The return of three antiquities from Atlanta – 2024-04-18 23:39:57

HAPPY ENDING STORIES

The Fethiye Mosque of Athens welcomes the exhibition ‘STORIES WITH A HAPPY ENDING’. The return of three antiquities from Atlanta’, which was organized by the Directorate of Documentation and Protection of Cultural Properties, in collaboration with the Ephorate of Antiquities of the City of Athens of the Ministry of Culture.

The exhibition deals with the long and difficult process of repatriation of three Greek antiquities: a clay Minoan urn in the bath type, with written decoration (YM IIIA – mid 14th century BC), a marble seated male figure from the decoration of a tomb temple ( 350-325 BC) and a marble statue of the goddess Artemis (second half of the 2nd century BC).

Upon receiving them from the University of Atlanta, Emory, the Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni stated: “The Carlos Museum is added to a list of museums around the world that in recent years have made a significant effort to investigate questions of origin of the objects in the collections their. Museums whose executives have the courage to disclose the results of their investigations and return to the countries of origin the objects, which they find to be linked to illegal acts. When, in fact, this move is made by a Museum directly connected to a University Institution, the act acquires particular weight. It sensitizes students to the global scourge of looting and illegal trafficking of cultural goods by antiquities circles, who expect only profit, leading to the loss of irreplaceable and valuable archaeological, historical and scientific information. It teaches young scientists high values, such as respect for the culture and cultural heritage of each country, integral elements of the identity of each people. With the repatriation of the three antiquities, a new page of cultural cooperation between the Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic and the Museum of M.C. Carlos and Emory University of Atlanta. The Ministry of Culture of Greece will contribute in every way, so that this cooperation will be the starting point of a fruitful scientific dialogue between the two sides and will provide the opportunity to promote Greek culture through periodic exhibitions and loans of antiquities. What we should retain from today is that good-faith dialogue between actors should be the basis for any claim and any return of cultural goods to their country of origin.”

The antiquities, although they belong to different cultural environments, are “tied” by a common fate: They were found in clandestine excavations, during the decades of the 1980s and 1990s, and were trafficked inside and outside Greece by large antiquities circles, before ending up in the Michael C. Carlos Museum of the University Emory, Atlanta, USA. The fate of their return is also shared, since the ongoing efforts of the competent Services of the Ministry of Culture since 2007 resulted in their repatriation, on January 22, 2024.

The visitor to the exhibition has the opportunity to admire, on the first level, three unique works of art, ‘births’ of different places and times. On a second level, however, he can see the struggle required on the part of the Ministry of Culture, the continuous and thorough research in photographic and printed archives, the cooperation with international prosecuting, judicial and diplomatic authorities, to achieve the self-evident, which is no other from the return of alienated monuments to the place that created them.