On Thursday 5th July, from 4:30pm to 6:30pm, RETURN, a non-governmental organization, will be hosting a peaceful protest outside the British Museum, to campaign for the reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, back to Greece.
RETURN, is a newly created organization, founded by the 20-year-old law student, Petros Papadopoulos. The aim of the organization is to peacefully influence the British government to re-unite the Parthenon Marbles removed by Lord Elgin in the nineteenth century and shipped back to Britain.
On 7 June 1816, British Parliament voted to purchase from Lord Elgin, his collection of sculpted marbles collected from the Parthenon and elsewhere on the Athenian Acropolis; these have remained in the British Museum despite repeated requests from Greece and elsewhere to find a way to reunite them.
On 20 June 2009, the Acropolis Museum in Athens was opened to the public and since it opened it has received millions of visitors from all over the world. The missing sculptures are casts that were made by the British Museum and bought by Greece; underneath these casts it simply says BM.
70% of the Parthenon Frieze is still preserved, much of it in very good shape, after nearly 2500 years this is something amazing and, it’s not difficult to imagine the missing bits. The sculptures already in Athens, especially the West Frieze, show much more detail than the over-cleaned London ones.
Members of RETURN will be handing out informative leaflets to people entering the museum, highlighting the merits of reunification of this specific work of art.
At the same time, passers-by may stop to take photos with the banners, to post on social media, adding their support to our cause. Posters and banners of RETURN will be outside the museum.