Acropolis Museum Exhibition: The Parthenon and Byron
On the occasion of 200 years since Lord Byron’s death, the Acropolis Museum in Athens is honoring his memory with a symbolic exhibition related to Lord Elgin’s taking of the Parthenon sculptures.
The exhibition “The Parthenon and Byron: On the occasion of 200 years anniversary since Byron’s death” will open to the public on Friday, April 26, at the museum’s ground floor.
At the heart of the exhibition will be Byron’s passport, an authentic Sultanic firman (Islamic royal mandate or decree), which allowed him to travel across the territory of the Ottoman Empire.
“As one will notice in the small presentation on the ground floor of the Acropolis Museum, Byron left us one more unexpected gift that contributes eloquently and powerfully to the arguments for returning and reuniting the architectural sculptures of the Parthenon,” an announcement released by the Acropolis Museum said.
According to the museum, the firman/passport provides yet another opportunity to challenge the argument about the alleged existence of Elgin’s “firman”, which ostensibly sanctioned the removal of the Parthenon sculptures.
Other than the firman, visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to see the painting “Exodus from Messolonghi” (1827) by Louis Joseph Toussaint Rossignon, one of many painters inspired by this subject.
The small exhibition and the publication accompanying it include three sections:
– a selection of annotated traveler images from the Acropolis and the Parthenon (by Carrey, Dodwell, Fauvel, and Pars, among others), from a time before Lord Byron and the plunder of the monument’s sculptures by Elgin up until the constitution of the modern Greek state and the founding of the archaeological site of the Acropolis in 1834, as seen in the exhibition video.
– a short biography and excerpts from Byron’s poems “The Curse of Minerva” and “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”, which refer to the brutal detachment and destruction of the Parthenon’s architectural sculptures by Elgin and their subsequent underhanded seizure and removal
– Byron’s original passport, a genuine, unexpected Sultanic firman, was exhibited for the first time in the Museum, serving as an opportunity to reopen the discussion on the return and reunification of the Parthenon sculptures.
No ticket is required to visit the exhibition. A bilingual publication (Greek-English) will be available in the museum shops on Monday, April 29.
The exhibition will run until August 31.