“I believe that the important step that is being taken today paves the way for other museums to be able to move in the same direction. With the most important, of course, the British Museum, which should now realize that the time has come for the marbles of the Parthenon that left Greece in conditions that are more or less all known, to return here, to their natural home “, said the Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, during the event for the delivery and placement of the Parthenon” Fagan fragment “at the Acropolis Museum.
The fragment was donated to the Acropolis Museum by the Antonino Salinas Museum in Palermo using the deposit method, not as a loan, and will be exhibited in Athens for the next eight years (4 + 4).
The regional administration of Sicily seeks the historical relic to remain on a permanent basis in Greece and has asked the central government in Rome for a legal settlement of the issue through the Code of Cultural Heritage. The issue is being considered in the context of the Committee for the Recovery and Restoration of Cultural Heritage set up at the Italian Ministry of Culture.
“The effort of the Greek Government in order to achieve the permanent reunification of all the Parthenon Sculptures continues unabated”, pointed out Kyriakos Mitsotakis, while noting that the solution found in this case “proves that when there is a mood between museums, between cultural authorities of two countries, a solution can be found that is mutually acceptable “.
Department of History
The “Fagan fragment” is a fragment of the stone VI of the eastern frieze of the Parthenon, where Olympian gods are represented while watching the procession of the Panathenaeans and the delivery of the veil to the patron goddess Athena. The lower extremities of a goddess, most likely of Artemis, have been saved in the fragment. The left section of Stone VI is housed in the Acropolis Museum, while the right section is housed in the British Museum in London.
The fragment – 0.355 meters high, 0.31 meters wide and 0.105 meters thick – belonged to the collection of Robert Fagan, British Consul in Sicily and Malta, which was purchased by the University of Palermo between 1818-1820. It came under the ownership of the Antonino Salinas Museum in 1836. The fragment had been exhibited at the Acropolis Museum for a short time in 2008, on loan, as part of the periodical exhibition “Nosti”.
The deposition of the “Fagan fragment” at the Acropolis Museum is the result of contacts between the Minister of Culture and Sports Lina Mendoni and the regional administration of Sicily, especially the Regional Councilor Alberto Samonà, which began in November 2020.
Alberto Samona, Assessor of Cultural Heritage and Sicilian Identity, and Katerina Greco, director of the Antonino Salinas Museum, greeted the placement of the fragment with very warm words at the ceremony.
The momentum is being built for the prospect of repatriation
In November, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis raised the issue of the return of the Parthenon Sculptures from the British Museum to his British counterpart Boris Johnson, as part of his visit to London.
In statements to the British newspaper “The Telegraph” last week, Kyriakos Mitsotakis stood by the “dynamics that are being built” for the repatriation of the Sculptures, adding that his visit to Downing Street helped to create “a big wave of international support”. and that the agreement with “Antonino Salinas” could be a roadmap for an agreement with London.
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