A musical tribute to our beloved Melina, known to the world as Melina Mercouri - singer, actress, politician - the Last Greek Goddess...
This is a collection of our favourite songs including one sung for her by her stepson - French singer Joe Dassin...you'll know it for sure...Γαρύφαλλο στ'αφτί
Listen, reminisce and smile...that's what she would have wanted us to do.
Broadway theaters will turn off their lights for one minute this evening to honour one of our Global Greeks, legendary costume designer Theoni Aldredge, who died last Friday in Connecticut in the USA.
A fitting tribute to one of Greece's most talented daughters of the diaspora!
Born in Thessaloniki, Theoni Athanasiou Vachliotis studied at the American College of Greece in Athens and went to the USA to study at the Goodman School of Drama in Chicago.
Her Broadway career began when fellow Global Greek Elia Kazan, prompted by actress Geraldine Page, asked her to design the costumes for his stage production of Tenessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth in 1959.
“I made three outfits for Gerry — a negligee, a robe and a beaded navy blue evening dress with a lighter front because a bird’s stomach is always lighter than its back,” she told Architectural Digest in 1993. “So there you had Tennessee Williams writing, Geraldine Page and Paul Newman acting, and I thought, ‘Where do I go from here?’ ” (Source: NYT Obit)
Our answer to that is simple: Up, in fact right up, to the very top!
For more than fifty years she was a favourite of top producers on and off Broadway, designing fabulous costumes for more than 80 productions, and winning three Tony Awards in this category, namely for Annie, La Cage aux Folles and Barnum.
Theoni Aldredge's remarkable career in costume design, either as herself or under the name of Denny Vachliotis, her alter-ego, included a wide range of films for Hollywood, with The Great Gatsby topping the list, the film which gave her the Best Costume Design Academy Award in 1974 for her stunning creations, and ensured a lifetime spot for her on the Academy.
A good friend of Melina Mercouri's and Jules Dassin, she also worked with them as Denny Vachlioti in Phaedra, (for which she also got an Oscar nomination),Topkapi, Never on Sunday, and with Mihalis Cacoyiannisand Melina in Stella.
Theoni Aldredge was cremated. Her family will be bringing her ashes to Greece, the land of her birth, to be placed in her final resting place at Athens' First Cemetery.
Kalo Taxidi, Theoni...
Αιωνία σου η μνήμη...
To read more about Theoni Aldredge/Denny Vachliotis
Oh and by the way, we don't mention her age...we'll leave that to others... It is never polite to mention a lady's age and certainly not a Greek lady's, especially when nobody seems to have got it right! She would probably be most upset with her New York Times Obituary though, they aged her by a decade...unless they know something we don't!
Sources: Ta Nea, Greek News Agenda, NYT Obit, Wikipedia
Honouring Melina Mercouri - the Last Greek Goddess
The Poster created for her Mayoral Campaign in 1990 was later issued
as part of a set of commemorative stamps in her honour
The local elections in Greece recently saw a change of power in Greece's two main centres, for the first time since 1986...
In the capital, Athens the sitting Mayor, Nikitas Kaklamanis, a former Minister with Nea Democratia, was defeated by outsider Giorgos Kaminis, the former Ombudsman whose candidacy was supported by PASOK and the left coalitions...whilst Yiannis Boutaris, of the reknowned Boutari Wines, on a similar basis, ousted Nea Dimokratia's sitting Mayor Vassilis Papageorgopoulos in Thessaloniki...
As the elections came and went and a new Mayor was elected for Athens, some of us couldn't help but think of the only woman who really deserved to have been the Mayor of Athens but wasn't, Melina Mercouri, the ultimate Athenian, the last Greek Goddess, someone who loved the city and would have done wonders for Athens' image and identity...
Her vision was focused on showcasing Greece's rich heritage - emphasising the beauty of Athens' many classical and historical monuments, uniting Athens' many Archaeological sites, reuniting the Parthenon Sculptures, and adding culture and poetry to everyday living and education...
One thing is for sure, she certainly wouldn't have allowed her beloved Athens to get to the level it is today, with scenes such as the one pictured below an everyday occurrence which totally mars the beauty of the newly restored Athenian Trilogy buildings in one of the most beautiful streets of Athens, Panepistimiou... and not only!
Photo by Alexandros Filippidis which appeared in the Kathimerini on Sunday
Melina, born Maria Amalia Mercouri in Athens in 1920, was the daughter of Stamatis Mercouris, a former cavalry officer, member of Parliament for the Democratic Socialist Party of Greece and former Minister for Public Order of Greece, and the granddaughter of Spyros Mercouris, one of the most successful Mayors of Athens.
Melina worshipped her paternal grandfather who played such a significant role in her early childhood. In turn, Spyros Mercouris adored his granddaughter and took her with him almost everywhere he went - the sight of a young Melina with her grandfather was an endearing one, and one which would inspire the song Melina Melinaki which also became very popular in France.
A well-known and talented actress, Melina was internationally acclaimed for her portrayal of a woman of pleasure in Never on Sunday, a film which was a milestone in Greek film history but she also had many other performances in her repertoire, both in films and in the theatre, modern and classical.
During the years of the Military Junta in Greece, while in exile abroad, Melina also recorded several albums which became very popular... her sultry, husky voice giving the songs an extra special dimension.
One of the most popular was a 1973 album with fellow Global Greek, composer Vangelis, 'Si Melina M'Etait Contee', which featured this song , one of her most beautiful ...
Athenes, ma Ville
Ma ville,c'est bon ne plus te voir en rêve
Ma ville, regarde le soleil se lève
Je te salue, toi mon ami, ma soeur
belle endormie mais qui attend son heure
Ma ville, écoute au creux de tes ruelles
Ma ville la voix de tes enfants t'appelle
réveille-toi réveille-toi
Athèna Athèna
réveille-toi réveille-toi
Athèna Athèna
Ma ville que c'est un joli jour pour naitre
dore le pain Pâques est enfin venue
tire le vin qui fait chanter tes rues
Ma ville écoute au creux de tes ruelles
ma ville la voix de tes enfants t'appelle
réveille-toi réveille-toi
Athèna Athèna
réveille-toi réveille-toi
Athèna Athèna
réveille-toi réveille-toi
Athèna Athèna
réveille-toi réveille-toi
Athèna Athèna
réveille-toi réveille-toi
Athèna Athèna
Famous for her anti-dictatorship stance during the Military Junta, she was deprived of her Greek citizenship and denied entry into Greece from 1967 to 1974. Her response to that was a simple
'I was born Greek and I will die Greek.
Mr Pattakos was born a dictator and a dictator he will die'
Her biography, appropriately enough, has the same name, I Was Born Greek...
When democracy was restored to her homeland Melina returned to Greece and entered politics, becoming Minister of Culture in the first PASOK Government and retaining that position until she died, except for a short break between 1990 and 1993. From that position she took on the British Museum as she campaigned long and hard for the return of the stolen Parthenon Sculptures now on display in the British Museum.
Melina didn't live to see her dream become reality. She died in 1994 but her cause was rapidly gaining support around the world and her vision of a Museum to house the Repatriated Sculptures materialised on 20 June 2009 when the magnificent New Acropolis Museum opened its doors in Athens.
The pressure on the British is unrelenting and grows daily, with the London Olympics in 2012 an ideal moment for initiatives to be taken.
Melina, our immortal Melina, will be waiting, just as we are... as she said when she addressed the UNESCO Conference in Mexico in 1982...
'You must understand what the Parthenon Marbles stand for us. They are our pride. Our sacrifice. Our ultimate symbol of nobility. It is a requiem to our democratic philosophy, our ambition and our name. They are the essence of our Hellenic Being. If you ask me whether I will be alive when the Marbles return to Greece, I tell you, yes, I will be.
But even if I'm not, I will be born again.
When the Sculptures come home to Athens, so will I'
This statue of the most well known of the leaders of the 1821 Revolution
stands in front of the National Historical Museum in Athens
The Old Parliament(Palaia Vouli )
now
The National Historical Museum
Harilaos Trikoupis
Greek Prime Minister 1880 on
'The Father of Modern Greece'
The statue of the visionary Trikoupis is known stands in front of the Palaia Vouli.
Many of his personal belongings are on display in the museum
Η ΕΛΛΑΣ ΘΕΛΕΙ ΝΑ ΖΗΣΗ ΚΑΙ ΘΑ ΖΗΣΗ
Ellas wants to live and live she will!
This quote at the base of the statue is indicative of
Trikoupis' deep faith in the future of Greece
Harilaos Trikoupis Bridge - Rio- Antirio
The world's largest cable-stayed bridge
Harilaos Trikoupis' vision of uniting mainland Greece with a
bridge connecting Rio with Antirio, materialised in 2004 and took his name.
The Corinth Canal and the Athens Suburban Railway (Ilektriko)
were two of the projects undertaken during Trikoupis' premiership.
Yesterday, 27 September, was World Tourism Day and as Greece is one of the world's foremost tourist destinations, the Hellenic Culture Ministry advised that all Museums and archaeological sites in Greece would be open and entrance free for the public!
A great initiative which follows the Cultural Heritage Weekend which falls traditionally on the last weekend of September and effectively meant that Greece's visitors and residents alike had a unique chance to visit Greece's many museums and archaeological sites, free of charge for 3 days in a row!
This post is slightly different to our usual kind of posts. Greece has so many excellent museums and archaeological sites and so many beautiful spots that it is hard to fit them into one post, but we thought we would just share some of our favourites with you ...in photos!
Sunset
Kalyves Beach, Apokorona, Crete
Aghios Manolis, Askyfou, Sfakia , Crete
This is the only known church dedicated to St Manoli,
on the road to Sfakia
The Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus
Sacred, hallowed ground
An amazing sense of History all around...
The Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus
The Left Portal
Melina on The Acropolis
Melina Mercouri, Minister, Activist and Actress fought till her last breath for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles in Athens.
Her legacy to the world...
The New Acropolis Museum - Melina's Vision
Waiting patiently for the Parthenon Marbles to come home...
The New Acropolis Museum
One of the many excavations on display that the visitor can see in situ
The Theatre of Herodus Atticus (Herodeion)
History, culture and legend come together below the Parthenon
Limni Kournas
The only natural freshwater lake in Crete,
Kournas is also home to small creatures and many ducks.
Rumour has it that the ducks are looked after by the resident
water nymphs who comb their hair in the moonlight. The plants around
the shores (liges) were used extensively for weaving the baskets
which have made the region of Apokorona famous.
Nafplio
Greece's first capital city, a beautiful town, a great main square,
loads of history and it will soon host a great cupcake cafe!
Paleros
Idyllic sailing in the deep blue of the Ionian Sea
with Meganissi and Lefkada just across the water...
around the corner from Skorpios, Onassis' private paradise
The sacred olive tree....
Greece's capital city got it's name from the Goddess Athena when she won the competition with Poseidon. Athena struck her spear to the ground and caused an olive tree to spring forth, thus supplying wood, oil and food. This appealed to the Athenians who judged that the city would be named after her... This particular olive tree is over 1000 years old and is in the Apokorona region of Crete
Venizelos Tombs
Magnificent view of Chania, Crete from the Profiti Ilia site of
Eleftherios and Sofoklis Venizelos Tombs at Akrotiri
Venizelos Tombs
A 'Tomb' with a view, the best in Chania!
Hora Sfakion, Sfakia, Crete
The Allied troops were evacuated to North Africa from this bay
after the Battle of Crete in May and June of 1941
Goats... with a view
A familiar sight all around Greece
The House of Troy... Iliou Melathron
was built by the architect Ernst Ziller for archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann and his Greek wife Sophia, as a residence. At the time, it also housed some of the mythical treasures from Schliemann's Troy and Mycenae excavations. Today it is the Athens Numismatic Museum and apart from the fabulous coin collections and historical documents, it also showcases Schliemann's life and works with wall paintings of his finds. A well-kept secret is the little cafe tucked away in the garden behind the building - a welcome oasis in a busy city... makes great hot chocolate!
The Muppets singing Never on Sunday - Bouzouki and all!
Dedicated to all those our friends who love Greek music and who are fans of Manos Hadjidakis' world famous Never on Sunday or Ta Paidia tou Piraia!...
A musical end to a difficult week to wish you all a wonderful weekend! Thanks Stathis M - NZ for the link on Facebook which inspired this post!
The video clips that follow are great versions of Never on Sunday, either in Greek or in English! Note that this song has been recorded in French, in Italian, in Czech, in Serbian, in Spanish, in German, in Dutch in Croatian and even in Cantonese and Mandarin..(for the Chinese version please see link posted by Vera in the comments section ...Thanks Vera!)
The original, of course, was Melina Mercouri's Academy Award winning version in Jules Dassin's film of the same name!
Take your pick! Listen to them all and leave a comment below telling us which one you prefer!
Enjoy!
The Muppets sing Never on Sunday
In the 1960's everybody recorded it....Doris Day, Petula Clark,The Chordettes and Connie Francis...
Nana Mouskouri and the Athenians' version from her BBC Series...
and of course recently... Sakis Rouvas!
but nothing can beat the original - sung in Melina Mercouri's inimitable manner...
For all those who were there and for those who watched from afar, the last video clip shows us was one of the Athens 2004 Olympic Closing Ceremony's most moving moments... When the familiar sound of the opening chords of the bouzouki flooded the packed Olympic Stadium, the crowd went wild... Anna Vissi, Antonis Remos, Alkistis Protopsalti, Mihalis Hatzigiannis, Eleftheria Arvanitaki and Dionysis Savopoulos in a unique rendition of Greece's signature tune... incidentally, it was a full moon that night, 29 August 2004, and the August full moon in Greece is absolutely awesome....
This magnificent photo of Melina graces the Acropolis Metro Station in Athens and was taken by her personal photographer Ilias Anagnostopoulos
It is nearly three decades since Melina Mercouri, as Minister of Culture in Greece's first Socialist Government in 1981, brought the issue of the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles to the attention of the international community, giving the cause the international status it needed and succeeded in having them referred to as the Parthenon Marbles rather than the Elgin Marbles, in her glorious and inimitable fashion.
Melina's vision, which also became that of her partner, world renowned director Jules Dassin, was to see the Parthenon Marbles reunited in a Museum to be built in Athens just for that reason. Dassin's efforts continued after Melina's death in 1974, establishing the Melina Mercouri Foundation in Greece, to carry on Melina's work and keep the pressure on the British Government! Unfortunately neither Melina or Jules lived to see the opening of the New Acropolis Museum, but we are all here to continue Melina's campaign and keep sending out our message
There is no excuse anymore - Bring the Parthenon Marbles HOME!!!
On the eve of the opening of the New Acropolis Museum and among the first to visit Greece’s latest cultural jewel, devoted to the Parthenon and other temples, noted British born American writer Christopher Hitchens, took the opportunity of addressing the issue of the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles once again, and writes the following for the latest edition of Vanity Fair.
The Lovely Stones - by Christopher Hitchens for Vanity Fair July 2009
The great classicist A. W. Lawrence (illegitimate younger brother of the even more famously illegitimate T.E. “of Arabia”) once remarked of the Parthenon that it is “the one building in the world which may be assessed as absolutely right.” I was considering this thought the other day as I stood on top of the temple with Maria Ioannidou, the dedicated director of the Acropolis Restoration Service, and watched the workshop that lay below and around me. Everywhere there were craftsmen and -women, toiling to get the Parthenon and its sister temples ready for viewing by the public this summer. There was the occasional whine of a drill and groan of a crane, but otherwise this was the quietest construction site I have ever seen—or, rather, heard. Putting the rightest, or most right, building to rights means that the workers must use marble from a quarry in the same mountain as the original one, that they must employ old-fashioned chisels to carve, along with traditional brushes and twigs, and that they must study and replicate the ancient Lego-like marble joints with which the master builders of antiquity made it all fit miraculously together.
Don’t let me blast on too long about how absolutely heart-stopping the brilliance of these people was. But did you know, for example, that the Parthenon forms, if viewed from the sky, a perfect equilateral triangle with the Temple of Aphaea, on the island of Aegina, and the Temple of Poseidon, at CapeSounion? Did you appreciate that each column of the Parthenon makes a very slight inward incline, so that if projected upward into space they would eventually steeple themselves together at a symmetrical point in the empyrean? The “rightness” is located somewhere between the beauty of science and the science of beauty.
With me on my tour was Nick Papandreou, son and grandson of prime ministers and younger brother of the Socialist opposition leader, who reminded me that the famously fluted columns are made not of single marble shafts but of individually carved and shaped “drums,” many of them still lying around looking to be re-assembled. On his last visit, he found a graffito on the open face of one such. A certain Xanthias, probably from Thrace, had put his name there, not thinking it would ever be seen again once the next drum was joined on. Then it surfaced after nearly 2,500 years, to be briefly glimpsed (by men and women who still speak and write a version of Xanthias’s tongue) before being lost to view once more, this time for good. On the site, a nod of respect went down the years, from one proud Greek worker to another.
The original construction of the Parthenon involved what I call Periclean Keynesianism: the city needed to recover from a long and ill-fought war against Persia and needed also to give full employment (and a morale boost) to the talents of its citizens. Over tremendous conservative opposition, Pericles in or about the year 450 b.c. pushed through the Athenian Assembly a sort of stimulus package which proposed a labor-intensive reconstruction of what had been lost or damaged in the Second Persian War. As Plutarch phrases it in his Pericles:
The house-and-home contingent, no whit less than the sailors and sentinels and soldiers, might have a pretext for getting a beneficial share of the public wealth. The materials to be used were stone, bronze, ivory, gold, ebony and cypress-wood; the arts which should elaborate and work up these materials were those of carpenter, molder, bronze-smith, stone-cutter, dyer, veneerer in gold and ivory, painter, embroiderer, embosser, to say nothing of the forwarders and furnishers of the material It came to pass that for every age almost, and every capacity, the city’s great abundance was distributed and shared by such demands.
When we think of Athens in the fifth century b.c., we think chiefly of the theater of Euripides and Sophocles and of philosophy and politics—specifically democratic politics, of the sort that saw Pericles repeatedly re-elected in spite of complaints that he was overspending. And it’s true that Antigone was first performed as the Parthenon was rising, and Medea not all that long after the temple was finished. From drama to philosophy: Socrates himself was also a stonemason and sculptor, and it seems quite possible that he too took part in raising the edifice. So Greece might have something to teach us about the arts of recovery as well. As the author of The Stones of Athens, R. E. Wycherley, puts it:
In some sense, the Parthenon must have been the work of a committee It was the work of the whole Athenian people, not merely because hundreds of them had a hand in building it, but because the assembly was ultimately responsible, confirmed appointments, and sanctioned and scrutinized the expenditure of every drachma.
I have visited many of the other great monuments of antiquity, from Luxor and Karnak and the pyramids to Babylon and Great Zimbabwe, and their magnificence is always compromised by the realization that slaves did the heavy lifting and they were erected to show who was boss. The Parthenon is unique because, though ancient Greece did have slavery to some extent, its masterpiece also represents the willing collective work of free people. And it is open to the light and to the air: “accessible,” if you like, rather than dominating. So that to its rightness you could tentatively add the concept of “rights,” as Periclean Greeks began dimly to formulate them for the first time.
Not that the beauty and symmetry of the Parthenon have not been abused and perverted and mutilated. Five centuries after the birth of Christianity the Parthenon was closed and desolated. It was then “converted” into a Christian church, before being transformed a thousand years later into a mosque—complete with minaret at the southwest corner—after the Turkish conquest of the Byzantine Empire. Turkish forces also used it for centuries as a garrison and an arsenal, with the tragic result that in 1687, when Christian Venice attacked the Ottoman Turks, a powder magazine was detonated and huge damage inflicted on the structure. Most horrible of all, perhaps, the Acropolis was made to fly a Nazi flag during the German occupation of Athens. I once had the privilege of shaking the hand of Manolis Glezos, the man who climbed up and tore the swastika down, thus giving the signal for a Greek revolt against Hitler.
The damage done by the ages to the building, and by past empires and occupations, cannot all be put right. But there is one desecration and dilapidation that can at least be partially undone. Early in the 19th century, Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Lord Elgin, sent a wrecking crew to the Turkish-occupied territory of Greece, where it sawed off approximately half of the adornment of the Parthenon and carried it away. As with all things Greek, there were three elements to this, the most lavish and beautiful sculptural treasury in human history. Under the direction of the artistic genius Phidias, the temple had two massive pediments decorated with the figures of Pallas Athena, Poseidon, and the gods of the sun and the moon. It then had a series of 92 high-relief panels, or metopes, depicting a succession of mythical and historical battles. The most intricate element was the frieze, carved in bas-relief, which showed the gods, humans, and animals that made up the annual Pan-Athens procession: there were 192 equestrian warriors and auxiliaries featured, which happens to be the exact number of the city’s heroes who fell at the Battle of Marathon. Experts differ on precisely what story is being told here, but the frieze was quite clearly carved as a continuous narrative. Except that half the cast of the tale is still in Bloomsbury, in London, having been sold well below cost by Elgin to the British government in 1816 for $2.2 million in today’s currency to pay off his many debts. (His original scheme had been to use the sculptures to decorate Broomhall, his rain-sodden ancestral home in Scotland, in which case they might never have been seen again.)
Ever since Lord Byron wrote his excoriating attacks on Elgin’s colonial looting, first in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812) and then in The Curse of Minerva (1815), there has been a bitter argument about the legitimacy of the BritishMuseum’s deal. I’ve written a whole book about this controversy and won’t oppress you with all the details, but would just make this one point. If the Mona Lisa had been sawed in two during the Napoleonic Wars and the separated halves had been acquired by different museums in, say, St. Petersburg and Lisbon, would there not be a general wish to see what they might look like if re-united? If you think my analogy is overdrawn, consider this: the body of the goddess Iris is at present in London, while her head is in Athens. The front part of the torso of Poseidon is in London, and the rear part is in Athens. And so on. This is grotesque.
To that essentially aesthetic objection the British establishment has made three replies. The first is, or was, that return of the marbles might set a “precedent” that would empty the world’s museum collections. The second is that more people can see the marbles in London. The third is that the Greeks have nowhere to put or display them. The first is easily disposed of: The Greeks don’t want anything else returned to them and indeed hope to have more, rather than less, Greek sculpture displayed in other countries. And there is in existence no court or authority to which appeals on precedent can be made. (Anyway, who exactly would be making such an appeal? The Aztecs? The Babylonians? The Hittites? Greece’s case is a one-off—quite individual and unique.) As to the second: Melina Mercouri’s husband, the late movie director and screenwriter Jules Dassin, told a British parliamentary committee in 2000 that by the standard of mass viewership the sculptures should all be removed from Athens and London and exhibited in Beijing. After these frivolous and boring objections have been dealt with, we are left with the third and serious one, which is what has brought me back to Athens. Where should the treasures be safeguarded and shown?
It is unfortunately true that the city allowed itself to become very dirty and polluted in the 20th century, and as a result the remaining sculptures and statues on the Parthenon were nastily eroded by “acid rain.” And it’s also true that the museum built on the Acropolis in the 19th century, a trifling place of a mere 1,450 square meters, was pathetically unsuited to the task of housing or displaying the work of Phidias. But gradually and now impressively, the Greeks have been living up to their responsibilities. Beginning in 1992, the endangered marbles were removed from the temple, given careful cleaning with ultraviolet and infra-red lasers, and placed in a climate-controlled interior. Alas, they can never all be repositioned on the Parthenon itself, because, though the atmospheric pollution is now better controlled, Lord Elgin’s goons succeeded in smashing many of the entablatures that held the sculptures in place. That leaves us with the next-best thing, which turns out to be rather better than one had hoped.
About a thousand feet southeast of the temple, the astonishing new AcropolisMuseum will open on June 20. With 10 times the space of the old repository, it will be able to display all the marvels that go with the temples on top of the hill. Most important, it will be able to show, for the first time in centuries, how the Parthenon sculptures looked to the citizens of old.
Arriving excitedly for my preview of the galleries, I was at once able to see what had taken the Greeks so long. As with everywhere else in Athens, if you turn over a spade or unleash a drill you uncover at least one layer of a previous civilization. (Building a metro for the Olympics in 2004 was a protracted if fascinating nightmare for this very reason.) The new museum, built to the design of the French-Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi, has had to be mounted above ground on 100 huge reinforced-concrete pillars, which allow you to survey the remnants of villas, drains, bathhouses, and mosaics of the recently unearthed neighborhood below. Much of the ground floor is made of glass so that natural light filters down to these excavations and gives the effect of transparency throughout. But don’t look down for too long. Raise your eyes and you will be given an arresting view of the Parthenon, from a building that has been carefully aligned to share its scale and perspective with the mother ship.
I was impatient to be the first author to see the remounted figures and panels and friezes. Professor Dimitrios Pandermalis, the head of the museum, took me to the top-floor gallery and showed me the concentric arrangement whereby the sculpture of the pediment is nearest the windows, the high-relief metopes are arranged above head height (they are supposed to be seen from below), and finally the frieze is running at eye level along the innermost wall. At any time, you can turn your head to look up and across at the architectural context for which the originals were so passionately carved. At last it will be possible to see the building and its main artifacts in one place and on one day.
The British may continue in their constipated fashion to cling to what they have so crudely amputated, but the other museums and galleries of Europe have seen the artistic point of re-unification and restored to Athens what was looted in the years when Greece was defenseless. Professor Pandermalis proudly showed me an exquisite marble head, of a youth shouldering a tray, that fits beautifully into panel No. 5 of the north frieze. It comes courtesy of the collection of the Vatican. Then there is the sculpted foot of the goddess Artemis, from the frieze that depicts the assembly of Olympian gods, by courtesy of the SalinasMuseum, in Palermo. From Heidelberg comes another foot, this time of a young man playing a lyre, and it fits in nicely with the missing part on panel No. 8. Perhaps these acts of cultural generosity, and tributes to artistic wholeness, could “set a precedent,” too?
The AcropolisMuseum has hit on the happy idea of exhibiting, for as long as following that precedent is too much to hope for, its own original sculptures with the London-held pieces represented by beautifully copied casts. This has two effects: It allows the visitor to follow the frieze round the four walls of a core “cella” and see the sculpted tale unfold (there, you suddenly notice, is the “lowing heifer” from Keats’s Ode on a Grecian Urn). And it creates a natural thirst to see the actual re-assembly completed. So, far from emptying or weakening a museum, this controversy has instead created another one, which is destined to be among Europe’s finest galleries. And one day, surely, there will be an agreement to do the right thing by the world’s most “right” structure.
We at Global Greek World certainly hope so, Christopher, and thank you for all the support you have given our Global Greek Cause!
To read the original article in Vanity Fair, Click here
To see a slide show of the New Acropolis Museum by the New York Times, Click here
To visit the website of the New Acropolis Museum, Click here
Recently a new initiative for the Repatriation of the Parthenon Marbles has started up, gathering more than 100,000 members on Facebook! To read about this Campaign, headed by Alexis Mantheakis Click here
To buy a copy of Christopher Hitchens' Book "The Elgin Marbles, Should they be Returned to Greece?" Click here
