Ancient Greek culture

In his first interview with British media since being elected in July, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has petitioned for the Parthenon sculptures to be returned to Greece for its bicentennial independence celebrations, in exchange for a loan of ancient artifacts that have never been shown in the UK before.

A ban on the use of the Vergina Sun in all public spaces in North Macedonia came into effect on Monday, as the neighbouring country implements the conditions of the name deal it signed with Greece last year.

Organized by the Ministry of Culture, there will be free entrance to countless archaeological sites and museums across Greece on the night of the August full moon on Thursday, many of which will also be hosting live music events. The week from August 11 to 19 will also see a number of sites and museums holding special events to make the occasion.

On June 20, Greece and the world museum community celebrated the 10th anniversary of the inauguration of the Acropolis Museum in Athens. The state-of-the-art museum is rightly regarded as a defining structure that has established a dialogue, across time and space, between the sculptural works it houses and the Sacred Rock itself.

The Acropolis Museum will mark its 10th anniversary on June 21 with the official opening to visitors of an ancient Athenian neighborhood that was excavated beneath the building and which is currently visible through the glass floor at its entrance.

This Saturday, May 18, is International Museum Day and a great opportunity to take advantage of the free admission policy at all of Greece's archaeological sites, historical monuments and museums. Several institutions are also planning special events to mark the occasion.

A 45-year-old man from Thessaloniki in northern Greece has filed a police complaint claiming he was physically assaulted by a group of people in the downtown Athens suburb of Exarchia because the T-shirt he was wearing depicted the Vergina Sun, a symbol of ancient Macedonia.

Drawing on data gleaned from 19th century Ottoman archives, Acropolis Museum director Dimitrios Pandermalis has challenged claims by the British Museum that Lord Elgin had obtained permission from the sultan when Greece was under Turkish rule to transfer the Parthenon Marbles from Athens to London.

President Prokopis Pavlopoulos today demanded the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum and blasted Lord Elgin's hacking off of the magnificent sculptures as an act of cultural vandalism.

Greece's president called on Monday for Britain to free the Parthenon marbles from the "murky prison" of its national museum, upping the rhetoric in a near 200-year-old campaign for the sculptures' return.