Parthenon Marbles Demonstration at the British Museum

In the early 1800's, Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, the British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, removed many ancient marble sculptures from the Parthenon in Athens, Greece under the auspices of an agreement with occupying Turkish forces.

Eventually his dire economic situation led the marbles to be sold to the British Government, who passed them to the British Museum. In recent years the legality of Elgin's actions in both acquiring and selling the marbles has come under much closer scrutiny. There is a growing movement to have the sculptures returned to Greece and a new purpose built museum located close to the Acropolis where the remaining sculptures already reside. As of yet no agreement has been reached between the British and the Greeks for such a thing to happen.

On Saturday 23rd October 2010, a group of people from the "Bring them Back" campaign, organised by members of ‘METOPO’, the Cypriot Student Movement in the UK, met outside of the British Museum to hold a sanctioned silent demonstration to demand the return of the Parthenon Marbles. The demonstration was attended by about 60 people, and passed without incident. Most of the attendees were of Greek and Cypriot origin, but there was a notable minority of British people present, including Matthew Taylor, a representative of the International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles, an organisation which consists of 17 member organisations in 16 different countries from around the world seeking to restore the Parthenon Marbles to Greece.

The protest was met with some interest by passers by and visitors to the Museum who stopped to observe the proceedings and the slogans on the demonstrators’ banners. The event concluded with a short speech by METEPO General Secretary Maria Stylianou explaining the purpose of the demonstration and a brief chant of “bring them back!” by the attendees.

Programme Notes:

00:00:00.00 - 00:00:04.24 - SMPTE Colour bars (Please check these bars as some MP4 codecs may require a Studio RGB to Computer RGB levels conversion for colours to look correct).

00:00:05.00 - 00:02:52.22 - British Museum Parthenon Marbles Demonstration - footage of silent protest at various angles. Including speech and closing chant.

00:02:52.23 - 00:05:31.17 - Greek language interview: Marios Nikolaou, President ‘METOPO’, Cypriot Student Movement UK.

00:05:31.18 - 00:06:20.23 - English language interview: Matthew Taylor, Representative of The International Association for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles

00:06:20.24 - 00:07:46.08 - English language interview: Maria Stylianou, General Secretary, ‘METOPO’, Cypriot Student Movement UK.

00:07:46.09 - 00:09:46.15 - Miscellaneous shots of Marbles held in the British Museum.