The Robot Guerrilla Campaign to Recreate the Elgin Marbles
The Parthenon, designed some 2,500 years ago by the sculptor Phidias, was the quintessence of Hellenic architecture: perfect lines, tall Doric columns along the sides and friezes in high and low relief that convey a Panathenaic procession, an ancient Greek festival to celebrate the city’s patron goddess, Athena, as well as four Ionic columns supporting the roof of the opisthodomos, the back room of the temple.
For 1,000 years, the temple was left more or less intact. When Christianity gained a foothold in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, the Parthenon became the Church of the Parthenos Maria (Virgin Mary), then a mosque and finally a Turkish gunpowder depot.
In 1687, during a siege by the Venetians, the munitions exploded, killing hundreds of people, tearing off the roof of the building and shattering 28 columns, parts of the frieze and the internal rooms. For the next century or so, the rubble provided doorsteps and hearthstone for the local populace and mortar for the building trade, while the Turkish garrison used the carved figures for target practice. By the time Lord Elgin took up his diplomatic post in Constantinople, some 40 percent of the temple’s original sculptural decoration had been destroyed.
https://tnewstimes.com/2022/07/08/world/the-robot-guerrilla-campaign-to-recreate-the-elgin-marbles/
For 1,000 years, the temple was left more or less intact. When Christianity gained a foothold in the eastern part of the Roman Empire, the Parthenon became the Church of the Parthenos Maria (Virgin Mary), then a mosque and finally a Turkish gunpowder depot.
In 1687, during a siege by the Venetians, the munitions exploded, killing hundreds of people, tearing off the roof of the building and shattering 28 columns, parts of the frieze and the internal rooms. For the next century or so, the rubble provided doorsteps and hearthstone for the local populace and mortar for the building trade, while the Turkish garrison used the carved figures for target practice. By the time Lord Elgin took up his diplomatic post in Constantinople, some 40 percent of the temple’s original sculptural decoration had been destroyed.
https://tnewstimes.com/2022/07/08/world/the-robot-guerrilla-campaign-to-recreate-the-elgin-marbles/
