Anthony Snodgrass To Discuss the Parthenon ("Elgin") Marbles on March 23

Anthony Snodgrass, chairman of the British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles and Laurence Professor Emeritus of Classical Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, will present a lecture titled “The Parthenon Divided” at 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 23, in the Montpelier Room, sixth floor of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C.

Snodgrass has given lectures throughout Europe and the United States regarding the case both for and against the restitution of the Parthenon Marbles to the Republic of Greece.

The program, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress and the Washington Collegium for the Humanities. No tickets are required.

The Parthenon (“Elgin”) Marbles—a collection of ancient Greek marble sculptures comprising about half of the extant sculptural decoration that once adorned the Parthenon in Athens—have been in England since the early 19th century. While serving as British ambassador to Turkey (1799-1802), Thomas Bruce, 7th Earl of Elgin, gained permission from Turkish authorities to buy some of the sculptures and take them to England. The British government eventually purchased them from him in 1816, and they have been on display in the British Museum since 1939.

Negotiations between the Greek government, which wants the Parthenon Marbles returned to Athens, and the British government have taken place over the years, but to date no agreement between the two governments has been reached.

Snodgrass is the author of a number of books about archaeology and ancient Greece. His most recent book, “Homer and the Artists: Text and Picture in Early Greek Art,” published in 1998, discusses the intersection of Homer, myth and art. Other works include “The Dark Age of Greece: An Archaeological Survey of the Eleventh to the Eighth Centuries B.C.” (1971), “Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment” (1980) and “An Archaeology of Greece: The Present State and Future Scope of a Discipline” (1987).

The Washington Collegium for the Humanities is a consortium of Washington-area research institutes established in 1984. Its purpose is to promote scholarship in the humanities through collaborative programs such as lectures, symposia, exhibitions, research and publication projects. The Library of Congress is one of the member institutions.

Through a generous endowment from John W. Kluge, the Library of Congress established the Kluge Center in 2000 to bring together the world’s best thinkers to stimulate and energize scholarly discussion, distill wisdom from the Library’s rich resources and interact with policymakers in Washington. For more information about any of the fellowships, grants and programs offered by the John W. Kluge Center, contact the Office of Scholarly Programs, Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, DC 20540-4860; telephone (202) 707-3302, fax (202) 707-3595, or visit the Web at www.loc.gov/kluge.

Press contact: Helen Dalrymple (202) 707-1940
Public contact: Robert Saladini (202) 707-2692
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