on the proper abode of the 'Elgin Marbles', but he was a very great scholar/connoisseur and good friend over many years, the last of them blighted by Parkinson's, and I am very sad that he is no longer with us.

What not many people will know is that he came from what would once have been called a 'humble', that is a working-class, background: his mother, he told me as we were visiting the Greek section of London's West Norwood cemetery together, had been 'in service'.

He wrote many excellent books and exhibition catalogues, including on the Parthenon sculptures, but my favourite remains Vases and Volcanoes: the Collection of Sir William Hamilton.

More controversially, he convened and edited the proceedings of a conference devoted to the 'cleaning' of those Parthenon Marbles confined in the B.M.

A recent, revealing interview with him was published in The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies' ARGO magazine, you can read this by folowing the link here.

Rest in peace.

Professor Paul Cartledge

A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture Emeritus

University  of Cambridge Faculty of Classics

The headline of Niko Efstathiou's article in Kathimerini, 05 February 2023, post his visit to London took our breath away: 'In London, the return of the Parthenon Sculptures seems all but inevitable'.

For most of us, and not just in Greece and the UK but globally too, this has been a hope that has burned passionately for what seems like forever.

That Niko encountered visitors in the British Museum's Room 18  admiring the fragmented and divided Parthenon Marbles, also saying how they hoped to see them reunited, was nothing new. This has been happening for sometime. More so however since the opening of the superlative Acropolis Museum in June 2009.

"No major news has surfaced in the past few months, since British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s last-minute cancellation of a meeting with his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis in late November reinvigorated a decade-old cultural debate. But today, the sentiment in London is that the return of the 2,500-year-old marble sculptures and reliefs is all but inevitable." Writes Niko as he goes on to outline the strong public support, which has also been there for sometime.

The British sense of far-play to the fore: if these sculptures were removed when the country of origin had no voice, we ought to do the right thing, and return them to the country of origin. A sentiment echoed at UNESCO's ICPRCP and translated into recommendations and conclusions to highlight the ever pressing need to find a solution to this, long running, cultural heritage dispute. A dispute that has kept the media writing, and voicing their observations. There has been no end to the coverage for this just cause.  

"In an exercise where legal formulation meets branding, significant efforts are being made by both parties to keep the agreement’s messaging positive, and the wording around ownership vague enough so that both Greece – which regards ownership over the artifacts as key in any potential agreement – and the British Museum – which is restricted by laws, such as the British Museum Act of 1963, that ban the removal of artifacts from its collection – can come to a consensus." Continues Nikos in his article and indeed we reflect on how many times BCRPM's Chairs and Vice-Chairs have urged the UK to consider amending the law. An amendment that was not given the consideration it deserved  because of fear. The fear of  'what else' would be requested and spurious 'floodgates' arguments stopping any sensible progress. Fear by the UK's PMs, and MPs. 

And Nikos goes on to add: "In the meantime, if there is one thing pushing the deal closer towards fruition it is the British Museum’s leadership".  Totally on point, as the British Museum and the UK Government were never keen to engage in dialogue.  Now under the leadership of George Osborne, the British Museum is looking for a 'win-win' long term partnership where cultural artefacts are given maximun mobility, and these peerless sculptures are allowed to travel back to Attica.

We will never forget when one of the sculptures, Ilissos, travelled to St Petersburg, nor can we forget the equally unsupportive reaction of those that hold the British Museum in the highest esteem. It was not, that Director's finest hour, made worse by what hasn't made relations between the West and Russia any better. The annexing of Crimea it seemed was just the begining of a grander scheme to gain more land, and Russia invaded Ukraine on the 24 February 2022. Ilissos' move from London to St Petersburg sparked more support for the reunification of these sculptures, than it did for the relations betweeb Russia and the West.

And so to 2024 and two friendly nations looking to a museum “partnership that requires no one to relinquish their claims.”

"Paradoxically, though the explosive diplomatic spat that took place in November suggested that the current UK government will not back a potential deal, Downing Street’s impulsive reaction may have also triggered a change in British politics. Sunak’s panicked decision to cancel the meeting with Mitsotakis ended up being widely criticized by all sides of the political spectrum, among others by Osborne himself, a former chancellor of the exchequer for a Tory government, who suggested it was a “hissy fit.” Continues to write Niko. Indeed what was PM Sunak thinking?

“I jumped up and down with joy when it happened, because obviously it was a mistake,” recalls Dame Janet Suzman, actress and chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, while detailing to Kathimerini her reaction to Sunak’s controversial snub. “I honestly think it is not something he thought about very deeply, it was a surface reaction in reply to an analogy used by the Greek PM on British TV. But it created a tidal wave of publicity for the return of the sculptures, so we were naturally quite thrilled in our organization.”

British politicians making mistakes, errors in diplomacy and international relations? Did this snub help the request for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles? Our Chair, Janet says yes.

"As much as Greece would like to keep British politics out of any potential agreement, guaranteeing governmental support would make the deal with the British Museum far easier to implement. Herein lies the last factor most probably aligning with Greece’s case – at least very soon. Brits are heading to the polls in less than a year for national elections, and with polls unanimously showing the Tories trailing the Labour Party by unprecedented margins, a change in government seems almost certain. By all accounts, Sunak’s most likely successor, current opposition leader Keir Starmer, will be far more cooperative in the case of the Parthenon Marbles’ reunification." Writes Nikos. And indeed this sentiment was also echoed by Victoria Hislop during her interviews, whilst in Athens for the launch of her latest fictional novel, which was published also in Greek. A book launch that took place at the Acropolis Museum, on Thursday, 25 January.

And PM Mitsotakis' endevour, his mission to reunite the sculptures, a mission he has continued to push on with for nearly two years. “Let me be clear, we will insist on their reunification,” he said in New York.

"And though it is now waiting time, and the exact details of the deal are far from set and still kept away from public scrutiny, it is hard not to see that his vision – once a huge point of contention with Britain – is more likely to materialize than ever before." Concludes Niko Efstathiou.

To read Niko's toughtful article in full, follow the link 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.

Two letters in the Guardian's letter's page, Wednesday 01 June 2022. Could we prefix the headline with #WednesdayWisdom?

It is dishonourable for the British Museum to keep the Parthenon marbles.

It should make no difference whether the Parthenon marbles were “removed from the rubble” or not. They must be given back. If our neighbours’ house is on fire while on holiday, and we rescue their valuables, we should surely give them back when they return. To keep them would be dishonourable.
David Simmonds
Woking, Surrey

As a secondhand bookseller, I arrived at the home of Harold Plenderleith shortly before he died in 1997 to buy books. He had been chief conservator with the British Museum, and I made the mistake of asking him for his views on repatriation of the Parthenon marbles (Greece rebuts British Museum claim Parthenon marbles were ‘removed from rubble’, 23 May). “Never!” he replied, “Never! We looked after the marbles when they would have been destroyed [by pollution?] had they stayed in Athens.” His vehemence tired him so much that he had to go back to bed. I assumed that this was the line taken by all staff at the time, and daren’t ask about the notorious scrubbing incident that took place while he was a junior in the early 1930s.

Shortly after, Glasgow Museums returned a ghost dance shirt to the Sioux community and my friend, the poet Anna Crowe, wrote a poem on it including the words: “We still believe some form of words, / or ritual will come between / us and another’s anger. Not seeing / that our invisibility’s what’s required.” Those at the British Museum still struggling to retain the Parthenon marbles should take heed.
Margaret Squires
St Andrews, Fife

The Times, 04 December 2021

The Parthenon Gallery in the Acropolis Musem, Athens, Greece.

 George Osborne wrote a Comment piece on page 29 of the Times on Saturday, it was entitled: "It's right to be proud of the British Museum". 

He goes on to ask: "Should we be ashamed of Britain’s past or should we celebrate it?"

He adds: " humans are capable of acts of great kindness and appalling brutality towards one another. The artefacts in the British Museum, with their depictions of love and war, reflect that truth over the course of two million years. It is why they help us understand ourselves better. That was the founding purpose when it was established as the first national public museum of the world in 1753, and it remains the purpose today. It was a product less of the British Empire (which was largely created in the following century) and more of the European Enlightenment."

And he does conceed that much has changed in the last 260 years, praising the 'magnificent Norman Foster roof over the Great Court at the Millennium', which he feels helps the British Museum to confidently call itself “the museum of the world, for the world”.

Although he insists that the British Museum is also 'just a museum', and that it cannot resolve the contractions between the Enlightenment as a western construct and universal human rights, or support those that question the very existence of the British Museum.

"Of course, there are those who demand the return of objects they believe we have no right to hold. That is not new either. Lord Byron thought the Elgin marbles should be back at the Parthenon. Our response is not to be dismissive. We are open to lending our artefacts to anywhere and to who can take good care of them and ensure their safe return — which we do every year, including to Greece."

Sadly he suggests that museums of culture ought not shrink in the face of  'culture wars' - why wars and not cultural cooperation? And that the British Museum needs to tell the story of common humanity. Surely common humanity needs to uphold respect for all countries cultural heritage! 

To read the full article, follow the link to The Times.

UK Ambassador to Greece Matthew Lodge tweeted the link to George Osborne's article in the Times and John Tasioulas, Director, Institute for Ethics in AI, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford and a member of BCRPM, quoted Ambassador Lodge's tweet:

TA NEA, Monday 06 December 2021

Yannis Andritsopulos, UK Correspondent for Ta Nea writes:

Suzman and Cartledge respond to Osborne

Reactions to the statements made by the new Chair of the British Museum on the reunification of the “Elgin Marbles” and their "loan" to Athens

The new Chair of the British Museum, George Osborne, was provocative and uncompromising on the question of the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures.

A week after the 'Ta Nea' reported that in a conversation former British Minister, Dennis McShane had with George Osborne, the new Chair of the British Museum rejected any talk of a permanent return of the Sculptures, speaking with "contempt" on the subject. Osborne "struck out once more" on Saturday: in an article in  "The Times" where he calls the Parthenon Sculptures "Elgin Marbles" and suggests that Greece discuss the possibility of borrowing them on the condition that Greece could "take good care of them and ensure their return" to London!"

It should be noted that the term "Elgin Marbles" has been officially abandoned by the British Museum for many years. The Museum now uses the name "Parthenon Sculptures", both in the signage of the hall that houses them (closed for a whole year after a water leak from the roof) and on its website.

"Surely there are those who question our right to exist. They did it in 1753, they do it again in 2021. Of course there are those who demand the return of items that they believe we have no right to possess. This is nothing new either. Lord Byron believed that the Elgin Marbles should return to the Parthenon," George  Osborne wrote in the Times.

And attempting to appear "magnanimous," he adds: "Our response will not be dismissive. We are open to lending items in our collection to anyone who can take good care of them and ensures their safe return - something we do every year, including with Greece," he says, ostentatiously ignoring the request for permanent reunification of the sculptures.

In response to Osborne, the Chair of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Sculptures (BCRPM), Janet Suzmantells 'Ta Nea': "I will remind him that Lord Byron's reputation remains heroic, while that of Lord Elgin is ragged. He cannot present the error as correct in pretending that the return of the Sculptures is a trivial matter. Greece must take them back and place them where they belong: opposite the brightest building in the world from where they were snatched."

Speaking to 'Ta Nea', Cambridge Professor Paul Cartledge, Vice-Chair of the BCRPM noted: "An old joke says: Why is the museum called British, since very few of the 8 miilion objects held by the BM are actually British-made'. Are the exhibits actually British? Is the name, British Imperial War Museum more accurate? The time has come for the Sculptures to return permanently to their home."

This is not the first time that Britain has proposed to lend Greece the Parthenon Sculptures. In the exclusive interview with 'Ta Nea' in January 2019, the director of the British Museum, Hartwig Fischer, said that Greece could borrow the "Marbles" for a limited period of time ("there are no indefinite loans", he explained at that time), but if Greece accepts that they belong to the Britain ("we lend to those who recognize the ownershiop as belonging to the British Museum ").

Almost 15 years earlier, in April 2007, his predecessor Neil McGregor said that lending the "Marbles" "for three months, six months" would be possible if Greece recognized the British Museum as the legal owner.

Essentially, what they are asking of Greece is to give up its claim to the Sculptures, "renouncing" its long-standing position (recently reiterated by Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Lina Mendoni) that they are stolen.

The British Government is demanding the same. In August 2018, in a letter from Culture Minister Jeremy Wright to his Greek counterpart Myrsini Zorba, published by 'Ta Nea', the British minister made it clear that "the museum's commissioners will consider any request for lending and, subsequently, returning any part of the collection, provided that the institution requesting the loan recognises the British Museum as the owner".

As is well known, Greece cannot accept Britain's ownership of the Sculptures, and will not agree to a loan as long as this condition is set.

Osborne was elected Chair of the Museum in the summer and assumed the post in October. After his ministerial tenure (2010-2016) he assumed the duties of director of the newspaper "Evening Standard" and advisor to the capital management giant BlackRock and investment bank Robey Warshaw.

In his article titled "It is right to be proud of the British Museum", he writes that "we do not feel ashamed of the exhibits in our collection" (some of which were controversially acquired during the colonial period and claimed as stolen by various states), since, as he also states, "we remain one of the few places on Earth where you can admire under one roof, the great civilizations of the world."

To read the Ta Nea article online follow the link here. 

It’s a bit disappointing that such a factually doubtful argument is sketched in by Jonathan Sumption about the Parthenon marbles, in complete contrast to his nice assessment of the travails of English National Opera, where a grossly unfair and skinflinty case has been put by ACE in wrenching this marvellous opera organisation limb from limb.

These scupltures were removed without express permission from the occupying power by Lord Elgin, Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman court, who wanted them to adorn his Scottish pile. The museum in Athens which Sumption airily dismisses was expressly built to house them, is gloriously modern, and is directly opposite the Parthenon so the visitor will at long last be able to make visual sense of where the figures stood before being hacked off the building by Elgin’s clumsy workers.

UNESCOhas voted as one to have them returned to their home turf. The Hellenic Republic itself has committed to have them returned the moment it gained its independence from Ottoman rule. Nor can the British Museum claim to have cared for them with curatorial exactitude; in Duveen’s day they had them scrubbed with wire cleaners to restore ‘whiteness’ to the Pentelic marble thereby removing the precious patina that had protected them.

Besides that destructive gaffe, Room 18 leaks and had been closed for a year and it has no air conditioning so cold and heat are always wafting through these rooms. And by the bye, there are far more than just 'three sadly deteriorated panels' in that Acropolis Museum, there is also the other half of the matchless pedimental figures and they deserve to be seen as a whole. Not to mention the frieze and the metopes. 

As to the hysterical slippery slope scenario that Jonathan Sumption fears, the Greeks are not asking for a single piece bar the British Museum’s ill-gotten Parthenon marbles. I don’t know what special hot-line he might have to lament the loss of all the world treasures he cites, but apart from the Benin Bronzes, Rosetta Stone, Hoa Hakananai'a,  we have not heard of any decimatory demands from elsewhere. Those museums that have opted to return seminal cultural objects taken in colonial days will have shown an openness of mind that the BM might well emulate in this instance.

I suggest former Judge Jonathan Sumption sticks to opera as his pet subject, and leaves Greek sculpture to its own battles.

+ PS: London: the British Museum displays around half of the surviving works: 56 blocks of frieze (247ft), 15 metopes (panels) and 17 pediment figures.
Athens: the Acropolis Museum displays 40 blocks of frieze, 48 metopes and 9 pediment figures. Fragments from the same pieces are in London and Athens. One can’t help wondering if Jonathan Sumption would perhaps enjoy his Rheingold more if he watched the first half in London and flew to Bayreuth during the long interval for the second bit?

Jonathan Sumptions article ( 'The cringing self-abasement of Britain’s museums') was published in The Spectator on 25 February 2023. Janet Suzman's response was sent into the publication to both the letters section and editorial. No part of Janet's response was published.

“Friendship seems to hold states together, and lawgivers care more for it than for justice; … and when men are friends they have no need of justice, while when they are just they need friendship as well, and the truest form of justice is thought to be a friendly quality.” Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, Ch 1.

Greece has been friends with the people of the United Kingdom for centuries, through good times and bad.

In October 1940, when Mussolini sought to occupy strategic Greek sites, the Greek Prime Minister (even though he was not democratically elected) simply declared, "Ohi!" ("No!") and Greece became the only European country that did not capitulate to the Italian fascists and the German Nazis.

Inspired by the Greek resistance, Churchill said “Hence we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like Greeks!”

On being asked in Parliament during the war whether it would consider returning the Parthenon marbles to Greece as a gift in exchange for its loyal bravery, the British Foreign Office conducted an in-depth process of consultation that received positive answers from all involved, including the British Museum itself. The Museum conceded that “the Greeks regard it as a spoliation of their national heritage under Turkish tyranny” and that “the point is that the Acropolis of Athens is the greatest national monument of Greece, and that the buildings to which the Marbles belonged are still standing or have been rebuilt”. The relevant official in the Foreign Office, however, felt that the matter would best be deferred for further consideration until the end of the war, when transport would be safer and the return “would set the seal on Anglo-Greek friendship and collaboration in the way that would most appeal … to Greek patriotic sentiment”.

The long history of friendship and good feeling in Britain towards the cause of the reunification of the marbles is demonstrated by the many British scholars, writers and intellectuals who have made public statements in support of the cause, the most notable being Lord Byron. The BCRPM is continuing a long and honourable philhellenic tradition in seeking to encourage the Aristotelean idea of a just and friendly act: for the return to Athens of the Parthenon Marbles would be just that. It is time.

Jane Suzman

Chair, British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles

25 June 2020

From Janet Suzman
Chair: British Committee for the Reunification
of the Parthenon Marbles (BCRPM)
1st January 2024

It really is very dispiriting that eminences like Lord Sumption (Sunday Times Dec 31st 2023) still make so many wrong assumptions. (Sorry). Here are some of them:

He fails to find a difference between a bas relief (the frieze, running round the perimeter of the building) and the 3D sculptures (metopes and pedimental figures). He can’t see why those pedimental figures make a stunning triangular pedimental shape when placed together, quite lost by enforced separation. The half of the extant frieze not in Bloomsbury is in Athens.

He avers that Lord Elgin obtained a ‘decree from the sultan authorising him to remove the sculptures.’ No such document has ever been found, only a permit (a ‘firman’) from a high official in Constantinople allowing him to retrieve ‘qualche pezzi di pietra’ already fallen down (it is an Italian copy) and to make drawings of pieces out of reach. Elgin, who kept a careful record of his expenses, bribed functionaries at every level to turn a blind eye to his crude attack on an already fragile building. Tourists reported shocking falls of precious metopes and such smashing to pieces, and a disdar – a guard at the time – was described as weeping at the mayhem inflicted on the building.

Elgin commandeered a ship of the line to transport his booty to Britain – so, taxpayers’ money – and had every intention of displaying the pieces at Broomhill, his Scottish seat, and none of sharing them with the public. Only when bankrupted after his rich wife left him did he turn to the British Government for a hasty sale.

Yet what’s done cannot be undone, and what matters now is a solution to a modern moral maze and not an old blame-game. And yet, Lord Sumption widens his argument to justify how artifacts have always voyaged to distant lands for our enlightenment. But this avoids the point; these Parthenon Marbles are sui generis. Elgin took far more than those cut off the Parthenon, but Greece is not asking for the caryatid he stole from the Erechtheum, nor is it asking for the Winged Victory of Samothrace from the Louvre.

In 2019 at a conference in Athens, I was invited into the then President’s rooms in his official residence where he took care to explain to me that Greece is proud that Hellenic pieces are in the Louvre (apart from Parthenon pieces…) and proud that around the world Greece’s treasures are displayed. “Let me be clear: we want only those pieces that Elgin took off the Parthenon itself”, he told me. The Greeks first claimed those Marbles when it was freed of Ottoman rule and became the Hellenic Republic in the 1830s. Melina Mercouri cast a spotlight on that claim in the 1980’s. Boris Johnson, when he was still an honest scholar, wrote a spirited article for the Oxford Union paper pleading for their return to the land of Achilles. The world is today more aware of cultural plunder than during colonial times. The British Museum is the only major museum in the world staying silent about its often ill-gotten contents. All of UNESCO is aware of this silence and is finding it embarrassing.

Sumption seems unmoved that panels from Duccio’s altarpiece are divided between nine museums, as if it might be diminished in some way were the whole to be displayed as Duccio intended. That altarpiece is a separate inspiration, whereas the Parthenon marbles are part of the very fabric of the building; it is one thing, conceived and carved as one thing. Alexander Herman (‘The Parthenon Marbles Dispute; Heritage, Law, Politics’ – Hart, Bloomsbury, 2023) makes this point: ‘Because we live in democratic times, we tend to have a predilection for remnants that connect us to the Athenian prototype. For this reason the Parthenon as a symbol continues to dominate’.

After two hundred years in London and badly displayed in a grey gallery in Bloomsbury since the 1960s, the Marbles have done their work of enlightening Europe to the glories of the ancient world. The United Kingdom is second to none in classical scholarship; the British Museum has millions of other ancient artifacts in its collections, and wonderful objects are promised for exhibition by the Greeks themselves to compensate for the (inevitable) return. George Osborne, Chairman of the BM Trustees, is embarking on an important act of international co-operation.

As to numbers, only one sixth of the 6 million annual visitors that enter its portals visit the Duveen Galleries. Approximately that same number passes through the Acropolis Museum in Athens, and why, one wonders, should not a Greek child be as astounded as a British one at the god-like figures caught in a high wind off Mount Olympus, and be as proud as Punch that his distant ancestors were so utterly brilliant with white stone? Why should the Greek people not thrill to such visions? They might be as far down the line as the Druids are to the English, but just listen to the fuss if half of Stonehenge had been nicked and plonked in Potsdamerplatz.

To read Lord Sumption's article, 'The Elgin Marbles weren’t stolen — Greece is just exploiting our weakness' follow the link to The Times.