Official Says Parthenon Safe From Seepage

Athens' ancient Parthenon is not under threat from water seeping into rock beneath it, despite successive days of torrential rainfall this week, an official said Friday.

"There is absolutely no danger," said Deputy Culture Minister Petros Tatoulis.

No water was escaping through a temporary floor installed inside the Parthenon for restoration work, he said.

Architect Manolis Korres, a key figure in the massive restoration project at the 2,500-year-old monument that sits atop the Acropolis, had warned Wednesday that rainwater was gradually draining into rock underneath the Parthenon and could eventually weaken the monument's foundations.

Athens and other parts of Greece have been battered by storms and heavy rainfall this week, which caused flooding, limited power cuts, disrupted transport services and caused the death of one woman in southern Greece.

Also Friday, Tatoulis toured the site of a new Acropolis Museum with campaigners from 12 countries seeking the return of sculptures removed from the Acropolis 200 years ago and housed at the British Museum in London.

The 215,000-square foot glass and concrete museum, designed by U.S.-based architect Bernard Tschumi and Greece's Michael Photiades, is due to be completed by the end of 2006.

It will replace a small museum on the Acropolis and is designed to house the British Museum collection _ also known as the Elgin Marbles.

"This new museum will weaken the arguments presented ... by the British Museum," Tatoulis said. "We will make every effort to achieve our goal. It's not a national issue, the sculptures are part of world heritage."

At a small exhibition area next to the museum site, copies of the Elgin Marbles are being displayed, in dimmed light, behind directly lit genuine sculptures.

The campaigners _ from Britain, New Zealand, the United States, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Italy, Serbia-Montenegro, Spain, Cyprus, Russia and German _ were received Friday by President Karolos Papoulias and Prime Minister Costas Caramanlis.

They announced plans to coordinate their activities as a single body to be called the International Organization for the Reunification of the Parthenon Marbles.

"The problem is the obstinacy of the British Museum ... there are many ways this could be negotiated if we were dealing with someone who would negotiate," British campaigner Anthony Snodgrass said.

"We are no longer confronting the British Museum but surrounding them," Snodgrass said. "We've enlisted many of their former allies, who now support us."

• Source: WASHINGTON POST
• Date of publication of article: 21/11/2005 
• Author: D. Gatopoulos

• Link to the Washington Post website: http://www.washingtonpost.com

• Link to the present article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/25/AR2005112500733.html