Australia's High Court has upheld the forfeiture of a pre-Columbian artefact illegally exported from Bolivia over 70 years ago, under the Protection of Movable Cultural Heritage Act 1986, despite the recipe happening more than 30 years before the Act came into force. www.linkedin.com/redir/redire...

Today is the 50th anniversary of the dismissal of Gough Whitlam by the governor general - a dark moment for democracy in Australia. It's worth recalling a less known fact about the man though - Whitlam was a staunch supporter of the return of the Parthenon Marbles. www.elginism.com/elgin-marble...

Parliament accepted the firman may have allowed Elgin to denude the Parthenon, but certainly didn't allow him to carry out the ancient Scots Law crime of Violation of Sepulchre. Elgin knew that, but t'was only Greek graves & they didn't matter! @elginism.bsky.social www.tomminogue.com/tom/?p=2350

77-year-old Chilean engineer Enrico Tosti-Croce thought he had a fragment of the Parthenon, picked up by his father Gaetano in 1930. Hearing a radio program about the Elgin Marbles prompted him to return it, & he discovered it was older than he had supposed. www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a...

A new documentary by David Wilkinson titled The Marbles claims to settle the long-standing debate over the legal status of the Parthenon Sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles, stating unequivocally that these ancient sculptures were stolen from Greece. greekreporter.com/2025/11/09/n...

World premiere of THE MARBLES opening night film at the Central Scot. Documentary Festival sold out. We have people attending from Glasgow, Aberdeen, Manchester, Birmingham & London, & Nick Drossos/ family & friends coming from Melbourne, Aus. Q&A Dame Janet Suzman & Neil Curtis.

LSE dropout son of Tory party activist & PE teacher has no opinion about the Parthenon Marbles. greekcitytimes.com/2025/11/04/m...

The Bayeux tapestry is so fragile that transporting it risks irreparable damage, French experts have said, in a petition urging Emmanuel Macron to reverse a “catastrophic” decision to loan the unique embroidery to Britain. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Times change. So, too, do people. Human sensitivities evolve with age and self-education and understanding. Unlike some institutions like the British Museum, however, which seem to remain largely intransigent. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

A small marble fragment believed to be from a 6th-century B.C. temple on the Acropolis (before the Parthenon) has been voluntarily returned to Greece by a family in Chile that had held it for nearly a century, the Greek culture ministry announced. www.iefimerida.gr/english/anci...

New Case: The Cleveland Bronze, contributed by Michela Herbert Today the Cleveland Museum will take its iconic Roman bronze sculpture off display and return it to Türkiye after a failed attempt to deny its origins in the heavily looted site of Bubon. mola.omeka.net/items/show/2...

good evening to everyone except the hard-right culture warriors and those who would appease them 🔥✨❤️

an important documentary about returning the dead from German museums, I am in there somewhere around minute 22 www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w...

Press release from yesterday's Reuniting the Parthenon Marbles event organised by Andrew George MP. I wasn't able to attend, but it was good to see a lot of familiar faces in the photos. www.elginism.com/elgin-marble...

Relooted, one of the most anticipated video games of 2025, allows players to take stolen African artifacts from Western museums and return them to their home countries. AJ+ talked to one of the creators... www.instagram.com/reel/DMETOk6...

The looting of Iraq post fall of Saddam was more high profile - but we could be seeing a similar situation in slow motion, where large amounts of ancient heritage is illegally excavated and sold in plain sight. Organisations that are facilitating sales of such artefacts need to do more to stop this.

Nigel Farage's support for keeping the Parthenon Marbles in the UK ought to help convince many who were on the fence (often through lack of in depth knowledge of the issue) that returning them is clearly the right side to take.

Here starts the campaign for Britain to repatriate the plundered acronym "PAC", in fact the whole concept. It belongs in the US of A. "Great British Pac calls for an end to any negotiations to return the Parthenon sculptures or risk legal challenges." www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

Worrying podcast from @theguardian.com about the rapid rise of metal detecting in Syria lost Assad - and what it means for the preservation of the country's heritage. www.theguardian.com/world/audio/...

The Bayeux tapestry will return to the UK for the first time in more than 900 years as part of a landmark reciprocal loan agreement by Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron - a great example of cultural cooperation. www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

I've written half of a piece in City AM today on the Parthenon Marbles and whether they should return to Greece - it won't surprise you that I'm the one arguing on the Yes side. www.cityam.com/the-debate-s...

Interesting story just cropped up on @mattbevan.bsky.social's ever fascinating ABC - If You're Listening podcast. What happened to the original bronze cast of Rodin's The Thinker from Cantor Fitzgerald's World Trade Center offices after 9-11? www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

I can’t believe this isn’t a spoof article. It seems to be supporting a very questionable approach to human remains. @babao2025meeting.bsky.social www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

It's isn't just museums who normalise colonial era acquired human remains: Oxford academics drank from a chalice made from a human skull for decades, a book that explores the violent colonial history of looted human remains has revealed. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

It's kind of nice that they had to put this in explicit form I guess, but this has been the argument since the election - if the electorate elected Trump to do it, Trump is therefore allowed to do it. It ignores that the electorate didn't explicitly say what it wanted and that the mandate is small

Not that wowed by one of the new British Museum Trustee choices TBH. It seems an odd time to be appointing to the board people who are decidedly non-neutral on matters relating to the restitution of cultural artefacts. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Claims on the Guelph Treasure stretch back nearly two decades, and Germany’s plans to change how restitutions are evaluated are now adding new wrinkles. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/19/a...

The first episode of this new podcast series on the Greek Myths by @sturdyalex.bsky.social is well worth a listen. whether it not you are familiar with the stories already, there is still a lot to learn about them and their contemporary relevance / interpretation.

Greece should do this... Until the marbles are returned... 🤔😜

Great discussion here about the future of museums with @benansell.bsky.social @tonybutler1.bsky.social @stephenkb.bsky.social Sara Wajid and Sharon Ament. Culture, community and cash at the heart of the debate. Give it a listen. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

The opening lines of the 1959 King Penguin book on 'The Sculpture of the Parthenon' "It is possible to enjoy and appreciate the sculpture of the Parthenon without regard to its setting, but such an approach is needlessly limited..." Quite

New podcast on ancient Greece from Hellenic polymath @sturdyalex.bsky.social incoming soon by the sound of things...

If one maps the intermediaries for Pissarros which changed hands due to Nazi persecution of Jews, which networks will emerge? Who moves the loot? By whom are provenances falsified, the Jewish owner erased, others anonymized, dates changed, etc..? #networkanalysis #artcrime #artmarket

Call for papers open now International and Transdisciplinary Conference on Collecting the Holocaust: Ethics, Memory, and Materiality in Stockholm, Sweden on November 25–27, 2025. museumforintelsen.se/en/about-the...

Russia has hundreds of thousands of cultural artifacts taken from Ukraine over centuries. Last year, journalists at Texty surveyed the Russian collections, their cultural significance and whether it is possible for Ukraine to get them back.

"Returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece would not only rectify a historical injustice but also strengthen cultural ties and set a precedent for the repatriation of other significant artifacts." Dr James Williams, Sussex University www.theargus.co.uk/news/2477263...

A Buddhist painting is making its way back home from the USA, 35 years after it was stolen from a temple in Korea. The whereabouts of “Sinjungdo” was a mystery until June 2023, when the Korean research organisations spotted its presence in Chicago. www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/culture/...

A few German and French art collectors whose PISSARROs were looted by Nazis or sold under duress during the Holocaust sources: Lostart.de and Errproject (att: This list does not include Dutch or Austrian or Polish Jews whose Pissarros were plundered by Nazis)

Christmas at the Acropolis Museum. A list of all the special Christmas programme of events taking place at the Acropolis Museum in Athens. www.tovima.com/culture/expe...

It is often said that you can't dig anywhere in Athens without uncovering something significant: Workers laying gas pipes near the Odeon of Herodes Atticus discovered an ancient marble statue of a man, believed to be a depiction of the Greek god Hermes. greekreporter.com/2024/12/09/a...

This looks like one to watch.

pre-order here >> www.penguin.co.uk/books/452252...

There's a serious moral case to be made against displaying the magnificent #ParthenonMarbles in a soulless context, removed from its companion pieces and original location, not to mention the irreparable damage done to the marbles by heavy handed cleaning in the 1930s.

Worst argument yet against returning the Parthenon Marbles? "There’s a serious moral case to be made against cultural tourism, partly for the environmental degradation visitors cause to the sites they visit, partly the climate consequences of all those air miles." www.standard.co.uk/comment/elgi...

“As the chair of the [British Museum] trustees, we’re looking to see if we can come to some arrangement where at some point some of the [Parthenon] sculptures are in Athens, where, of course, they were originally sited." George Osborne www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

Worst argument yet against returning the Parthenon Marbles? "There’s a serious moral case to be made against cultural tourism, partly for the environmental degradation visitors cause to the sites they visit, partly the climate consequences of all those air miles." www.standard.co.uk/comment/elgi...

“As the chair of the [British Museum] trustees, we’re looking to see if we can come to some arrangement where at some point some of the [Parthenon] sculptures are in Athens, where, of course, they were originally sited." George Osborne www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/202...

Speaking on his podcast, George Osborne said: “Well I think the clue is that I’m in New York rather than in London, and of course I would be in London if we were on the verge of reaching an agreement with Greece around the Parthenon sculptures". www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...