Yesterday, I was thrilled to turn on the computer and travel via live streaming video to Athens for the opening of the new Acropolis Museum. What you see above covers only a bit of that day.
The biggest surprise for me was that the Greeks who have been down-playing their differences with the British Museum, firmly voiced pleas for the return of the Parthenon marbles in speech after speech. The President of the Hellenic Republic said, “It is time to heal the wounds of the monument by returning them where they belong,” Greece’s Prime Minister Kostas Karamanlis said in a speech. The museum can help bring “the reunification of the Parthenon marbles. Because the Parthenon marbles speak in their entirety. This is the way to show the integrity of everything they stand for.”
The museum director, as he led the tour, made no bones about pointing out what was real and what was stolen. “The head of this horse is in Athens and the body is in London. The body of this horse is in Athens and the head is in London.”Pointing out the plaster copies of pieces of the Parthenon frieze that reside in London, he said, “We are dealing with history in a realistic matter.”
“It has been removed. It should not have happened, but unfortunately, it did happen.” He expressed his gratitude to the museums like the Heidelburg and the Vatican who had returned pieces from their collections.
Here at A Traveler’s Library, we celebrated all week.
- Monday: The movie “My Life in Ruins”
- Wednesday: Greek Mythology in a book
- Thursday: Greek Mythology on Stage
- Friday: Travel to Athens with Links to articles about the New Acropolis Museum
- Saturday: Lord Byron speaks out about the Theft of the Parthenon Marbles
You can see earlier posts on Greece at the Articles by Country page.
Although we interrupted the schedule on Tuesday to pay tribute to the protesters in Iran with a look at Reading Lolita in Tehran, we spent five (now six) days in the same country. Do you like to see a whole week dedicated to one country, or would you prefer to mix things up? Please let me know so A Traveler’s Library will be what YOU want it to be.
PDF Tags: Acropolis-Museum, Athens, British Museum, Greece, Travel
