Greece’s President took the opportunity on Thursday evening to make a renewed call for the return of the Parthenon Sculptures on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the new Acropolis Museum.
Speaking at the anniversary event at the Acropolis Museum, the Greek President said that the struggle for the "repatriation" of the Parthenon Sculptures is "legally and institutionally imperative in the name of World Cultural Heritage," in his address at the event on Thursday evening for the 10th anniversary of the new Acropolis Museum.
Referring to the Acropolis Museum, the President called it a flagship museum that was "a jewel of our culture and also of European and western civilisation in general," and noted that the international community "knows only too well that the hosting of the Parthenon Sculptures was a key prospect when the museum was being built." He then mentioned how this disproves the argument that Greece does not have appropriate space to house the Parthenon Sculptures.
Pavlopoulos also underlined that for 10 years the Acropolis Museum has been giving "explicit nods" to British Museum officials and has provoked world public opinion to perform what he called "a comparison between the luminous 'cradle' of the Parthenon Sculptures and the dim 'barracks' where they are kept in the British Museum, where Pavlopoulos said they are "held in violation of all institutional and cultural ethics".
He also argued that, judging by their "current attitude, the British Museum's officials have shown themselves unable to rise to the occasion with respect to protecting World Cultural Heritage and our common culture while, at the same time, being unrepentant accomplices of Lord Elgin's crime against civilisation."
The Greek President finally stressed that "it is universally accepted that these sculptures belong, rightfully and culturally, to the Parthenon and its Monuments.
