THE ACROPOLIS OF ATHENS (by Antonia)

The Acropolis of Athens, the so-called «sacred rock», is the most important archaeological site in Greece and is located on a hill in the center of today’s Athens. In the Acropolis there are three ancient temples, the Parthenon, the Erechtheion and the temple of Apteros Nike. There is also the monumental entrance, the Propylaea. All the monuments of the Acropolis are made of Pentelic marble and were built during the Golden Age of Pericles, the so-called Classical Period (450-330 BC).

        The Parthenon was dedicated to the goddess Athena, the patron saint of the city. It was built by the architects Iktinos and Kallikrates under the supervision of the Athenian sculptor Pheidias. There were also two colossal statues of the goddess Athena, works by Pheidias. One of the two statues was located inside the Parthenon, was made of gold and ivory and was 9 meters high. The other, equally large, was made of copper and was located outside the temple.

        Just opposite the Parthenon is the Erechtheion. It is the temple whose 6 columns have the form of young girls, the Caryatids.

        Builders, coppersmiths, stoneworkers, painters, metallurgists, carpenters, blacksmiths, painters, goldsmiths, ivory craftsmen, artists, and many others worked for eight years to build these magnificent and unique monuments dedicated to the Gods. As Pericles said «they were made by men for men».

       All these monuments on the Acropolis of Athens were preserved for 20 centuries, for 2000 whole years. They were saved from fires, earthquakes, invasions and invaders, raids, wars and conquerors. Unfortunately, they did not manage to escape from robbers and vandalism, Elgin’s sacrilege.

Elgin, then ambassador to Istanbul, had the idea to remove the sculptures from their monuments and transport them to his country.

So he removed most of the sculptural decoration of the monuments, removed entire columns from their bases, removed hundreds of objects and transported them all to England and sold them to the British Museum. Even today they are exhibited there!

  Greece is making continuous efforts for the return of the Parthenon sculptures.

SOURCE

http://odysseus.culture.gr/h/3/gh351.jsp?obj_id=2384

http://www.mfa.gr

www.parthenonuk.com