The Oxford-based Institute of Digital Archeology (IDA) is planning to sue the British Museum for refusing to allow a 3D scan of a piece of the famous Parthenon Marble.
Heritage Preservation Organization Tell Watchman Tuesday He will be filing a complaint by the end of the week for access to the disputed famous sculptures.
“We want them to treat our request in the same way that they treat similar requests. Their refusal has been capricious and arbitrary,” said Roger Michel, Executive Director of IDA, in a statement.
The Parthenon Marble is a group of classical Greek marble sculptures that originally formed part of the Parthenon and other structures on the Acropolis in Athens. They have long been at the center of the dispute between the United Kingdom and Greece, which has called for their repatriation.
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The institute, which supported Greece’s calls for repatriation, planned to reproduce one of the relief parapets of the southern facade of the Acropolis as a “proof of concept”. In 2016, IDA used 3D printing to reconstruct the 2,000-year-old Arch of Triumph from Palmyra in Syria, which was destroyed by the Islamic State. Created from Egyptian marble, the scale model of the monument traveled to cities around the world before being taken to Palmyra to be installed in a location near the original arch.
3D imaging has become an important tool for reviving lost cultural treasures, and IDA hopes it will even help settle the bitter guardianship battle between Greece and the United Kingdom. According to IDAAutomated sculptor can use 3D scans to reproduce Parthenon marble from the original stone with an accuracy of “less than a millimeter”. The organization hopes that high-quality copies will replace those in the British Museum.
“The accuracy of the statue is impressive,” Michel said. Greek Sky Port. “It’s as good as anything a human sculptor can do.”
Citing special British Museum guidelines allowing 3D scanning of his collection, IDA members entered the galleries and took pictures of most of the marbles. However, several pieces will need a ladder to be accessed.
In a statement, the British Museum said it was “deeply concerned to hear suggestions about unauthorized scanning in our galleries. Any such activity would be a violation of our visitor regulations,”
He continued, “We regularly receive requests to survey the collection from a wide range of private organizations…not all of these can be accommodated routinely.”
The controversy over the recovery surrounding relief panels and primitive carvings, sometimes called Elgin marbles after a Scottish aristocrat who took them from the Acropolis in the early 19th century, has regained momentum as Western governments investigate the conditions in which artifacts were brought into their countries.
In an earlier case, Germany returned 1,000 pieces known as the Benin Bronze designed as looted from Nigeria.
Last October, a UNESCO advisory board urged the British Museum to reconsider its position on the Parthenon Marble. The British government rejected the recommendation and insisted that the British Museum was the best custodian of the sculptures.
This situation was complicated, after reports that torrential rains in London caused water to seep into the Greek galleries of the British Museum. The British Museum said in a statement that none of the sculptures were damaged.
Successive Greek governments campaigned for their return, noting that they had been pulled from the massive frieze during the Ottoman occupation of Greece, when the latter nation had no sovereignty over its cultural possessions. The British government asserts that it was obtained legally.
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