Cuba, US join hands to protect Hemingway's legacy

The Cuban and the US institutions announced Saturday in Havana that they will continue to work together to protect US writer Ernest Hemingway's legacy.

Hollande honours the lives of slaves at Caribbean museum

French President François Hollande inaugurated a museum and memorial site to honour the memory of slaves and their struggles in the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe on Sunday.

Tunisia fires top security chiefs after attack

Tunisian Prime Minister Habib Essid fired six leading security officials on Monday, including the head of tourist security, after three gunmen attacked a renowned Tunis museum, killing 21 in the deadliest attack on tourists in Tunisia in 13 years, the government said Monday.

Tunisia ends deadly siege of museum (Prime minister says at least 17 foreign tourists among 19 killed)

Tunisia's prime minister says 19 people have been killed during a security operation at a museum in the capital after a deadly hostage siege.
The attackers killed at least 17 foreign tourists at the Bardo National Museum in central Tunis during Wednesday's assault before they were killed, Habib Essid said after the crisis was over.

ISIL/ISIS fighters destroy another world heritage Iraqi site

Fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have bulldozed the ancient city of Hatra, Iraqi officials say.

In a statement posted on its website on Saturday, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities quoted media outlets about the "looting and destruction of the ruins of the anciety city of Hatra."

ISIL Fighters Bulldoze 3000-Year-Old Assyrian Ruins

Less than one week after they destroyed ancient museum artifacts, Islamic State fighters have started using a bulldozer to destroy a 3,000-year-old Assyrian city near Mosul in Iraq, according to archeologists.

Crimean museums demand return of Scythian gold collection to Crimea

Four Crimean museums have filed a lawsuit in Amsterdam demanding a return of the Scythian gold collection to Crimea, Andrei Malgin, director of Tavrida’s Central Museum, told TASS on Wednesday.

Governor offers ‘apology’ to Turkey’s Chief Rabbi over synagogue controversy

The governor accused of inciting hatred toward Turkey’s Jewish community has offered an “apology” to the country’s Chief Rabbi, claiming that his proposal to turn a synagogue into a museum as a reprisal for Israel’s policies over Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque “had no connection” to the Turkish Jewish community.

ADL slams Turkish governor who wanted to turn synagogue into museum

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) issued a statement on Sunday condemning the governor of Turkey's northwest Edirne Province who called for turning a local synagogue into a museum.

Statue of Heracles repatriated from the US, draws thousands of visitors

Over 300,000 people have visited “Weary Heracles,” the top half of a 1,800-year-old Roman sculpture of the mythological hero Heracles that was repatriated to Turkey after 30 years abroad, since it went back on display in 2011, museum officials have said.

The sculpture, which was visited by 1,609 people in its first month at the museum in October 2011, was seen by 1,685 in November 2011 and 1,484 in December 2011. The total number of visitors was 173,843 in 2012 and 136,587 last year, according to information provided by the museum directorate in Antalya, which is home to the sculpture.

Artifacts of Hagia Sophia on display Trabzon Museum

Thirty-three historic artifacts in the garden of the Hagia Sophia in the Black Sea province of Trabzon have been moved to the Trabzon Museum after the structure was turned into a mosque again.

According to information provided by the Provincial Culture Directorate, the Hagia Sophia, which served as a museum for some time, has been transferred to the Trabzon Regional Directorate of Foundations through a court decision and turned into mosque again. Therefore, 33 historic artifacts and epitaphs from the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman eras in the garden of the structure were decided to be transferred to the Trabzon Museum. 

Return the treasures Britain looted, Chinese tell Cameron

BEIJING: British Prime Minister David Cameron faced demands for the return of priceless artefacts looted from Beijing in the 19th century on Wednesday, the last day of his visit to China.
Cameron travelled to the southwestern city of Chengdu on the third day of what embassy officials said was the largest ever British trade mission to the country.
British officials say 5.6 billion pounds ($9.2 billion) worth of deals have been signed so far on the trip, but Cameron has been derided by both Chinese state-run media and the country's sharp-tongued Internet users.

Thessaloniki: Greece’s new hot spot for Turks.-Thessaloniki is also considered an open-air museum of Byzantine art.

 Barçın Yinanç
Greece’s second largest city has of course a special place in the minds and hearts of Turks since it is the birth place of Atatürk, the Republic’s founder. Thessaloniki is also considered an open-air museum of Byzantine art.

With the rise in the last decade of a middle class in search of tourist destinations abroad yet frustrated by European Union visa regulations (the all too familiar Schengen visa), many Turkish tourists are increasingly seeking visa-free travel. Government efforts to abolish visa requirements with certain countries were emphatically appreciated as it has boosted tourism with countries like Russia, Lebanon (before the Syrian war) and Croatia (before it became an EU member). If we look at the last example, Turkish tourists’ arrivals to Croatia dropped 20 percent after the nation entered the EU last summer, despite Zagreb’s efforts to ease the process of visa attainment for Turkish nationals.

Ecumenical Patriarchate against Hagia Sophia opening

The Fener Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate (Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople)
supports the continued use of the historical Hagia Sophia in Trabzon (trapezounta) as a museum, not as a mosque.
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Australia: 8 Feb 2013

Vercihan Ziflioğlu (neoskosmos)

The Fener Greek-Orthodox Patriarchate (Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople) supports the continued use of the historical Hagia Sophia in Trabzon as a museum, not as a mosque.
"As is known, Trabzon is not urgently in need of a mosque, and it is also known that there is no Orthodox community there. The best way is to keep the church as a museum," Dositheos Anagnostopulos, the Patriarchate's press officer told the Hürriyet Daily News.

Turkey wants 'stolen' artifacts back from British Museum

Ankara has turned to the European Court of Human Rights in its attempt to reclaim British Museum sculptures that were once part of Turkey's Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the ancient world.
­The dispute is set to become a "test case for the repatriation of art from one nation to another, a potential disaster for the world's museums," the Guardian reported.
The ancient structure was a 45-meter-high tomb created between 353 and 350 BC at Halicarnassus, the current-day resort city of Bodrum in southwestern Turkey. Four horse chariots of marble were perched on top of the superstructure, which was designed by Greek architects.

How the Greeks can get their marbles back

Enthroned goddess

Australia: 18 Oct 2012 

Kathryn-Magnolia Feeley

The Parthenon Marbles will never be handed back to Greece on cultural grounds. That would upset the status quo of museums and collectors worldwide. But any reference of artefacts to present day religious significance sends tremors down the spine of curators of museums, as it would, undoubtedly encroach upon issues of Human Rights.
This must be the basis of the argument for Greece to regain the Parthenon Marbles. In 1801, Greece was under the occupation of the Turks. The Earl of Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time, bribed the Turks in order to get permission to hack away at the sculptures of the Parthenon. Elgin filled over 100 large packing cases with friezes, metopes and figures from the pediments and shipped them to England where they were sold to the British Museum in 1816 for £35,000 to pay his debts.