The British Museum denied on Friday that it was considering returning fragments of sculptures from the Parthenon to Greece, as suggested by the director of the Acropolis Museum in Athens a day earlier.
The British Museum said it was “open to discussions regarding a short-term loan of some of the objects, but not a permanent return.”
“The trustees of the British Museum will consider — subject to the usual considerations of condition and fitness to travel — any request for any part of the collection to be borrowed and then returned,” it said.
On Thursday, Acropolis Museum director Demetrios Pantermalis said at a UNESCO meeting in June he had proposed the return of small fragments from the famous Parthenon Marbles, also known as the Elgin Marbles, to Greece and that talks would be held in Athens in the coming weeks.
“I proposed an arrangement to colleagues from the British Museum, involving pieces — hands, heads, legs — that belong to bodies from the Parthenon sculptures and can be reattached,” Pantermalis told Skai Radio.
“The proposal has been accepted in principle, we will have a discussion in the autumn,” he said.
Greece has long campaigned for the return of the priceless friezes, removed in 1806 by Lord Elgin when Greece was occupied by the Ottoman Empire and later sold to the British Museum.
The British Museum has rejected successive Greek calls for their return, arguing that the sculptures are part of world heritage and are more accessible to visitors in London.
Inaugurated in June 2009, the new Acropolis Museum includes a section reserved for the disputed collection.
Pantermalis on Thursday said the issue remained “taboo” and that the new proposal involving smaller pieces could be a way to “unravel the thread.”
The British Museum on Friday said it had agreed to “explore” a research partnership on the detached fragments of the Parthenon sculptures in Athens, London and elsewhere.
Parts of the Marbles are also located in Copenhagen, Munich, Paris, the Vatican and Vienna.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS