The Parthenon is the famous monument that sits atop a large rock hill called the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. It was build over 2,500 years ago, dedicated to the goddess Athena. And it is amazing.
Over the centuries the structure was used as a temple, cathedral, mosque, government headquarters and even a munitions warehouse.
The original structure of the Parthenon stayed intact for around 2,000 years, until as a storehouse for gunpowder, it was blown up by a stray cannonball during a war in 1687. While nature has affected the structure, most of the damage has been caused by humans (e.g. stray cannonballs, pollution from cars). More damage was done to the Parthenon in that year than in it’s 2,500 history.
Over the centuries, there have been several waves of conservation and restoration of the Parthenon and surrounding monuments. As time and technology have improved, the tools, methods, and accuracy have improved as well.
In the 19th century, restoration efforts - using the best technology of the day - included replacing missing marble pieces with poured cement fillings, and securing the structure with iron clamps. The cement has chipped. The rods rusted, expanded, and caused additional cracks to the marble.
Men placing a section of the epistyle (beam) and frieze into place
[click for larger image]
Today, they are replacing the missing marble with new marble from the very quarry used in the original construction. And to hold pieces together, non-corrosive titanium rods.
The white pieces are the newly quarried marble cut to the original dimensions of the Parthenon, and precisely connected to the original piece.
The columns were built by stacking huge pieces of marble. Contemporary technology revealed that - even though the columns looked proper - they were re-constructed wrong. Parts of the first column were stacked in the second and third. Parts of the second column, in the first and fifth, etc.
For illustration purposes only, I’ve shown the
missed-matched column pieces
Re-construction teams had to take apart the former construction and re-assemble the columns properly. Wow.
The Parthenon inspires. Makes me wonder what 20th or 21st Century construction will exist in the year 4,500?
What at your business is stacked wrong? And, although it may appear to be proper, really should be re-stacked properly?
Parthenon Fun Fact: Did you know most of the straight lines on the Parthenon are actually curved?
Being such an immense structure it had to be constructed with optical corrections. Straight lines - at that scale - would make the building look like it was sagging, as exaggerated in the illustration below.
So the designers compensated by adding curves as seen (exaggerated) below.
Source: Optical correction images from VisualIllusion.net
3 reactions so far ↓
(1) Salam Kitmitto // Aug 3, 2008 at 4:00 am
It’s amazing how a couple actions by mankind can have a more devastating effect on a structure than 2500 years of nature. I’m surprised a bigger issue has not been made (or maybe I just missed it) about returning the significant collection of sculptures and artifacts from the Parthenon, which currently reside in a Museum in Britain, to Greece (they were originally “purchased” by the English Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire in the early 19th C. - I believe).
Either way, it’s a fantastic structure (and to add to your list, it also served as a mosque at one time).
(2) Paul // Aug 4, 2008 at 5:34 pm
Salam… Thanks for reading and for your reaction… I’ve added mosque to the list! Pretty amazing.
I got a great perspective with one Athenian native about the borrowed “Elgin Marbles” as they are called. (Taken by Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin). He commented to me that being on display in England has provide much more exposure since the 1800s than had they remained in Athens.
If Greece wanted to showcase their history today, they may send away sculptures such as these so others could admire their beauty and appreciate Grecian history.
I thought that was an interesting perspective.
The soon-to-open New Acropolis Museum in Athens includes a wing to house the returned sculptures. (I like that confidence).
(3) Salam Kitmitto // Aug 4, 2008 at 6:56 pm
Thanks for the extra info Paul.
I have several Egyptian friends who hold a similar view with regards to the countless Egyptian artifacts that were looted from Egypt during the colonial era. Most believe that Egypt may not have been able to care for these antiquities then, but the time is right for them to be returned to Egypt (in the case of Egypt, the siphoning of its antiquities is much more flagrant than the “Elgin Marbles” as there was hardly an attempt to even legalize this practice by claiming to “purchase” them).
Museums were a hallmark of a great European city during their early days. European governments spend a great deal of money to acquire as many artifacts from around the world as they could to fill their museums. Most were pillaged from colonized countries in Africa, Asia, etc… This is perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of colonialism: the extent to which the colonized shaped the colonizer’s society (most people usually look at it the the other way around).
Anyways, in the case of Egypt, some of their most valuable artifacts now reside in Berlin, London, Paris, NY, etc…To add insult to injury, Egypt was denied the chance to borrow some of their culture’s most valuable assets for the opening of a new museum (kinda ironic). Unlike the Greeks, I don’t know if the new museums being built in Egypt have a special section to house the soon to be returned objects.
Many injustices committed during the colonial era cannot be rectified; this (the repatriation of artifacts) is one of those things that can be.
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