Acropolis Museum Director Professor Dimitris Pandermalis said on Monday that Turkish academics doubt the claims that the Ottomans gave permission, a ‘firman’ to Lord Elgin to remove the Parthenon sculptures, greekcitytimes.com reports.
The startling new claims were made by the museum’s director during the opening of the International Workshop entitled “Reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures” organized at the Acropolis Museum which was opened by the President of the Hellenic Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos.
Pandermalis, was referring to the discoveries of two Turkish researchers of the Ottoman archives, Professor Zeynep Aygen and historian Orhan Sakin, which they presented at the Acropolis Museum last February, as well as the Acropolis Museum’s own research into the period between 1800-1831, spanning the end of Ottoman rule in Greece and the conversion of the Acropolis into an archaeological site, relating three stories concerning the vandalism of the Marbles by Elgin.
According to the Turkish academics the Ottoman Empire attached too great a value to the ancient sculptures on the Athens Acropolis to give them away, and if proven, would delegitimise the long held claim by the British government that they did not trade in stolen artefacts.
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