The British Museum is considering three further overseas loans from the Elgin Marbles – but a reluctance to entertain the sculptures’ return to Greece is set to provoke renewed anger in Athens.

Last year the British Museum allowed part of the Marbles to leave the country for the first time when it lent the headless statue of Ilissos, a Greek river god, to the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.

Greece, which is seeking to reclaim ownership of the 2,500-year-old sculptures removed from the Parthenon in Athens in the 19th century by Lord Elgin, described the Russia loan as “provocative”.

A current request from the British Museum for a key antiquity from the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens for a forthcoming exhibition on classical sculpture has been delayed, in what is being seen as retaliatory move by the Greek authorities.

The work has been requested for the show, “Defining Beauty: the Body in ancient Greek Art”, which opens in March.

The delay is ascribed to “tensions” with the Greek government, despite friendly curatorial relations between the two institutions – the British Museum currently has 24 items on loan to the Cycladic museum.

However the chances of securing the loan in time for the exhibition may be harmed by the news that the British Museum is seriously entertaining bids for further Elgin Marbles loans to museums outside of Greece.

“Three serious bids are being considered,” The Art Newspaper reports, including one informal loan request made before the Hermitage deal was revealed.

New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, Berlin’s museums and the Louvre in Paris are the kind of institutions which “stand the best chance of success” when formal loan requests are submitted, the art title suggested.

The British Museum would expect any museum to which it lends the Parthenon sculptures to “be generous in responding to loan requests” made in return by the London body. Requests for single sculptures will be more favourably received, it is suggested. Bids are also expected from the UK’s regional museums which could expect huge interest in displaying items from the famous collection.

The Museum confirmed that further loans from the Elgin sculptures are being considered. A spokesman said: “Museums around the world have shown interest in requesting to loan from our set of Parthenon sculptures, and we always welcome these conversations. The Trustees will consider any request for any part of the collection to be borrowed and then returned, subject to the usual considerations of condition and fitness to travel and this has always been made clear to the world.”

Further Marbles loans will inflame tensions with Athens. Antonis Samaras, the Greek prime minister, described the loan of the Parthenon sculpture to the Hermitage as “an affront to the Greek people”.

Some of the Marbles will be moved from their permanent display to the temporary exhibition gallery for the British Museum’s March show, including the pediment sculptures of Ilissos, which will be returning from Russia, Iris and Dionysos.

However time is running out to strike an agreement with the Museum of Cycladic Art for the work that the London museum is seeking. The British Museum spokesman said: “We have requested to borrow one object from Greece and await the official response. The Museum has very positive working relationships with colleagues in Greece and lends extensively to museums in Greece including 24 objects on loan to two temporary exhibitions at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens.”

The Athens museum declined a request to comment. A source said: “The museum is happy in principle to lend the work but the Greek government is stalling on the paperwork.”

Greece refuses to recognise the British Museum’s ownership of the sculptures, which make up about 30 per cent of the surviving decoration from the Parthenon.

Author: Adam Sherwin | Source: The Independent [January 06, 2015]

"Tragedies are caused by differences and by a lack of tolerance. Glory be to Him who creates greatness out of difference and lets peace and reconciliation reign," they teach us.

The bronze sculpture, dated from 350 BC, once graced the halls of the Renaissance-era Palazzo Medici Riccardi in central Florence, and has been described as a masterpiece of Greek classical art.

But after it slipped from the grasp of the Medici clan it began to deteriorate as it found its way into the archaeological museum in 1881 where it is now said to be in serious need to restoration.

Researchers at Florence's National Research Council have been investigating problems of conservation and restoration related to such ancient materials as the alloys and gilding used in the bronze horse head.

The work is to be carried out inside the museum and can be viewed by the public during the museum's opening hours until March 8.

After that, it is scheduled to be included in an exhibition titled Power and Pathos at Florence's Palazzo Strozzi, along with other bronzes from the Hellenistic style.

Power and Pathos continues until June 21 before travelling to an exhibition in Los Angeles at the J. Paul Getty Museum and later in the year, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Source: ANSA [February 19, 2015]

Fire festival

VIA «Promo-pavilion for the city of Żory»

An informed source at the Center of International Legal Affairs in Iran’s Presidential Office said on Tuesday that an appellate court in Belgium’s eastern city of Liège, situated nearly 90 kilometers (55 miles) southeast of the capital, Brussels, has passed the final verdict in favor of the restitution of the Iranian heritage, IRNA reported.

The source, whose name was not revealed, praised efforts made by Iranian legal experts and officials at Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handcraft and Tourism Organization (ICHTO) for following up on the case.

The contents of the nine boxes were looted over the past years from a 3000-year-old ancient site near the village of Khorvin, situated 80 kilometers (49 miles) northeast of the Iranian capital, Tehran.

Following Iran's demand, the Brussels court ordered the seizure of the pieces and their preservation at the Museum of Brussels University, pending a final verdict.

Since the boxes contained metal items that might have oxidized over time, Iranian officials asked Belgian officials to open the boxes in the presence of ICHTO representatives. The boxes were resealed after experts examined the contents.

The ancient pin was stolen in December 2002 from the European tour of “7000 Years of Persian Art” during its run at St. Peter's Abbey in Ghent.

Iranian officials have filed several other lawsuits in courts in Britain, France, Turkey, and Pakistan for the return of smuggled artifacts over the past years.

Source: Press TV [December 24, 2014]

The Manchester team - one of only two operating in non-Kurdish Iraq – has just returned from three months of fieldwork there.

During the team’s time in Iraq, Islamic State militants destroyed ruins at the ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh and are reported to have bulldozed an Assyrian palace at Nimrud and the classical city of Hatra too, as well as wrecking museum artefacts in Mosul.

But despite this, the archaeologists, who returned to southern Iraq in 2012,, continued to work at Tell Khaiber, which is close to the ancient city of Ur, where Sir Leonard Woolley discovered the fabulous 'Royal Tombs' in the 1920s.

The team, directed by Professor Stuart Campbell, Dr Jane Moon and Dr Robert Killick from Manchester, described their Iraqi colleagues as resourceful, innovative and resilient, even when times were bad.

“Everyone is quite rightly expressing outrage at the destruction in and around Mosul. The sad fact is, there is very little one can do to prevent deliberate vandalism by well-armed fanatics.

“But if the militants think they can 'erase history' we are helping to make sure that can't happen: it is the information that is important and not the objects. Our project is actually doing something positive for the Iraqis, and that is appreciated,” Dr Moon said.

In the course of their fieldwork this year the archaeologists discovered, among other things,  50 new documents, written in Babylonian, and found evidence for a scribal school operating at the settlement, which dates to around 1500 BC.

These were in a public building the size of a football pitch, and of an unprecedented format, believed to be an administrative complex serving a capital city of the Babylonian empire.

Professor Campbell said: “We found practice texts in the form of lists of exotic animals, and of precious stones, also evidence for the making and recycling of clay tablets. The whole complex dates to the 'Dark Age' following the fall of Babylon and the disintegration of Hammurabi's empire.

“For a time when this key area of Babylonia was thought to be de-urbanised and chaotic, we have evidence of sophisticated administrative mechanisms and large-scale distribution of grain and other commodities.”

Before returning to the UK, the archaeologists deposited 300 new artefacts in the Iraq Museum and set up a temporary exhibition in Baghdad as well as visiting universities that teach, or are planning to teach, archaeology.

“What we can do is make new discoveries to be proud of and help our Iraqi colleagues and the rest of the world to understand and appreciate what the antiquities actually tells us,” concluded Dr Moon.

Author: Kath Paddison | Source: University of Manchester [April 07, 2015]

Cleanliness — health pledge!

VIA «Pressure Washers by Karcher»

Monday's accident happened when workmen were using the crane to move large blocks of stone to a site in the town of Aswan where an international exhibition for sculpture is being held.

"The crane carrying heavy blocks of stone crashed into the dome and severely damaged it," Antiquities Minister Mamdouh al-Damaty said in a statement.

He said the authorities have now asked German conservators who work on maintaining such structures in Aswan to help restore the mausoleum that dates back to the Shiite Fatimid dynasty which ruled Egypt between 969 and 1171.

There are more than 50 such mausoleums in Aswan.

Source: AFP [February 10, 2015]

In October, a Canadian woman made headlines around the world when she personally returned to hand back a 2,000-year old fragment she had stolen from Pompeii on her honeymoon 50 years ago.

The woman from Montreal, who is in her 70s, said the theft of the first century AD terracotta roof decoration had weighed on her conscience for decades.

Now Massimo Osanna, superintendent of the World Heritage-listed site, said that was not an isolated case and hundreds of archeological artefacts had been sent back to the museum in recent years, often with letters of apology written in different languages.

"We have been receiving hundreds of packages with hundreds of fragments now for years," Mr Osanna told the Italian daily, Il Messaggero.

"People write expressing regret, having realised they have made a terrible mistake and that they would never do it again and for this reason they are sending the stolen pieces back.

"But the most curious thing, from an anthropological point of view, are the letters that accompany the stolen fragments which reveal a cross-section of people worth studying."

Mr Osanna said that one particular fresco fragment that had been returned was crucial in the restoration of the Casa del Frutteto, or house of the orchard keeper, which collapsed in the 1980s.

He said the property was restored but after work was completed experts realised a piece of wall plaster was missing. He said it was returned to officials in March and would now be added.

Mr Osanna could not be contacted on Tuesday but said he would like to stage an exhibition to showcase the precious objects that had been returned.

Alessandro Pintucci, president of the Italian Confederation of Archeologists, welcomed the return of artefacts but warned more security was needed to protect valuable cultural sites and to prevent thefts where there were often too few controls.

Pompeii was buried by a sudden volcanic eruption of nearby Mt Vesuvius in 79 AD. The preserved remains of the town attract around 2.5 million tourists every year.

Theft is a problem at ancient sites like Pompeii and the Colosseum in Rome, with tourists regularly trying to take "souvenirs" of their visits.

Last September a pair of American tourists were caught at Fiumicino airport in Rome with a stone artefact they had taken from Pompeii.

Author: Josephine McKenna | Source: Telegraph [December 24, 2014]

The Global Green Project

The project of Park of the World has been initiated by a municipal government of the city of Chungju in honor of that now the Secretary general of the United Nations is the native of this city, Ban Ki-Moon. Having stretched on river Namhangang coast, the project becomes the new city center.

The UN Memorial Hall

The building in the form of an ellipse, the maximum diameter — 60 meters becomes United Nations monument. In a building of 8 floors + a basement floor. In the center — an audience on 1,500 places, and also additional conference halls. From an audience the fine kind on Tangeumdae Natural Park will open.

Rising up a spiral, the building becomes the house for an exhibition in which the history of the United Nations since 1945 till today will speak. The person who is the center of interest of missions of the United Nations, will be integrated into architecture and appearance of "globe". The building will be located in the center of a garden from 192 apple-trees which number is equal to number of the states which are members of the United Nations.

VIA «Park of the United Nations»

The artifacts, which had been shown in a mass exhibition in Berlin, may stay in Germany for some repairs in cooperation with the Egyptian Museum in Berlin before their return to Egypt, Hegazy said.

The Egyptian Embassy will host a concert April 2 to declare the receipt of the artifacts, and express thanks to German authorities and the Egyptian Museum in Berlin for their effort, he added.

The iconic bust of Queen Nefertiti, currently on display at Berlin’s Neues Museum, remains one of Egypt’s top artifacts the country has said should return. The bust was obtained in 1912 by German archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt, who Egypt claims misled authorities regarding to the value of the bust to be allowed to take it out of the country; Germany claims the ownership of the artifact is not in question.

Political turmoil in Egypt since the January 25 Revolution in 2011 and the subsequent security lapse left the country’s cultural heritage vulnerable to looting. In spite of the efforts of the Egyptian government in tracking artifacts smuggled outside Egypt and in auction houses abroad, the issue is still unsettled.

In July 2014, 24 ancient Egyptian artifacts were returned from the Egyptian Museum of Leipzig University in Germany. Minister of Antiquities Mamdouh el-Damaty traveled to Germany to supervise the administrative procedures accompanying the repatriation of the artifacts, ONA reported.

The artifacts spanned several eras of ancient Egyptian civilization and were likely stolen from the west bank of Luxor, the head of the Antiquities Ministry’s Restored Artifacts Department Ali Ahmed told The Cairo Post.

Source: The Cairo Post [March 25, 2015]

Art Tower in Dubai

VIA «Skyscraper under an inclination»

In a letter dated March 26, 2015, the museum’s trustees claimed they are retaining the friezes — sliced off the Parthenon by the notorious Lord Elgin — for British people … for the benefit of the world’s public, present and future.

The letter also cited trustees’ “honest respect for the organization” but also “the already good relationships with colleagues and institutions of Greece”,

Here’s the British Museum’s very “long-winded” response, signed by the chairman of the British Museum board of trustees, Sir Richard Lambert:

“I write on behalf of the Trustees of the British Museum, who at their meeting of 19th March 2015 considered the request put forward by the Greek Government that they should enter into a process of mediation, facilitated by UNESCO, on the subject of the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum. After full and careful consideration, we have decided respectfully to decline this request. We believe that the more constructive way forward, on which we have already embarked, is to collaborate directly with other museums and cultural institutions, not just in Greece but across the world.

The British Museum admires and supports the work of UNESCO, fully acknowledging the importance of its unique ability, as an intergovernmental agency, to address the serious issue of the threats to, and the destruction of, cultural heritage around the world. The Museum has a long history of collaboration with UNESCO, notably in Iraq in 2003-5, and is currently engaged with UNESCO in formulating responses to the crisis in Syria, including the illicit trafficking of antiquities. The Museum would wish always to align itself with UNESCO’s purposes in the preservation and safeguarding of the world’s endangered cultural heritage. However, the surviving Parthenon Sculptures, carefully preserved in a number of European museums, clearly do not fall into this category.

The British Museum, as you know, is not a government body, and the collections do not belong to the British Government. The Trustees of the British Museum hold them not only for the British people, but for the benefit of the world public, present and future. The Trustees have a legal and moral responsibility to preserve and maintain all the collections in their care, to treat them as inalienable and to make them accessible to world audiences.

In pursuit of this aim, the Trustees would want to develop existing good relations with colleagues and institutions in Greece, and to explore collaborative ventures, not on a government-to-government basis but directly between institutions. This is why we believe that UNESCO involvement is not the best way forward. Museums holding Greek works, whether in Greece, the UK or elsewhere in the world, are naturally united in a shared endeavour to show the importance of the legacy of ancient Greece. The British Museum is committed to playing its full part in sharing the value of that legacy for all humanity.

The potential of this approach can be seen in the British Museum’s current special exhibition Defining Beauty, the Body in Ancient Greek Art, which opened to the public today. Here some of the Parthenon Sculptures are displayed with other works that similarly show the intense humanism of ancient Greek civilisation, including masterpieces generously lent by museums around the world. Nowhere else in the world is it now, or has it ever been, possible to see these objects together. The aesthetic impact is considerable, and the intellectual content compelling. This seems to us to point the way forward, as an example of the great public benefit that arises from museums internationally using and sharing their collections in this way."

Meanwhile, the British government also addressed a letter to Alfredo Pérez de Armiñán noting their respect for UNESCO’s work in preserving cultural heritage and “providing a forum for the resolution of international disputes.”

“The issue of the Parthenon sculptures in the British Museum has been the subject of much discussion over the years both within the Committee and elsewhere, and while the UK is not formally a member of the Committee, officials from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the British Museum have regularly attended and sought to assist the Committee in its work,” the letter stated.

However, while the British government wishes to cooperate with UNESCO, they clearly state that they cannot agree to the Greek government’s request for the return of the Parthenon Marbles since they “were legally acquired by Lord Elgin under the laws pertaining at the time and the Trustees of the British Museum have had clear legal title to the sculptures since 1816.”

“We have seen nothing to suggest that Greece’s purpose in seeking mediation on this issue is anything other than to achieve the permanent transfer of the Parthenon sculptures now in the British Museum to Greece and on terms that would deny the British Museum’s right of ownership, either in law or as a practical reality. Given our equally clear position, this leads us to conclude that mediation would not carry this debate substantially forward,” the British government added

The letters sparked a reaction from the Greek government. In a statement, Culture Minister Nikos Xydakis criticized the British officials’ “unwillingness to cooperate.”

“We are surprised at the ongoing effort to downgrade an interstate issue to an issue between museums,” he said, adding that the Greek government would continue its bid to repatriate the sculptures.

Greece has unsuccessfully campaigned for the return of the ancient sculptures that were removed from the citadel by Lord Elgin in the early 1800s. 

Source: Protothema [March 27, 2015]

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SUPREMEBEING LTD EDT ART PRINTS

VIA Limited Edition Art Prints