[MSN] Athens. Historic move leaves place for Elgin Marbles.

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Historic move leaves place for Elgin Marbles
PAUL ANASTASI and MALCOLM LAW
 
FOR 25 centuries they have stood atop the Acropolis in Greece, treasured
among the most exquisite artefacts of the ancient world. The priceless
marble carvings and sculptures have withstood wars and earthquakes, looters,
pollution and storms. 

Yesterday, the painstaking process began to remove the first of them from
the Parthenon on Acropolis Hill in the centre of Athens to a new
purpose-built museum below. 

Three cranes stretched 160 feet in the air to pluck the 2.5-tonne marble
carving from its home, watched by a large crowd. 

The 90-minute delicate operation brought to an end 2,500 years of history,
and propelled the debate about the British Museum's ownership of the Elgin
Marbles firmly into the future. 

"I am trembling; it touches my soul," said pensioner Pelagia Boulamatsi, 71,
unable to hold back tears as he stood with dozens of bystanders. "This is an
ancient civilisation that is the foundation of the world." 

The massive stone slab, a 160m-long strip sculpted in relief with some 360
human and 250 animal figures from a religious procession, was the first
piece to be removed from the ancient site. Over the next six weeks, 4,500
antiquities, mostly marble sculptures dating to the sixth and fifth
centuries BC, will be shifted into the new Acropolis Museum 400 yards away
at a cost of 1.6 million (£1.1 million). 

The museum itself is not without controversy, but its deliberate gap where
the Elgin Marbles should be, according to the Greek government, could
inflame the debate further. 

Engineers yesterday were simply interested in a safe and carefully
choreographed transfer of priceless art - insured to the tune of 400
million. 

The supervising engineer, Costas Zambas, said the move went off without a
hitch, and faster than expected. 

The antiquities will be wrapped in padded harnesses and packed into
Styrofoam-filled boxes made of plywood and metal. 

Engineering spectacle eventually gave way to politics as Greece's culture
minister, Michalis Liapis, used the event to repeat demands for the return
of almost half of the Parthenon's original 524ft frieze, now housed in the
British Museum. 

"Today we witnessed the successful beginning of an event of historic
dimensions, which generates global emotion and strengthens the demand for
the return of the antiquities," said Mr Liapis. 

"We are all obliged to intensify our efforts for the return of the Parthenon
Marbles from the British Museum, because only then will we have fulfilled
our historic duty." 

The British ambassador to Greece, Simon Gass, declined to comment yesterday
as he stood with other foreign diplomats. 

Controversy over the fate of the Acropolis antiquities in the British Museum
has raged since the mid-1980s, when the then ruling socialist Greek
government formally demanded their return from British authorities, and the
demands peaked on the eve of the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. 

The British Museum and successive governments so far have successfully
resisted the calls for repatriation. 

A spokeswoman for the British Museum said last night: "The museum exists to
represent all world cultures and the Parthenon sculptures are integral to
that. 

"Here in London they can be seen, free of charge, seven days a week, and
last year they were seen by five million people. 

"The museum trustees do not consider there to be any question over the legal
ownership of the sculptures." 

Onlookers on the Acropolis yesterday might have been forgiven for forgetting
the political arguments as the cranes transferred the first sculpture from
the top part of the Parthenon temple. 

The frieze depicts a religious procession in honour of Athena, the divine
guardian of the city, in tribute to her purported role in saving the Greek
world from the invasion of the Persian empire at the 490BC Battle of
Marathon and then the 480BC naval Battle of Salamis. 

The Acropolis monuments were built over a nine-year period, 447-438BC,
during the "Golden Age" of the statesman Pericles. The main temple is the
40ft tall and 270ft long Parthenon. 

Many statues and artefacts have already been moved indoors and replaced by
replicas, after a report in the early 1980s revealed that atmospheric
pollution during the past 40 years has caused more damage than in the
previous 400 years, including from earthquakes and war bombardment. 

The new museum has been designed by the American architect Bernard Tschumi,
following a strongly contested international tender. Its construction by
demolishing blocks of flats and the planned destruction of two neoclassical
listed buildings has become the focus of a legal and political wrangle. 

The 215,000sq ft of the new Acropolis Museum, that it is hoped will open to
the public in June, is spread over three levels. The ground level features
glass, transparent floors above the archeological remains of the ancient
neighbourhood that was unearthed during construction. 

The ground floor is also set to host temporary exhibitions and artefacts
retrieved from the surrounding area. 

The first floor will host the Archaic and Roman galleries, while a bar and
restaurant with a spectacular view of the Acropolis will serve visitors on
the mezzanine. 

The Parthenon Gallery, on the building's top level, includes a rectangular
glass gallery which will showcase the temple's marbles, replicating their
exact size. 

The most politically charged feature will be a section reserved for those
antiquities still in the British Museum. Copies of the missing friezes will
be on display behind a symbolic, transparent veil in the place of those
showcased at the British Museum. 


"Everybody here today got the message that the months and years ahead will
focus on bringing back the real exhibits from London," Athens media
commentator Dimitra Goundi said. 

WAVE OF DESTRUCTION BEHIND REMOVAL

THOMAS Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin and 11th Earl of Kincardine, took up his
post as ambassador to Constantinople in 1799. Greece had been part of the
Ottoman Empire since 1453 and the destruction of classical sculptures in
Athens prompted Lord Elgin to try to remove whatever he could. 

In 1801 he was granted a licence as a diplomatic gesture in gratitude for
Britain's firm stance against the presence of French forces in Egypt. Lord
Elgin's work was carried out openly and with the support of local officials,
both Turkish and Greek, between 1801 and 1804, says the British Museum. 

What he brought back included 247ft of the original 524ft of frieze, 17
pedimental figures and various pieces of architecture, all from the
Parthenon. The Louvre in Paris is one of several museums in Europe, from the
Vatican to Copenhagen, that today also hold parts of the Parthenon. 

An 1816 select committee of the House of Commons found Lord Elgin's
collection had been legitimately acquired and it was then taken on by the
British Museum. 

But controversy has raged ever since, with individual Greeks calling for the
return of the sculptures as early as 1833. Under the British Museum Act
1983, the centre cannot dispose of any objects unless they are duplicates or
are "unfit to be retained". 

Last year, Heidelberg University in Germany returned a small part of the
Parthenon, and a retired Swedish gym teacher also gave up a sculpture from
the Acropolis.

This article: http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1643912007

Last updated: 14-Oct-07 00:04 BST

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