By BILL BERGSTROM, Associated Press Writer
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A former museum director told descendants of a Civil War officer that a uniform owned by the family was only a costume, then later sold it to a collector for more than $40,000, a federal prosecutor alleged Monday during opening statements. Russell Pritchard Jr., the former director of the Civil War Library and Museum in Philadelphia, is charged with theft from a museum and being an accessory after the fact. Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Goldman said Pritchard allegedly agreed to get the uniform appraised for his cousin. Then he told the cousin the uniform had turned out to be a costume and had been donated to a charity. Goldman said Pritchard and his son later sold the uniform to the collector, and it eventually was obtained by the Museum of Tennessee for nearly $70,000. Pritchard's cousin, William Day of Memphis, Tenn., is the great-great-grandson of Confederate Lt. Col. William Richardson Hunt, prosecutors say. In his opening statement, defense attorney Thomas Bergstrom questioned whether the prosecution could prove the uniform was from Day's collection. Pritchard ``absolutely did not steal that uniform, and he did not obtain that uniform by fraud,'' Bergstrom said. In December, Pritchard's son, an antiques dealer, pleaded guilty to staging a phony appraisal in 1997 on the PBS television show ``The Antiques Roadshow.'' On the show, a man who claimed to have found a Civil War sword in his attic was told the weapon was worth $35,000. But Russell Pritchard III and a business partner knew the man and had arranged for him to bring the sword on the show. Prosecutors said the partners staged the appraisal to get publicity and attract customers. In pleading guilty, Pritchard III agreed to cooperate in the case against his father.
Elgin marbles 'will never leave London'
BY DALYA ALBERGE, ARTS CORRESPONDENT
THE British Museum last night ruled out any possibility of the Elgin Marbles being returned to Greece. Writing in The Times today, Robert Anderson, the museum™s director, dismisses arguments for their return to Athens and asserts that the Marbles are now œwhere they will remain, in the museum™s own purpose-built gallery, where they are displayed free for all. His comments come as a new campaign to repatriate the stones in time for the Athens Olympic Games in 2004 is being launched by a group of actors and MPs. British governments have repeatedly reviewed Greece™s claim on the stones and found them wanting. Britain argues that when Lord Elgin, the British Ambassador, bought and removed them between 1803 and 1812, he was acting legally. If he had not done so, they would have suffered at least a further century of deterioration, it claims. Dr Anderson says the museum has no powers to surrender the Marbles, or any other of its treasures, even if it wanted to. Under far-sighted legislation, he writes, trustees are not empowered to dispose of museum property. œThis limit on their powers extends to loans, where there could be no guarantee of an object being returned, he writes, implying that there was doubt whether the stones would be returned to London if they were loaned to Greece. He also attacks Greece™s own record of looking after its remaining treasures, and says the Greeks do not have suitable premises to house their many other marbles and sculptures. There is an œurgent need in Athens of a proper building for displaying the many sculptures of the Parthenon and other treasures that are currently lumbered in store rooms, he writes. Those treasures include œ14 blocks of the west frieze that were removed, much damaged by weathering, from the Parthenon in 1993 and have not been seen by the public since then. Supporters of Parthenon 2004, as the campaign to repatriate them will be named tomorrow, include Janet Suzman, Vanessa Redgrave and Frances de la Tour, and more than 90 MPs. Ms Suzman said yesterday: œIn the whole circumference of the globe, there is nothing so unique as the relationship of the Parthenon to Athens and the Marbles to the Parthenon. They celebrate the pan-Athenaic games BC. What a splendid gesture it would be if the museum that has guarded them for so long loaned them back in time to celebrate the Olympic Games AD. The MPs have signed an Early Day Motion in favour of restitution, calling for the Government œimmediately to enter into discussions with the Greek Government with the purpose of returning the Parthenon Marbles to Athens by 2004. Responding yesterday, Nicos Papadakis, a spokesman for the Greek Embassy in London, said that œthe standing request is for the return of the Marbles to Athens. He dismissed the claim that the Greeks had neglected their sculptures. œOver the last 25 years, we have had the biggest-ever restoration programme in the Acropolis concerning the conservation of the Parthenon temple. Those pieces that have been taken down have been undergoing a complex process of restoration. œThese sculptures will be displayed in the new £55 million museum we are building. The museum will not only house the sculptures that will be returned from London but all the sculptures that are connected with the Parthenon. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/
Saudi Arabia Defends Razing of Fort
By SUZAN FRASER, Associated Press Writer ANKARA, Turkey (AP) - Saudi Arabia acted in the interests of Muslim pilgrims by razing an Ottoman-era fortress close to shrines in Mecca, the Saudi ambassador said Monday, defending an action that outraged many Turks. The Turkish government called it a ``cultural massacre,'' and Turkish ultra-nationalists burned posters of the Saudi king in front of the Saudi embassy in Ankara on Saturday. The Saudi government tore down the castle several weeks ago to make way for a trade center, hotel and underground parking lot to serve the millions of pilgrims who make the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the holy city in Saudi Arabia. ``Every step taken by the government of Saudi Arabia is for the benefit of the pilgrimage and for the safety and comfort of the pilgrims,'' Ambassador Mohammad Al Bassam said in an interview with The Associated Press, pointing out that the castle is Saudi property. He said the 200-year-old Ajyad Castle would be reassembled elsewhere. Turkey's relations with Saudi Arabia are uneasy because of their varying views of Islam. Predominantly Muslim Turkey has strict secular laws that separate religion from the state, and Turkish leaders have criticized Saudi Arabia's strict Islamic laws. Turkey, which was created in 1923 from the Ottoman Empire, has compared the dismantling of the castle in Saudi Arabia to the Taliban's destruction of ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan (news - web sites). It has said it would lodge a protest with the U.N. agency responsible for cultural heritage preservation.
In defense of the Saudi action, Al Bassam mentioned a dam in southeast Turkey which threatened priceless Roman mosaics. After the rising waters sparked an international outcry, Turkey raced to move the mosaics to a museum. Turkey advocates the preservation of relics of the Ottoman Empire, which once stretched from the Balkans to the Middle East and included Mecca and Medina, another pilgrimage site. The Ottomans built the al-Ajyad Castle in 1780 to protect Mecca and its Muslim shrines from invaders.