The British Government is refusing to negotiate with Greece about the return of the so-called Elgin Marbles despite a request to do so from the United Nations, a decision that could prompt Athens to begin legal action for the first time.
Athens prepares legal action over the UK's 'grubby' refusal to negotiate [Credit: Independent]
British campaigners likened the UK’s stance to “clinging on to stolen booty for dear life” and contrasted it with the “generous act” of returning the sculptures to help a friendly country on the brink of economic collapse. Youth unemployment has hit 50 per cent and suicide rates have soared amid a crisis so severe the Financial Times has warned Greece could turn into a “quasi slave economy”.
In 2013, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) invited the UK to take part in mediation about the marbles, created 2,500 years ago to decorate the Parthenon temple in Athens. Then last year it asked for a response by 31 March.
However a Government source said the UK “won’t be able to make any significant announcement this side of the [May] election”.
A motion calling for the UK to reply to Unesco and move to return the marbles is to be filed in the House of Commons on Monday.
The failure to respond in time could prompt Greece to abandon decades of diplomacy and take legal action, possibly in the European Court of Human Rights. A team of lawyers in London, including leading QC Geoffrey Robertson and Amal Clooney, wife of actor George, is preparing a “book-length” document setting out the options.
A source who has advised successive Greek governments said the main problem was finding a court to take jurisdiction in the case, but once that hurdle was overcome “then the lawyers are saying there is about a 75 to 80 per cent chance of success”.
The marbles are regarded as some of the finest works of art in history and a symbol of the birth of Western civilisation. Some sculptures were taken to Britain by Lord Elgin in controversial circumstances just over 200 years ago when Greece was ruled by the Ottoman Empire.
Dr Elena Korka, director of antiquities at the Greek Culture Ministry, said the central issue was “reunifying these exceptional, outstanding and most important sculptures, which belong as an integral part of a unique symbolic monument for the whole world”.
“This is the essence of it, making something which exists today as whole as it can be… this is what the public wants, every poll shows it. It’s such an important issue. Even if Greece didn’t ask for it, the whole world would,” she said.
She said if the British authorities relented it would be “a day of true joy, not only for the monument itself but I think for the value of the gesture for the sake of co-operation”. “It would definitely help the [public] morale. It would be a huge boost,” she said.
Asked about the prospect of legal action, Dr Korka said Greece was “still so much into the process of mediation that we’re not thinking of the next step”. “We haven’t exhausted the possibilities so let’s not go so fast,” she said.
She added that the UK’s silence since 2013 was “not so polite really”.
David Hill, chairman of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures in Australia, said there was a “growing appreciation even among people who are timid about the prospect of litigation that we have reached the point of last resort if this UNESCO gambit fails. The diplomatic and political strategies of the last 30 years have not produced any progress at all.”
Polls have consistently showed strong support in Britain for returning the marbles. In November, a survey for The Times found there was a two-to-one majority in favour.
Andrew George, chairman of Marbles Reunited and Liberal Democrat MP for St Ives, said: “One of our friends is down on their uppers and we can offer something to them that might make their lives easier and give them a lift, which can only be good for their economy.
“It would be a generous act which would improve Britain’s standing in the world. At the moment we look rather grubby… like we are clinging on to stolen booty for dear life.”
He said he planned to lodge an early day motion in the Commons tomorrow calling for the Government to “demonstrate that Britain is prepared to... reunite these British-held Parthenon sculptures with those now displayed in the purpose-built Acropolis Museum in the shadow of the monument to which they belong, the Parthenon in Athens”.
The British Museum, which denies Elgin stole the marbles, argues that it “tells the story of cultural achievement throughout the world” and the Parthenon sculptures are “a significant part of that story”. It regards itself as “a unique resource for the world” with visitors able to “re-examine cultural identities and explore the complex network of interconnected human cultures” within its walls.
“The Parthenon Sculptures are a vital element in this interconnected world collection. They are a part of the world’s shared heritage and transcend political boundaries,” it says.
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it would “respond in due course” to UNESCO.
Author: Ian Johnston | Source: Indpendent [March 07, 2015]
An ancient Cypriot clay ring-vase (kernos - ceremonial vessel), dated to the Protogeometric period (1050-900 BC), has been repatriated to Cyprus from the United Kingdom. The vessel was identified by the Department of Antiquities at a London-based antiquities dealer’s shop, as a result of the Department's routine online investigations.
The ring vessel was part of Mr. Christakis Hadjiprodromou’s registered private collection that was kept in his house in Ammochostos (Famagusta) prior to the Turkish invasion in 1974 [Credit: Dept. of Antiquities, Cyprus]
Following a request by the Department of Antiquities and the Cyprus Police, the shop handed over the vessel to the London Metropolitan Police, which in turn, handed it over to the High Commission of the Republic of Cyprus in London, in October 2016. A Conservator of the Department of Antiquities supervised the packing of the antiquity in London and escorted it to Cyprus on 16 November 2016.
A conservator of the Department of Antiquities supervised the packing of the antiquity in London and escorted it to Cyprus on 16 November 2016 [Credit: Dept. of Antiquities, Cyprus]
The vessel was part of Mr Christakis Hadjiprodromou’s registered private collection that was kept in his house in Ammochostos (Famagusta) prior to the Turkish invasion in 1974. As a result of the invasion, Mr Hadjiprodromou’s residence was pillaged, and his collection was looted, its objects scattered around the world.
It is noted that another antiquity (a clay horse-and-rider of the Cypro-Archaic period, approx. 700 BC), from the same collection, was repatriated from London in July 2016.
Source: Department of Antiquities, Republic of Cyprus [November 24, 2016]
A private citizen’s group called the “Athenians’ Association” said on Thursday they filed a lawsuit at the European Court of Human Rights against the United Kingdom over the removal of the Parthenon Marbles by Lord Elgin in the 19th century, the association said in a press conference in Plaka on Thursday.
Visitors look at the Parthenon Sculptures at the British Museum in London [Credit: EPA]
The association, which opened in 1895 and among whose aims is to research the history of Athens and help preserve of its cultural monuments, said the decision was taken after its board was informed about Britain’s refusal to participate in a mediation procedure, as part of the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for Promoting the Return of Cultural Goods in the Country of Origin.
“The reason we disclose our action today is because not only was the suit not rejected [by the Court], but it was officially lodged and recently the Court requested clarifications, which presages that it will reach the courtroom,” the member of the association’s board, Stratis Stratigis said at the press conference.
Stratigis has been entrusted with monitoring the legal aspect of the suit, and is also responsible for coordinating the actions and contacts that will be needed in Greece and abroad.
He said the Athens Association has been following the issue closely for years and when it realized in March 2015 that Britain had rejected even its participation in the mediation procedure, it decided it was an opportunity to appeal before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg as a private association, independently from the State.
Stratigis also clarified that this move by the association does not affect in any way Greece’s right to sue when it chooses at a national or international court.
“Besides, the issue of recovering architectural elements recognized by UNESCO World Heritage monuments which have been stolen is ongoing,” he said. “It is therefore in the country’s interest to keep the issue alive in international public opinion and periodically update on the issue with appropriate actions,” he added.
According to the association’s press release which followed the press conference, its founding members comprised of descendants of the Athenians who stood up against the destruction of the Parthenon by Lord Elgin. It also said that one of the very first actions undertaken by the Association was an event organised in 1896 to commemorate the liberation of the Acropolis from the Ottoman Turks.
During the event, the association’s deputy chairman, Professor Theodossios Venizelos (1821-1900) said the Parthenon was “a place of daily worship, the holy of holies, a life good for our ancestors and that the Athenians strongly protested against the despoilment of the Acropolis’ extant statues by Elgin.”
The head of an ancient Greek statue of extraordinary artistic and historical value will finally arrive back in Italy on Friday – almost three decades after being illegally ripped from the ground.
The terracotta head of the Greek god Hades [Credit: MiBACT]
The stunning statue had been on display at the J.Paul Getty museum in Los Angeles but was eventually discovered to be Italian property after archaeologists identified one of the statue's beard curls among fragments found at a looted site in Sicily.
The unique terracotta head depicts Hades, god of the underworld. He is shown with a bushy blue beard and curly hair, which still bear a good deal of the blue and red pigments with which they were painted 2,400 years ago.
But the mission to bring Hades home has taken years.
“It was great to be able to work with our Sicilian counterparts to identify the provenance of the head,” a spokesperson for the museum told The Local.
"The process of identifying the head took two years and the museum agreed to give it back in 2013. Since then it's been in storage while we waited for instructions from Sicily for its eventual return. Officials finally arrived to pick up the statue this week.”
The head had been on display in Los Angeles since 1985, when the museum acquired it from Belgian businessman - and long time partner of former US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy - Maurice Tempelsman, for $500,000 (€460,000).
The looted head of a Greek statue has finally come back to Italy [Credit: Ministero Degli Affari Estari]
Templeman sold the piece through successful London art-dealer Robin Symes, who specialized in fencing looted antiques, often of Italian provenance. In January 2005, Symes was sentenced to 21 years in jail (of which he served a mere seven) for trafficking stolen pieces.
On Friday, the statue will finally take pride of place at Enna's Adione museum, a stone's throw from the site where it was originally taken: an outcome which has satisfied Italians on both sides of the Atlantic.
“We owe it above all to the archaeologists who helped identify that ceramic lock of blue hair among the remains of a fraudulent dig site,” said Italy's Consul General in LA, Antonio Verde.
In January 2014, several other pieces of looted art were returned to Enna's Adione museum by the J. Paul Getty museum.
Items included a two-metre Greek marble statue of Venus, which the museum had also bought from Symes in 1988 for an eye-watering $18 million (€16.4 million).
Former curator of the museum, Marion True, was placed on trial in Italy in 2005, but was acquitted after the charges against her expired in 2012.
But the institution is not alone in giving Italy back illegally acquired objects. In recent years pieces have been returned from other high-profile institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
According to one Italian prosecutor, artworks from more than 100,000 raided tombs worth in excess of €460 million have been illegally taken out of the country.
Author: Patrick Browne | Source: The Local [January 31, 2016]
Diplomacy rather than litigation will help Greece win its claim for the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum, Alternate Minister for Culture Nikos Xydakis said in an interview on Wednesday.
Alternate Minister for Culture Nikos Xydakis says he has not ruled out court action for the return of the ancient Parthenon Sculptures from the British Museum in London, but diplomacy still seems the most effective option {Credit: Kathimerini]
“On the one hand, you can’t file a suit over any issue, and, on the other, the outcome in international courts is never certain,” Xydakis said.
Greece’s Alternate Minister for Culture Nikos Xydakis during an interview with reporters in Athens [Credit: AP/Thanassis Stavrakis]
“The way to winning back the Marbles is diplomatic and political,” he said in response to a report by the British firm of cultural heritage lawyers Norman Palmer and Geoffrey Robertson, urging Greece to take swift legal recourse.
Greece has not abandoned the idea of resorting to international justice to repatriate the Parthenon marbles and is investigating new ways in which it might bring a claim against the British Museum.
A frieze that forms part of the Parthenon marbles [Credit: Graham Barclay/Getty Images]
As campaigners prepare to mark the 200th anniversary of the antiquities’ “captivity” in London, Athens is working at forging alliances that would further empower its longstanding battle to retrieve the sculptures.
“We are trying to develop alliances which we hope would eventually lead to an international body like the United Nations to come with us against the British Museum,” the country’s culture minister, Aristides Baltas, revealed in an interview.
“If the UN represents all nations of the world and all nations of the world say ‘the marbles should be returned’ then we’ll go to court because the British Museum would be against humanity,” he said. “We do not regard the Parthenon as exclusively Greek but rather as a heritage of humanity.”
But the politician admitted there was always the risk of courts issuing a negative verdict that would wreck Athens’ chances of having the artworks reunited with the magnificent monument they once adorned.
“Courts do not by definition regard [any] issue at the level of history or morality or humanity-at-large. They look at the laws,” said Baltas, an academic and philosopher who played a pivotal role in founding Syriza, Greece’s governing leftist party. “As there are no hard and fast rules regarding the issue of returning treasures taken away from various countries, there is no indisputable legal basis.”
The move came to light as the world’s longest-running cultural row looks poised to intensify. Almost 200 years have elapsed since the British parliament voted on 7 June 1816 to purchase the collection from Lord Elgin, the Scotsman who as ambassador to the Ottoman Empire ordered the frieze to be torn from the Parthenon and shipped to England. Activists are counting down to what they call the “black anniversary”.
In London, only metres away from the British Museum, a huge billboard funded by campaigners in Australia this weekend showed six strategically placed words across a statue of classic nudity – and above a list of the vital contributions Greece has made to modern democratic life. The words read: “Please give us back our marbles.”
“There is no point any longer in taking the gentle approach because that has failed,” said Alexis Mantheakis, chairman of the New Zealand-based International Parthenon Sculptures Action Committee. “The British have never given anything back, be it colonies or artefacts, without pressure. To ignore that fact is to undermine the chances of any success in the campaign for the return of the Parthenon sculptures.”
Seen as the high point of classical art – a peerless example of beauty in carving – the antiquities were acquired for £35,000 on condition they be exhibited in the British Museum. Mortified, steeped in debt and determined to dispel rumours that he had exploited his post as emissary to plunder the Acropolis, Elgin reluctantly accepted. It had, all expenses considered, cost him nearly twice that he claimed.
But in a 141-page document of legal advice – the details of which have been leaked exclusively to the Guardian – QCs specialised in cultural restitution say Elgin clearly exceeded the authority, or firman, he was given when he ordered the treasures to be “stripped” from the monument. The lawyers, including the human rights expert Amal Clooney, insist that Greece could mount a strong case to win the marbles back.
“We consider that international law has evolved to a position which recognises, as part of the sovereignty of a state, its right to reclaim cultural property of great historical significance which has been wrongly taken in the past – a rule that would entitle Greece to recover and reunite the Parthenon sculptures.”
The advice – provided at the request of the country’s former centre-right coalition but previously only made public in summation – amounts to a toolbox of how Athens could pursue its claim to the classical masterpieces. Greece could either bring the UK before the European court of human rights, or the UN cultural body Unesco could apply for an advisory judgment by the international court of justice. Court action could prompt Britain, which has repulsed every entreaty to date, to agree to arbitration or mediation.
“The legal case is strongly arguable, both under international customary law and provisions of the European convention. [Greece] would stand a reasonable prospect of success.”
But the lawyers also counsel that Athens should move fast in pursuing litigation. Mired in its longest recession in modern times, many fear the cash-strapped country would not have the means to take such action.
The advice, which took almost a year to draft, was reputedly financed by a Greek shipowner sympathetic to the cause.
“Unless the claim is brought fairly soon, Greece may be met with the argument that it has ‘slept on its rights’ too long for them to be enforced,” the lawyers argue, adding that even if initial litigation failed it would not be the end of the fight.
“If Greece does fail, it will very likely be on technical ‘admissibility’ grounds, which will have nothing to do with the merits of its claim. A case lost on a legal technicality can often be fought again.”
Author: Helena Smith | Source: The Guardian [May 08, 2016]
An incredibly rare gold crown estimated to be more than 2,000 years old was found in a tattered cardboard box under a retiree’s bed in England.
The incredibly rare gold crown believed to be more than 2,000 years old has been discovered under a bed in a Somerset cottage [Credit: Dukes/BNPS]
The elderly man— who wants to remain anonymous— says he inherited it from his grandfather and had put it away with other “stuff” he had accumulated over the years.
The perfectly preserved gold wreath, used in Ancient Greece to crown athletic and artistic competitions, as well as in religious ceremonies, could be worth more than $200,000, according to auctioneers who plan to put the item up for sale.
According to Guy Schwinge, the auctioneer who was invited to the man’s house to have a look at items he wanted to auction, “It is notoriously difficult to date gold wreaths of this type. Stylistically it belongs to a rarefied group of wreaths dateable to the Hellenistic period and the form may indicate that it was made in Northern Greece. It is eight inches across and weighs about 100 grams. It’s pure gold and handmade, it would have been hammered out by a goldsmith.”
The valuable artefact has been estimated to be worth at least £100,000 [Credit: Phil Yeomans/BNPS]
Gold wreaths like the one found were meant to imitate the wreaths of real leaves that were worn in Ancient Greece in religious ceremonies and given as prizes in athletic and artistic contests.
They usually depicted branches of laurel, myrtle, oak and olive trees, which were symbolic of concepts such as wisdom, triumph, fertility, peace and virtue.
Due to their fragile nature, they were only worn on very special occasions. Many were dedicated to the Gods in sanctuaries or placed in the graves of royal or aristocratic people as funerary offerings.
The delicate Greek myrtle wreath, which is thought to date to 300BC, was reportedly found in a tatty cardboard box under the pensioner's bed [Credit: Dukes/BNPS]
Bits of dirt embedded on the wreath suggest this one was buried at some point, according to London’s Daily Mail, which first reported on the find.
Most date to the Hellenistic period (323BC to 31BC), which this one is also thought to date from, and show the exceptional skill of goldsmiths at that time.
Some were made during earlier periods but the wreaths became more frequent after Alexander the Great’s Eastern conquests, when gold was more available in Greece.
The current owner's grandfather is said to have 'acquired' the valuable crown sometime in the 1940s [Credit: Phil Yeomans/BNPS]
The current owner’s grandfather was a great collector who was fascinated by archaeology and the ancient world.
Although his family do not know how he acquired it, it is likely he bought it sometime in the 1940s when he travelled extensively.
The man said: ‘I knew my grandfather travelled extensively in the 1940s and 50s and he spent time in the north west frontier area, where Alexander the Great was, so it’s possible he got it while he was there. But he never told me anything about this wreath.”
“I inherited quite a lot of things from him and I just put this to one side for almost a decade and didn’t really think anything of it. Recently I decided I needed to sort through things and called in Duke’s (auctioneers) to have look at some of the items he’d passed on to me.”
Author: Gregory Pappas | Source: The Pappas Post [May 28, 2016]
Culture Minister Aristides Baltas decided that Athens will no longer claim the return of the Parthenon sculptures from the British Museum in fear that Greece might lose the legal battle.
Speaking to the parliamentary committee on educational issues, Baltas said, “We will not proceed with legal claims because we are at risk of losing the case.” The committee is working on a draft bill for the return of cultural artifacts that have been illegally removed from Greek soil.
Former culture minister Costas Tasoulas called the handling of the issue “unacceptable.” Tasoulas had made an effort to pursue the return of the Parthenon sculptures using the legal advice of a British law firm.
The British law firm gave the document of their counsel to the Greek Embassy in London which was forwarded to the ministry of culture. The ministry of culture ignored the counsel and refused to accept it.
It should be noted that the total cost of the legal advice came to 200,000 English pounds, an amount that was paid by a Greek living in London who preferred to remain anonymous.
The fact that Amal Clooney was part of the legal team that came to Athens, gave the issue great publicity and drew international sympathy for the Greek argument. In fact, Tasoulas said, at the time the issues was raised, three British lawmakers stated in British Parliament that the marbles should return to their place of origin.
Greece argued that the sculptures should return to Athens to “join” the remaining marbles in their natural habitat and be exhibited at the Acropolis Museum with the rest of the sculptures so that the world admires them as a whole.
Tasoulas said that Baltas’ decision is defeatist and presumes that Greece will lose the case in international courts when in fact the country has a solid argument and international support in its favor. He further said that the defeatist attitude enhances the argument of the opposite side.
Author: A. Makris | Source: Greek Reporter [December 09, 2015]
The 5th of October 2015 is the centenary of the start of the First World War’s Salonika Campaign, when a large Allied army arrived at the port of Thessaloniki (Salonika) in northern Greece.
Finds from the warrior's grave on display in the British Museum [Credit: British Museum]
The video below introduces both the Salonika Campaign and the British Salonika Force archaeological collection at the British Museum. The collection was formed as a result of trench digging and other military activity in Macedonia. The initial offensive in autumn 1915 failed and so British and French forces dug themselves into the rich archaeological landscape around Thessaloniki.
Various archaeological finds were gathered by both the British and French armies in temporary museums in Thessaloniki and after the end of the war they were despatched, apparently with the agreement of the Greek government, to London and Paris. Significant finds, such as the warrior’s grave on display in the British Museum, are described as well as the important personalities involved in the formation of the collection.
Archaeologists such as Professor Ernest Gardner, who had studied in Greece before the First World War, served in the army in intelligence roles but also found time to pursue their archaeological interests.
A large complex used for food preparation, distribution and storage facilities plus an “intriguing device” for keeping track of the 30-day lunar calendar were investigated during the latest excavations in the islet of Geronisos off Paphos.
Excavations at Geronisos Island [Credit: Cyprus Mail]
The complex was built along the southern edge of the island during the final years of Ptolemaic-Egyptian rule on Cyprus, the antiquities department said.
It said that four weeks of excavations had just been completed with a focus on the complex used for food preparation, distribution and storage facilities built along the southern edge of the island.
The excavations were carried out by the New York University Geronisos Island Expedition under the direction of Joan Breton Connelly. An international team of senior staff members and students excavated within the island sanctuary of Apollo, just opposite Agios Georgios tis Pegeias.
The rubble of a wall with an associated plaster floor was unearthed, dated to the first century BC Excavations also revealed fine Hellenistic pottery deposited up against this wall, including a skyphos-bowl of “Koan-Knidian” type, produced in local materials. Eight Chalcolithic pounder stones, a mortar and flints found on the floor give evidence of Hellenistic reuse of Chalcolithic tools, the department said.
During the four weeks, Professor Jolanta Mlynarczyk of the University of Warsaw continued her study of Geronisos pottery, while Dr Mariusz Burdajewicz worked on his publication of the Geronisos glass finds.
Dr Alaria Bultrighini of University College London began her study of a rare stone parapegma unearthed on Geronisos, “an intriguing device” for keeping track of the 30-day lunar calendar. Dr Paul Croft of the Lemba Archaeological Field Station supervised excavations within the Central South Complex and continued his study of the Geronisos animal bones. Architect Richard Anderson undertook a 3-D digital survey of the island’s architectural remains the department said.
“The 2015 season included new and important work on the mainland opposite Geronisos where a surface survey was undertaken, stretching from Maniki Harbor at the south to the acropolis of Agios Georgios tis Pegeias at the north,” it added.
The relationship of Geronisos to the mainland settlement is now a major focus of the work, it said.
Geronisos, also known as ‘Holy Island’, due to its remoteness from the mainland has preserved its treasures. The 12,000 square metre rock, flourished during the late Hellenistic period and its soil has produced coins, pottery, glass objects, inscriptions and important architectural remains.
The New York University archaeological mission has suggested that the island appeared to have been devastated by an earthquake during approximately the 1st century B.C and life returned to the island again during the 6th century A.D, when a reservoir and animal shelters were constructed.
The first-ever legal bid to force the UK to return the Parthenon Sculptures to Greece has been thrown out by the European Court of Human Rights.
A frieze which forms part of the Elgin Marbles, taken from the Parthenon in Athens, on display at the British Museum [Credit: Getty Images]
The court ruled that because the alleged theft of the sculptures from the 2,500-year-old Parthenon temple took place more than 150 years before the UK signed up to the human rights convention, it did not have the power to consider the lawsuit.
Campaigners for the return of the sculptures pointed out that the court had not made a ruling on the “merits of the case”.
The marbles were taken from the temple by the Earl of Elgin in the 1800s and he then sold them to the British Government in 1816 after running into financial difficulties.
At the time, Greece was occupied by the Ottoman Empire. Lord Elgin obtained a “firman”, a legal document, that apparently allowed him to take some stones but some believe it did not entitle him to cut sculptures from the building.
The marbles are regarded as some of the finest sculptures ever created and the Parthenon, built by the democratic Athenians after victory over the Persian Empire, is arguably the most important monument in Europe.
The Greek Government was given extensive legal advice from lawyers Amal Clooney and Geoffrey Robertson, but appears to have decided against taking Britain to court.
Instead, the case against the UK was brought by the >Athenians’ Association, a cultural group, after the British Government refused an offer last year by UNESCO to mediate between Greece and Britain.
The British Government and the British Museum, where about half the surviving Parthenon sculptures are on display, insist the Earl of Elgin acquired them legally.
>In its ruling, which was sent to the Athenian Association last month, the European court said: “The Court notes that the marbles were removed from Greece in the early 19th century.
“In order to bring the matter within the temporal jurisdiction of the Court, the applicant has sought to rely on the refusal of the United Kingdom to enter into mediation with Greece concerning the return of the marbles and the continuing refusal to return the marbles.
“However, it is clear from the nature of the applicant’s complaints that its underlying grievance is the allegedly unlawful removal of the marbles from Greece. The removal having occurred some 150 years before the Convention was drafted and ratified by the respondent state, the applicant’s complaints would appear to be inadmissible.”
The judges also said the Athenians’ Association did not have “any right … to have the marbles returned to Greece”.
The Athenians’ Association’s legal representative, Vassilis Sotiropoulos, said the case was a “first step”.
He claimed the judgement could actually help the Greek Government take legal action in the future.
“Globally, this first statement of the European Court, historically the first court judgement, on the subject of the Parthenon Marbles highlights the points that Greece should focus on with particular attention in her recourse against the United Kingdom,” Mr Sotiropoulos said.
“This decision leaves open the possibility of a recourse submitted by Greece being proclaimed admissible, thus also indirectly offering precious expertise on how to handle the case henceforth.”
Andrew George, of the British Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, said the ruling did not affect the arguments in favour of sending the sculptures back.
“We’ve learned nothing from this. There’s been no test of the merits of the case, just that this is not the arena to resolve the justice or otherwise of the case,” he said.
“The UK Parliament effectively state-sanctioned the improper acquisition of the sculptures exactly 200 years ago this year.
“But this doesn’t make it a cause of pride for the British, nor does it make the act nor their continued retention either ethical or just.”
On 10 July, a cross-party group of MPs launched a >Bill to return the sculptures to Athens, where the Acropolis Museum was built specifically to house them within sight of the Parthenon.
The British Museum argues that it “tells the story of cultural achievement throughout the world, from the dawn of human history over two million years ago until the present day”.
“The Parthenon Sculptures are a vital element in this interconnected world collection. They are a part of the world’s shared heritage and transcend political boundaries,” it says.
“The Acropolis Museum allows the Parthenon sculptures that are in Athens (approximately half of what survive from antiquity) to be appreciated against the backdrop of ancient Greek and Athenian history. The Parthenon sculptures in London are an important representation of ancient Athenian civilisation in the context of world history.”
Author: Ian Johnston | Source: Telegraph [July 20, 2016]
The copper used to make Ötzi’s axe blade did not come from the Alpine region as had previously been supposed, but from ore mined in southern Tuscany. Ötzi was probably not involved in working the metal himself, as the high levels of arsenic and copper found in his hair had, until now, led us to assume.
Scientists present the latest findings on Ötzi’s death at the International Mummy Congress [Credit: PBS]
His murder over 5,000 years ago seems to have been brought about due to a personal conflict a few days before his demise, and the Iceman, despite his normal weight and active life-style, suffered from extensive vascular calcification.
Scientists from all over the world presented these and other new insights, at the 3rd Bolzano Mummy Congress. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Ötzi’s discovery, the three days of the Congress, from 19th to 21st September, are all dedicated to the Iceman.
Since the Iceman came on the scene on 19th September 1991, he has not ceased to fascinate scientists from all over the world. No corpse has been more thoroughly investigated. “In terms of his significance for science, Ötzi is not simply an isolated mummy discovery. He could be seen as a typical European from earlier times and is precious for this reason alone,” explained the anthropologist Albert Zink from EURAC Research, the scientific leader of the congress.
“Ötzi is so well preserved as a glacier mummy and through this alone, he serves us researchers as a model for developing scientific methods which can then be used on other mummies,” said Zink.
“What concerns us most these days is to know who the Iceman was, what role he played in society and what happened to him in the last days of his life. Sophisticated procedures, now available to scientists, are continually supplying us with new evidence,” said Angelika Fleckinger, Director of the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology which co-organised the Congress.
Links to Central Italy
One surprising new fact has been unearthed which concerns the most extraordinary item amongst Ötzi’s equipment – the valuable copper axe. In contrast to what had previously been presumed, the copper used in the blade does not derive from the Alpine region (researchers had suggested East or North Tyrol as the most likely provenance) but from Central Italy. Professor Gilberto Artioli‘s archaeometallurgy research group at the University of Padua has discovered that the metal had been obtained from ore mined in South Tuscany.
In order to determine its origin, Italian scientists took a tiny sample from the blade and compared the proportion of lead isotope – a kind of “finger print” of the ore deposits which remains unchanged in any objects subsequently made from the ore – with the corresponding data from numerous mineral deposits in Europe and the entire Mediterranean region. The result pointed unequivocally to South Tuscany.
“No one was prepared for this finding. We will commission further analyses in order to double-check these first results” stressed Angelika Fleckinger. If the original results are confirmed, this new evidence will give researchers some interesting food for thought.
Was Ötzi as a trader travelling possibly as far as the area around today’s Florence? What was the nature of the trading and cultural links with the south in those days? Did the exchange of goods also involve movements of the population? That is to say, did people from the south venture into the Alpine region and vice versa?
“This is a particularly exciting insight especially with respect to questions about population development”, explained Albert Zink.
Was he or was he not involved in smelting copper?
Another question long debated amongst the scientific community, is whether Ötzi was perhaps involved himself in the process of copper smelting. Scientists have advocated this thesis because raised arsenic and copper levels have been measured in the mummy’s hair, a fact which might possibly be explained, for example, by breathing in the smoke which is released when melting and pouring metal.
Geochemist Wolfgang Müller of Royal Holloway, University of London, who had already used isotope analysis to establish Ötzi’s South Tyrol origins, has now turned to this question once more. Using highly developed methods of analysis such as laser mass spectrometry and speciation analysis, Müller’s team examined not just hairs but also samples from Ötzi’s nails, skin and organs for possible heavy metal contamination.
His, so far still provisional, findings suggest that the hypothesis that Ötzi was involved in processing metal was premature. Müller did indeed find slightly raised arsenic values in the nail sample, but not in other tissue samples. Raised copper levels were only present at the extremities and this correlates with other change indicators, and thus it is doubtful if one can establish a heavy metal contamination for Ötzi’s actual life time: raised values might also be due to environmental influences over the 5,000 years since his death.
Radiological investigations with the latest CT equipment
A new computer tomography (CT) scan of the Iceman was undertaken by radiologists Paul Gostner and Patrizia Pernter in January 2013 in the Department of Radiology of Bozen-Bolzano Hospital. To do this they used a CT-scanner of the latest generation which, thanks to its large opening, allowed the doctors to run Ötzi rapidly through the machine from head to toe despite the way his arm is angled. In addition to the vascular calcification in the arteries of his stomach and legs which had already been known about, the superior image allowed doctors to spot three small areas of calcification near to the outflow tracts of the heart which had hitherto escaped their notice. This substantiates the earlier finding made by molecular biologists in EURAC that Ötzi had a strong genetic predisposition to cardiovascular diseases and that this was probably also the main reason for his general arteriosclerosis.
Investigations of a “profiler”
Ötzi was murdered. The arrow head discovered in 2001 in his left shoulder suggests this. But what were the circumstances surrounding the crime? In 2014 the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology commissioned Chief Inspector Alexander Horn of the Munich Criminal Investigation Department to investigate the “Ötzi Murder Case” using the latest criminological methods.
Horn interrogated various “acquaintances” of the murder victim such as archaeologists from the museum who had been looking after Ötzi for years, or experts from forensic medicine, radiology and anthropology. Members of the project team also took part in an on-site inspection of the location in Schnals Valley in South Tyrol Italy where the body was found.
The results of this investigation were that Ötzi probably did not feel threatened shortly before his murder, because the situation at the Tisenjoch location where he was found indicates that he had been resting while enjoying a hearty meal. In the days prior to the murder he had incurred an injury to his right hand, probably as a result of defensive action during the course of a physical altercation. No further injuries could be found, and this might serve to indicate that he had not been defeated in this particular conflict.
The arrow shot, which was probably fatal, seems to have been launched from a great distance and took the victim by surprise, from which we may infer that it was an act of treachery. Further medical findings suggest that the victim fell and that the perpetrator used no further violence. The perpetrator probably did not wish to risk a physical altercation, but instead chose a long distance attack to kill the Iceman. As valuable objects such as the copper axe remained at the crime scene, theft can be excluded as the motive.
The reason for the offence is more likely to be found in some sort of personal conflict situation, in a previous hostile encounter – “a behavioural pattern which is prevalent even today in the bulk of murder crimes”, as Alexander Horn explained.
In the summer of 430 B.C., a mass outbreak of disease hit the city of Athens, ravaging the city’s population over the next five years. In his History of the Peloponnesian War, the historian Thucydides, who witnessed the epidemic, described victims’ “violent heats in the head,” “redness and inflammation in the eyes,” and tongues and throats “becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath.” Patients would experience hot flashes so extreme, he wrote, that they “could not bear to have on [them] clothing or linen even of the very lightest description.” In the later stages of infection, the disease would end with “violent ulceration” and diarrhea that left most too weak to survive.
The Plague at Ashdod by Nicolas Poussin [Credit: WikiCommons]
More than 2,000 years later, the Plague of Athens remains a scientific mystery. Thucydides’ account—the only surviving description of the epidemic—has been the basis for dozens of modern-day theories about its cause, including bubonic plague, cholera, typhoid fever, influenza, and measles. And in June, an article in the journal Clinical Infectious Disease suggested another answer: Ebola.
The article, written by the infectious-disease specialist Powel Kazanjian, is the latest in a string of papers arguing that Athens was once the site of an Ebola outbreak. The surgeon Gayle Scarrow first raised the suggestion in The Ancient History Bulletin in 1988. Eight years later, the epidemiologist Patrick Olson published a letter in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a journal of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, comparing the symptoms of the Athens plague to those of Ebola, which had broken out in the Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire) and Sudan in 1976. “The profile of the ancient disease,” he concluded, “is remarkably similar.”
But not everyone was on board with Olson’s theory. In a 1996 interview with the The New York Times, the epidemiologist David Morens argued that Thucydides wasn’t the most reliable source: Unlike his contemporary, Hippocrates, he wasn’t a physician, and many of the terms he used to describe the disease’s symptoms were ambiguous. For example, the ancient Greek phlyktainai could refer to either blisters or callouses. Noting Thucydides’ claim that the epidemic had originated “in the parts of Ethiopia above Egypt” (today’s sub-Saharan Africa), Morens also questioned how people with Ebola, a highly contagious and deadly disease, could make it all the way to Greece without dying along the way.
The duration of the Athens epidemic also presented another problem: At five years, it was much longer than any known Ebola outbreaks, the majority of which lasted less than a year. And finally, Morens asked, if Ebola had made it out of Africa millennia ago, why were there no other accounts of the disease re-appearing anywhere on Earth until 1976?
Unfortunately for both Olson and Morens, however, neither had a more concrete way to back up their arguments. Their efforts to identify the Plague of Athens, like all the other efforts before them, could only rely on the written record left by Thucydides, which made confirmation more or less impossible.
This, in a nutshell, is the challenge of ancient pathology: With DNA testing, it’s often possible to identify the cause of an epidemic that took place centuries or even millennia ago. Finding remains of those victims to test, though, is another story.
Sometimes, scientists get lucky. In 2001, for example, a mass grave was uncovered at a construction site in Vilnus, Lithuania. Based on uniform fragments found in the grave, the bodies were identified as belonging to soldiers in Napoleon’s army—somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 of them, hurriedly buried during the retreat from Moscow. When a team of anthropologists examined dental pulp taken from the bodies, they found that around one-third of them had died of typhus, a finding confirmed by tests of dead lice found at the site (the disease is transmitted through lice). Researchers had long suspected that typhus had contributed to Napoleon’s eventual defeat, but because knowledge of the disease was scant during his lifetime, historical accounts alone had never been enough to confirm it.
For the Plague of Athens, it seemed like a similar turning point had arrived in 1994, when during excavations for a planned Athens metro station at Kerameikos, an ancient graveyard used from the early Bronze age through Roman times. The excavators uncovered thousands of previously undiscovered tombs—including a set of seemingly hurried, unceremonious mass burials dating to 430 B.C., the year of the Plague of Athens.
Control of the site was turned over from the construction company to the Greek Ministry of Culture, which handles the discoveries of ancient ruins. In 2000, archaeologists turned over three teeth found at the site to a University of Athens team led by Manolis Papagrigorakis, an orthodontist and professor of dentistry, for DNA testing. Examining the dental pulp found in the teeth, Papagrigorakis’ team ran tests for seven diseases that had previously been suggested by other scholars: plague, typhus, anthrax, tuberculosis, cowpox, cat-scratch disease, and typhoid fever. The only match they identified on all three teeth was with the pathogen for typhoid fever. The researchers published the findings from their analysis in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases in 2006.
Far from solving the mystery, though, Papagrigorakis’s team only muddled it further. In a letter to the editor in the same journal, zoologists from Oxford University and the University of Copenhagen argued that Papagrigorakis’s methodology was flawed because he failed to do a phylogenetic analysis (a way of examining evolutionary relationships) on the teeth. Using the DNA data published in Papagrigorakis’s study, they conducted their own phylogenetic analysis, concluding that the DNA of the tooth bacteria was related to, but not the same as, that of the pathogen for typhoid fever. “The Athens [DNA] sequence and typhoid would have shared a common ancestor in the order of millions of years ago,” they wrote.
The authors also suggested another possibility: that the DNA found in the teeth wasn’t from the Plague of Athens pathogen at all. “While we cannot exclude the possibility that the Athens sequence is a previously unidentified infectious agent,” they concluded, “it is quite reasonable to assume that the sequence is actually that of a modern, free-living soil bacterium, a possibility that could have been explored by extracting DNA from surrounding soil samples as additional negative controls.”
Papagrigorakis currently has a new study underway, using more modern techniques and a greater number of tooth samples, that he hopes will help to settle the debate. In the decade since he published his Athens study, advancements in DNA-sequencing technology have enabled scientists to answer a number of lingering questions about ancient epidemics, making new discoveries from very old tooth samples. In 2011, for example, scientists used teeth taken from bodies in one of London’s so-called “plague pits” to sequence the genome of the bacterium y. pestis, the source of the Black Death epidemic that had swept Europe in the 14th century. By comparing the old genome to modern-day strains, the researchers were able to reconstruct the bacterium’s evolutionary path over the centuries, finding support for the idea that the 14th-century pathogen was likely the root of the evolutionary tree leading to more recent outbreaks.
And in a 2014 study published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, scientists were able to prove for the first time that the Plague of Justinian—which killed about 50 million people in Europe and the Byzantine Empire between 600 and 800 A.D.—was actually a strain of y. pestis, making it the first known outbreak. The team made its discovery by sequencing DNA from teeth taken from human remains that had been found in a German graveyard and dated to the time of the epidemic.
Even when ancient specimens are available, though, they may not be enough to identify a disease. Bacteria, like typhoid and plague, can be identified through DNA sampling, but this isn’t always the case with viruses. Many of them, including the viruses for Ebola, influenza, and measles, require an RNA sample for positive identification—and thus far, the oldest preserved RNA viral genome belongs to a 700-year-old specimen of caribou feces, much more recent than the Athens samples from in the 5th century B.C. The structure of RNA makes it much more unstable—and therefore more prone to degradation—than DNA, meaning that if the Plague of Athens was viral rather than bacterial, its source may remain a mystery.
“If Ebola virus was there, we will never know,” said Vinent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology at Columbia University professor and the host of the podcast This Week in Virology. “For that, we’ll need a time machine to bring us back to get samples.”
Partially due to these limitations, Kazanjian’s recent study doesn’t delve into dental-pulp analysis data. His argument is based on the similarity between the symptoms of the Plague of Athens and those of Ebola, an argument that he believes is strengthened by observations from the latest Ebola outbreak. The paper ends with a chart of the symptoms described by Thucydides, listed side-by-side against the symptoms of eight modern diseases that had previously been floated as possible explanations; of all of them, the symptoms for Ebola have the most overlap.
Even so, Kazanjian cautioned against referring to Ebola as a “probable” or even a “likely” cause. “The most accurate statement is that the cause remains unknown, and there are several possibilities,” he said, including that the Plague of Athens may have been a now-extinct disease with Ebola-like symptoms.
He also acknowledges the difficulty of making rigorous comparisons between Thucydides’s descriptions and modern-day medical knowledge: “I try not to get into the trap of saying what the most likely thing is,” he said.
But for Kazanjian—also a historian—solving the puzzle of the Plague of Athens is less compelling than exploring all the possibilities. The inquiry is “clearly fun to do,” he said, “no matter what your background is.”
Author: Simon Davis | Source: The Atlantic [September 16, 2015]
A cross-party group of MPs has launched a fresh bid to return the so-called Elgin Marbles to Greece on the 200th anniversary of the British Government’s decision to buy them — a move that campaigners said could help the UK secure a better deal during the Brexit talks with the EU.
The issue has long been a source of tension between, on one side, the UK Government and British Museum, where the 2,500-year-old marbles are currently on display, and, on the other, Greece and international supporters of the reunification of the Parthenon temple's sculptures.
About half the surviving sculptures were taken from the Parthenon in Athens by Thomas Bruce, the seventh Earl of Elgin, and later bought by the British Government after parliament passed an Act that came into force on 11 July, 1816. The other half are currently in the Acropolis Museum in Greece.
The circumstances in which Lord Elgin removed about the sculptures are disputed, with some claiming he effectively stole them while Greece was ruled by the Ottoman Empire.
>The Parthenon Sculptures (Return to Greece) Bill will be presented on the anniversary by Liberal Democrat MP Mark Williams, supported by Conservative Jeremy Lefroy and 10 other MPs from Labour, the SNP and Plaid Cymru.
Mr Williams said: “These magnificent artefacts were improperly dragged and sawn off the remains of the Parthenon.
“This Bill proposes that the Parliament should annul what it did 200 years ago. In 1816 Parliament effectively state-sanctioned the improper acquisition of these impressive and important sculptures from Greece.
“It’s time we engaged in a gracious act. To put right right a 200-year wrong.”
The sculptures are some of the finest ever created and the Parthenon is arguably Europe’s greatest monument. The French Romantic poet Alphonse de Lamartine once described it as “the most perfect poem ever written in stone on the surface of the earth”.
Greece has sought the return of the sculptures ever since victory in the War of Independence in 1832. During the war, Greek fighters even gave bullets to Ottoman soldiers besieged on the Acropolis because they were damaging the Parthenon by removing lead fittings to make ammunition after running out.
Andrew George, chair of the British Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures, said the Parthenon sculptures were “some of the most remarkable antiquities on the globe” and people should be able to see them in one place.
They were also, he said, a national symbol of Greece.
“The issue has generated strong feelings in Greece and rightly so,” Mr George said. “We have to take seriously something which is clearly of great significance to the people of Greece.”
Polls have consistently shown that a majority of the British people support reunification. A poll for the The Times newspaper found the general public backed sending the marbles back to Greece by two to one. And an Ipsos-Mori poll found 69 per cent of those familiar with the issue were in favour of returning the sculptures, compared to just 13 per cent against.
Mr George said the case for returning the sculptures was stronger following the Brexit vote.
“If we are about the negotiate a decent trade deal with our European friends, the last thing we want to do is to show the kind of raspberries and two-fingers that [Nigel] Farage was displaying in the European Parliament the other day,” he said.
It would be in the British interest to demonstrate that leaving the EU “doesn’t involve us becoming inward-looking and xenophobic towards the EU, but more confident, more able to be gracious”.
“And there could be no better demonstration of that generosity and graciousness than to do what would be the right thing by the Greeks,” Mr George said.
Professor Athanasios Nakasis, president of the Hellenic branch of the International Council On Monuments and Sites, said allowing reunification would mean a lot for his country, but would also be welcomed around the world.
“Emotionally, the return of the marbles to the place where the rest of the monument resides would be a source of pride for Greeks, since the Athenian Acropolis is an important symbolic centre of the modern nation,” he said.
“From the perspective of the International Council on Monuments and Sites, the reunification of the scattered fragments of the Parthenon would be a positive development, since one of the fundamental principles of our organisation is that the integrity of monuments ought to be preserved, both internally and with respect to their historical contexts.”
The British Museum argues that it "tells the story of cultural achievement throughout the world, from the dawn of human history over two million years ago until the present day".
"The Parthenon Sculptures are a vital element in this interconnected world collection. They are a part of the world’s shared heritage and transcend political boundaries," it says.
"The Acropolis Museum allows the Parthenon sculptures that are in Athens (approximately half of what survive from antiquity) to be appreciated against the backdrop of ancient Greek and Athenian history. The Parthenon sculptures in London are an important representation of ancient Athenian civilisation in the context of world history."
Under David Cameron, the UK Government has remained opposed to allowing the reunification of the Parthenon sculptures, which would require an Act of Parliament to change the laws governing the British Museum.
In 2011, he joked, predictably, that Britain was not going to "lose its marbles".
________________________
PARTHENON SCULPTURES (RETURN TO GREECE) BILL
CONTENTS 1 Return of the Parthenon Sculptures 2 Amendment of the British Museum Act 1963 3 Other artefacts 4 Short title and commencement
A BILL TO Make provision for the transfer of ownership and return to Greece of the artefacts known as the Parthenon Sculptures, or Elgin Marbles, purchased by Parliament in 1816; to amend the British Museum Act 1963 accordingly; and for connected purposes.
BE IT ENACTED by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
1 Return of the Parthenon Sculptures
(1)Ownership of the collection of artefacts known as the ‘Parthenon Sculptures’, or the ‘Elgin Marbles’, is transferred to the government of the Hellenic Republic, subject only to subsections (2) and (4). (2)The artefacts comprising the collection in subsection (1) shall be determined by the Secretary of State by regulation. (3)Before making a determination under subsection (2), the Secretary of State must consult— (a)the Trustees of the British Museum, (b)representatives of the Government of the Hellenic Republic, and (c)any other person, body or institution that the Secretary of State believes to be appropriate. (4)Subsection (1) has effect on the coming into force of an agreement between the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the Hellenic Republicin which terms are agreed relating to— (a)arrangements for the suitable transportation of the collection determined under subsection (2); (b)responsibility for the costs of such transportation; (c)arrangements and conditions for the maintenance and display of the collection; and (d)access to the collection for: (i)experts (ii)students, and (ii)members of the public. (5)The power to— (a) make regulations under subsection (2), or (b) enter into an agreement under subsection (4) is exercisable by statutory instrument which may only be made after a draft of the instrument has been laid before, and approved by a resolution of, each House of Parliament.
2 Amendment of the British Museum Act 1963
(1)In section 5 of the British Museum Act 1963 (disposal of objects), after subsection (4) insert— “(5)Nothing in this section may be interpreted as applying to an artefact that— (a)has been determined to be part of the collection under section 1(1) of the Parthenon Sculptures (Return to Greece) Act 2016, or (b)is under active consideration by the Secretary of State for determination as to whether or not the artefact is part of that collection.” (2)In section 9 of the British Museum Act 1963 (transfers to other institutions) after subsection (1) insert— “(2)Nothing in this section may be interpreted as applying to an artefact that— (a)has been determined to be part of the collection under section 1(1) of the Parthenon Sculptures (Return to Greece) Act 2016, or (b)is under active consideration by the Secretary of State for determination as to whether or not the artefact is part of that collection.”
3 Other artefacts
Nothing in this Act shall be interpreted as applying to any artefact forming part of a collection within a national museum or gallery other than the artefacts mention in section 1.
4 Short title and commencement
(1)This Act may be cited as the Parthenon Sculptures (Return to Greece) Act 2016. (2)This Act comes into force on the day after the day on which it receives Royal Assent.
________________________
Author: Ian Johnston | Source: Independent [July 11, 2016]
It is lunacy to believe you own the moon, and no amount of tomato juice you spill into the sea will make its water yours. Yet we ask the question “who owns antiquity?” as if it were a sane one.
Parthenon Frieze in the British Museum [Credit: Graham Barclay/Getty Images]
There is a reason for this. It’s the reason why Dennis Hope, founder of the Lunar Embassy and self-dubbed President of the Galactic Government, is no lunatic but an entrepreneur who has sold over 600m acres of “extraterrestrial real estate” to over 6m people. It’s the reason why Nestlé has rebranded itself as a corporate water steward, while bottling ground water at the expense of local communities.
It’s also the reason why today, on the 200th anniversary of the British parliamentary vote to purchase the sculptures that Lord Elgin sawed off the Parthenon, the British Museum continues to insist that its trustees are legally entitled to the sculptures. And it’s the reason why human rights lawyers, marshalled by Amal Clooney, have once again advised a Greek government unwilling to put forward a legal claim that it should take this museum to court.
‘Stones of no value’
In 1801, Elgin was the British Ambassador to the Ottoman court from which he obtained a limited license to collect “some stones of no value” from the Acropolis, with which to adorn his estate back in Scotland. The excised sculpted blocks were shipped back to the UK and in 1811, on the verge of bankruptcy, Elgin offered to sell them to the nation. Five years later, the state bought 15 metopes, 17 pedimental sculptures, and 80 metres of frieze for £35,000 (equivalent to at least £2.4m today, placed in the trust of the British Museum.
Lord Elgin, c. 1788 [Credit: WikiCommons]
According the Guardian correspondent Helena Smith wrote: “Activists have been counting down to what they call the ‘black anniversary’“ (June 7 2016). Nothing could be further from the truth. Most activists agree that had the parliamentary vote to purchase not been won, the sculptures may well have ended up in the illegal art market and vanished without a trace. The real controversy surrounding the debate concerned the fact that the British government was willing to spend such a huge amount at a time of national famine.
But all that was then and this is now. Among other things, Greece is no longer a subject province of the Ottoman Empire. In 2009 the country opened the New Acropolis Museum, which has been specifically designed to display all of the sculptures, and currently displays plaster casts of the London marbles next to the original Athenian ones.
A recent British Museum press statement claimed that the Parthenon sculptures are “a part of the world’s shared heritage and transcend political boundaries”. Greece’s minster of culture, Aristides Baltas, similarly said that “we do not regard the Parthenon as exclusively Greek but rather as a heritage of humanity”. Yet the British Museum also asserts that the sculptures are “a vital element in this interconnected world collection” and the usually diplomatic Baltas was also quoted as saying:
We are trying to develop alliances which we hope would eventually lead to an international body like the United Nations to come with us against the British Museum.
These curious juxtapositions all echo those of Nestlé’s chairman (and former CEO) Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, who claimed that when he said “access to water is not a public right” what he really meant was that “water is a human right” (albeit only the 1.5% of it that Nestlé is content not to buy and re-sell). The New Acropolis Museum currently charges a €5 general admission fee for the “heritage of humanity”. The entrance to the British Museum is of course, free; but it leads to suggested donation boxes, gift shops where one can purchase “Elgin Marbles” memorabilia, overpriced cafeterias, and ticketed special exhibitions.View of the Acropolis and Parthenon from the top-floor Parthenon Gallery of the New Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece [Credit: Christian Richters, Bernard Tschumi Architects]
Parthenon regained
The Parthenon marbles form an integral part of a larger whole, a temple dedicated to Athena whose frieze, metopes, and pediments variously depict her birth, the Panathenaic procession, the sack of Troy, and an array of mythological fights and contests.
There is no other example of a piece of art as crudely dismembered as the Parthenon, with even the heads and bodies of individual sculptures located in different countries (a few rogue pieces somehow ended up in the Louvre and other European museums which have yet to make any gestures of return). If the missing sculptures and fragments of this aesthetic travesty were to be reunited with those in the New Acropolis Museum, visitors could study them as one entire whole, with a direct view of the monument to which they belong.
The time is right for all surviving sculptures to be reunited under this single roof. They should be displayed, for free, in a joint Greek and British international museum. This bicentenary provides the perfect opportunity for the two nations to collaborate instead of bicker over ownership. The British Museum would be praised worldwide for all its actions, culminating in a collaborative partnership that genuinely benefits humanity. It is high time that ownership of the past became a thing of the past and we began to think in terms of joint custody instead.
Author: Constantine Sandis | Source: The Conversation [June 07, 2016]
For most of the last 45,000 years Europe was inhabited solely by hunter-gatherers. About 8,500 years ago a new form of subsistence -- farming -- started to spread across the continent from modern-day Turkey, reaching central Europe by 7,500 years ago and Britain by 6,100 years ago. This new subsistence strategy led to profound changes in society, including greater population density, new diseases, and poorer health. Such was the impact of farming on how we live that scientists have debated for more than 100 years how it was spread across Europe. Many believed that farming was spread as an idea to European hunter-gatherers but without a major migration of farmers themselves.
This week, an international research team led by paleogeneticists of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) publishes a study in the journal >Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showing that early farmers from across Europe have an almost unbroken trail of ancestry leading back to the Aegean.
The scientists analyzed the DNA of early farmer skeletons from Greece and Turkey. According to the study, the Neolithic settlers from northern Greece and the Marmara Sea region of western Turkey reached central Europe via a Balkan route and the Iberian Peninsula via a Mediterranean route. These colonists brought sedentary life, agriculture, and domestic animals and plants to Europe.
During their expansion they will have met hunter-gatherers who lived in Europe since the Ice Age, but the two groups mixed initially only to a very limited extent. "They exchanged cultural heritage and knowledge, but rarely spouses," commented anthropologist Joachim Burger, who lead the research. "Only after centuries did the number of partnerships increase."
Professor Joachim Burger, his Mainz paleogeneticist team, and international collaborators have pioneered paleogenetic research of the Neolithization process in Europe over the last seven years.
They showed a lack of interbreeding between farmers and hunter-gatherers in prehistoric Europe in 2009 and 2013 (Bramanti et al. 2009; Bollongino et al. 2013). Now, they demonstrate that the cultural and genetic differences were the result of separate geographical origins.
"The migrating farmers did not only bring a completely foreign culture, but looked different and spoke a different language," stated Christina Papageorgopoulou from Democritus University of Thrace, Greece,, who initiated the study as a Humboldt Fellow in Mainz together with Joachim Burger.
The study used genomic analysis to clarify a long-standing debate about the origins of the first European farmers by showing that the ancestry of Central and Southwestern Europeans can be traced directly back to Greece and northwestern Anatolia.
"There are still details to flesh out, and no doubt there will be surprises around the corner, but when it comes to the big picture on how farming spread into Europe, this debate is over," said Mark Thomas of University College London (UCL), co-author on the study. "Thanks to ancient DNA, our understanding of the Neolithic revolution has fundamentally changed over the last seven years."
Sedentary life, farming, and animal husbandry were already present 10,000 years ago in the so-called Fertile Crescent, a region covering modern-day Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq. Zuzana Hofmanová and Susanne Kreutzer, the lead authors of the study, concluded: "Whether the first farmers came ultimately from this area is not yet established, but certainly we have seen with our study that these people, together with their revolutionary Neolithic culture, colonized Europe through northern Aegean over a short period of time."
Another study has shown that the spread of farming, and farmers, was not the last major migration to Europe. Approximately 5,000 years ago people of the eastern Steppe reached Central Europe and mixed with the former hunter-gatherers and early farmers. The majority of current European populations arose as a mixture of these three groups.
Source: Johannes Gutenberg Universitaet Mainz [June 06, 2016]
The Department of Antiquities, Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works, announced that an ancient clay figurine has been repatriated to Cyprus from the United Kingdom. The clay figurine depicts a horse and rider/warrior and dates to the Cypro-Archaic period (approximately 700 BC).
The figurine was identified by the Department of Antiquities on the website of a London-based antiquities dealer’s shop. Following a request by the Department of Antiquities and the Cyprus Police, the shop handed over the figurine to the London Metropolitan Police, which in turn, returned it to the Department of Antiquities in July 2016.
The figurine was part of Mr Christakis Hadjiprodromou’s registered private collection that was kept in his house in Ammochostos (Famagusta) prior to the Turkish invasion in 1974. As a result of the invasion, Mr Hadjiprodromou’s residence was pillaged and his collection was looted, with its objects being scattered around the world.
Source: Press and Information Office, Ministry of Interior, Republic of Cyprus [August 06, 2016]
