Greece would offer major treasures to UK for Parthenon marbles, minister says
-Culture minister Lina Mendoni pledges to ‘fill the void’ at British Museum should ancient sculptures be returned to Athens

部长表示，希腊将向英国提供重要馆藏来交换帕台农神庙大理石雕像
——文化部长莉娜·门多尼承诺，如果古代雕像被归还给雅典，将“填补大英博物馆的空位”


（Greece could organise rotating exhibitions of some of its most imortant artefacts to replace the Parthenon marbles, were they to be returned to Athens.）

（希腊可以组织一些最重要的文物交流轮展，以取代帕台农神庙的大理石雕塑，如果它们被送回雅典的话。）
新闻：

Greece is prepared to part with some of its greatest treasures to “fill the void” at the British Museum if the Parthenon marbles were reunited in Athens, the country’s culture minister has said.

希腊文化部长表示，如果帕台农神庙的大理石雕塑在雅典重新团聚，希腊准备拿出一些最珍贵的文物来“填补”大英博物馆的空缺。

Speaking to the Guardian at the end of a momentous year for the campaign to retrieve the fifth-century BC masterpieces, Lina Mendoni promised that the London institution’s revered Greek galleries would never go empty.

今年是追回公元前5世纪杰作运动的重要一年，在年末，莉娜·门多尼向《卫报》承诺，这家伦敦机构备受尊敬的希腊画廊（在归还雕像后）永远不会空无一人。
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“Our position is clear,” she said. “Should the sculptures be reunited in Athens, Greece is prepared to organise rotating exhibitions of important antiquities that would fill the void.”

“我们的立场很明确，”她说。“如果这些雕塑在雅典重新团聚，希腊准备组织重要文物的交流轮展，以填补（大英博物馆的）空缺。”

Asked if particular works had been requested by London, the minister – a classical archaeologist by training – insisted continuing discussions had not extended to “specific artefacts”.

当被问及伦敦是否要求提供特定的文物时，这位训练有素的古典考古学家坚称，正在进行的讨论尚未扩展到“特定的文物”。

But for the first time she gave a glimpse of how far Athens was willing to go to compensate the British Museum for relinquishing the sculptures – seen as the high point of art in the classical age – saying any antiquities sent to the UK would also be crowd-pullers.

但她第一次透露了雅典愿意在多大程度上补偿大英博物馆放弃这些被视为古典时代艺术巅峰的雕塑。她说，任何被送到英国的古希腊文物也会吸引大量游客。

“[They] would fill the void, maintain, and constantly renew, international visitor interest in the Greek galleries of the British Museum,” Mendoni said, though she cautioned that “any agreement and all its particulars, would have to be in accordance with the Greek law on cultural heritage”.

门多尼说：“（它们）将填补空白，保持并不断更新国际游客对大英博物馆希腊画廊的兴趣。”不过她提醒，“任何协议及其所有细节都必须符合希腊文化遗产法。”

Since the idea of a cultural exchange was mooted, soon after the centre-right New Democracy party of the prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, won power in 2019, speculation has been rife that treasures including Agamemnon’s Mask – the gold funerary mask described by some historians as the “Mona Lisa of prehistory” – could be sent to Britain in return for the marbles.

自从文化交流的想法在总理基里亚科斯·米佐塔基斯领导的中右翼新民主党在2019年赢得政权后不久就被提出以来，人们普遍猜测，包括阿伽门农的面具在内的馆藏可能会被送往英国，以换取这些大理石。阿伽门农的面具是一些历史学家称之为“史前的蒙娜丽莎”的金色葬礼面具。

In a marked shift from the acrimony that has dominated Europe’s longest-running cultural dispute, both sides have begun to speak of “a partnership” that could offer a “win-win” solution to resolving the row.

在欧洲历时最久的文化争端中，双方都开始谈论“伙伴关系”，这可能为解决争端提供“双赢”的解决方案，这是一个明显的转变。

George Osborne, the British Museum’s chair, responding to the drive by Athens to reunite the marbles, has appeared more determined to tackle the issue head-on than any of his predecessors.

大英博物馆主席乔治·奥斯本对雅典方面重新团聚大理石的行动做出了回应，他似乎比任何前任都更有决心正面解决这个问题。

He is the first museum chair to publicly acknowledge the controversy surrounding the antiquities’ presence in the British Museum. The museum bought them in 1816 from a bankrupt Lord Elgin, a former ambassador to the Ottoman empire, who himself had them removed from the Parthenon temple and elsewhere on Athens’ Acropolis with the use of marble saws.

他是第一位公开承认围绕这些文物在大英博物馆存在的争议的博物馆主席。博物馆于1816年从破产的埃尔金勋爵手中买下了它们。埃尔金勋爵曾任驻奥斯曼帝国大使，他亲自用大理石锯将它们从帕台农神庙和雅典卫城的其他地方移走。

The former chancellor has more than once this year hinted that a compromise settlement could be in the offing.

这位前主席今年不止一次暗示可能会达成妥协解决方案。

“We want to create a proper partnership,” Osborne told MPs on the culture, media and sport committee in October. “[One] that would mean obxts from Greece coming here, obxts that have potentially never left Greece before and certainly never been seen before, and obxts from the Parthenon collection potentially travelling to Greece.”

今年10月，奥斯本在文化、媒体和体育委员会对议员们说：“我们希望建立一种适当的伙伴关系。这意味着来自希腊的藏品来到这里，这些藏品此前可能从未离开过希腊，当然也从未被看到过，而帕台农神庙的藏品可能会前往希腊。”
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Talks aimed at securing a loan deal would continue, he pledged, despite the diplomatic fallout that followed the British prime minister Rishi Sunak’s refusal to meet Mitsotakis in November.

他承诺，尽管英国首相苏纳克去年11月拒绝与米佐塔基斯会面造成了外交影响，但旨在确保借出协议的谈判将继续进行。
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The British Museum’s collection incorporates nearly half the 160-metre-long Parthenon frieze depicting the procession to the temple of the Panathenaic festival in honour of the warrior goddess Athena, as well as 15 sculpted panels and 17 pedimental figures that were part of its unique decoration.

大英博物馆的藏品包括近一半的160米长的帕台农神庙楣板，描绘了为纪念战斗女神雅典娜而举行的泛雅典娜女神节的游行队伍，以及15个雕刻板和17个山花人物，这些都是其独特装饰的一部分。

Mendoni, who has repeatedly said Greece cannot discuss borrowing treasures that were plundered in the first place, added: “The Parthenon, a World Heritage monument, with its universal importance … demands its integrity in the place [where the sculptures were carved] and for the reasons that created it.”

门多尼曾多次表示，希腊不能讨论借用一开始就是被掠夺的宝藏，他补充说：“帕台农神庙是世界遗产，具有普遍重要性……这要求它在（雕塑雕刻的）地方和当初创造出它的原因方面保持完整。”

She denied that the idea of establishing a branch of the British Museum at the Acropolis museum, purpose-built to display the statues, was back on the cards. “There’s been no such discussion,” she said.

她否认在雅典卫城博物馆设立大英博物馆分馆，以专门用来展示这些雕像的想法已经回到了计划之中。“没有这样的讨论，”她说。

While Mitsotakis has said that progress had been slower than he would have liked, many Greeks believe the moral argument for the return of the marbles at least has been won. A YouGov poll released in July revealed 64% of people in the UK now favour repatriation.

虽然米佐塔基斯说，进展比他希望的要慢，但许多希腊人认为，至少归还雕像的道德争论已经赢得了胜利。舆观 7月份发布的一项民意调查显示，64%的英国人现在支持送返雕像。
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Some commentators have also interpreted King Charles’s wearing of the colours of Greece when he addressed the Cop28 climate summit this month as a sartorial statement of approval for the marbles’ return to the country of his father’s birth.

一些评论人士还将查尔斯国王本月在Cop28气候峰会上发表讲话时身穿希腊国旗颜色服装的行为解读为一种服装上的声明，表示他同意这些大理石雕塑回到他父亲出生的那个国家。
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When asked if Greece had ruled out taking legal action against the British Museum at a time when ever-more disputed obxts are being returned to their countries of origin, Mendoni said the government would continue “to make full use of the possibilities offered by dialogue and cultural diplomacy”.

当被问及在越来越多有争议的文物被归还原籍国之际，希腊是否排除了对大英博物馆采取法律行动的可能性时，门多尼表示，政府将继续“充分利用对话和文化外交提供的可能性”。

Asked if she thought Britons had not been told the truth about Elgin and the circumstances in which the marbles were acquired, she invoked Hugh Hammersley, a 19th-century MP, who in 1816 told the House of Commons that the British government’s decision to acquire the sculptures from the Scottish diplomat was an “act of spoliation”.

当被问及她是否认为英国人没有被告知关于埃尔金的真相以及这些大理石被获得的情况时，她援引了19世纪的国会议员休·哈默斯利的话。哈默斯利在1816年告诉下议院，英国政府决定从这位苏格兰外交官那里获得这些雕塑是一种“掠夺行为”。

But Mendoni also spoke of the positive mood behind Greece’s great “national cause”.

但门多尼也谈到了希腊伟大的“民族事业”背后的积极情绪。

“Even people who for years have opposed the return of the sculptures to Greece now support our demand,” she said. “If I was not optimistic, I would not work with fervour and faith for the national cause of reuniting the sculptures in the Acropolis Museum here in Athens.”

“甚至那些多年来一直反对将雕塑归还希腊的人，现在也支持我们的要求，”她说。“如果我不乐观，我就不会怀着热情和信念为雅典卫城博物馆的雕塑重新团聚的国家事业而工作。”