For more information on this event please also visit the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sport.

23 October 2013 , Athens, Greece 

Eddie O’ Hara, Chairman of the British Committee for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles

THIRD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE OF EXPERTS ON

THE RETURN OF CULTURAL PROPERTY

OLYMPIA 23-27 OCTOBER 2013

THE CASE FOR THE REUNIFICATION OF THE PARTHENON MARBLES

I am fortunate today to have available to me the best possible of visual aids to support the case which I shall put before you.  We are sitting in a museum, past winner of the Museum of the Year Award, the principal display of which is the very subject which I shall be presenting.  We also sit within sight of that subject, the Parthenon, whose surviving sculptural components – not adornments – components, are at issue.

THE PARTHENON MARBLES, known also as The Parthenon Sculptures, formerly but I am pleased to say no longer The Elgin Marbles, are the subject of one of the oldest and most passionate disputes over the return of cultural property.

THE BRITISH COMMITTEE FOR THE REUNIFICATION OF THE PARTHENON MARBLES has been campaigning for thirty years in support of the reunification of these marbles.  I pay tribute to Eleni Cubittand her late husband James for their inspiration and initiative in establishing the committee, and the many distinguished academics, many now deceased, who have served the committee over that time.  Over the years similar groups have been established in other countries.  Now there are nearly 17 organisations on four continents, most of them affiliated to the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures (IARPS). 

I must first present the background to the dispute.  This will be simply factual and descriptive – and brief.  It will not include analysis of the artistic merits of the Parthenon and its sculptures.  It will necessarily skate over some scholarly details.  I apologise for this to those with much knowledge of the subject if this is superficial.  My purpose is to spend as much of my time as possible on the dispute over reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.