One of the worst days in the history of art was Sept. 26, 1687. That’s the day the greatest temple of the ancient world was blown up. The Parthenon was located on the Acropolis (the hill) in Athens. It was a temple of Athena, the patron goddess of Athens. The building was a gift to her for her aid in the Persian Wars. It had a huge statue of Athena inside it. The building was finished in 438 B.C. Over the years it was used for various things. From the 5th Century, it was a Christian church and later it became a mosque in the 15th Century. Unfortunately, it was not always a purely holy site. In the 1680’s, the Ottoman Empire conquered Greece and expanded into Europe. Athens was a crown jewel in the conquest. An alliance of Poland, Venice, and the Pope was formed to evict the Turks from Europe. During the Morean War (1684-1699) between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, the building was used for military purposes. Venice was attempting to take Athens from the Turks. The Turks fortified the Acropolis for a last-ditch stand. They converted the Erectheum (another temple) into a harem and the Parthenon became a gunpowder depot and a shelter for Turkish families. The Turk leader disregarded the fact that the Propylaea (the stairway leading to the top of the hill) had been destroyed by a gunpowder explosion in 1656. During the siege of the Acropolis, Venetian commander Francesco Morosini had his mortars fire at the Parthenon. According to one version, a deserter informed Morosini that the Parthenon contained gunpowder and he targeted it. On the eighth day, a mortar shell landed in the gunpowder causing a massive explosion. 300 Turks were killed. The roof collapsed, many of the columns were damaged or destroyed, the frieze was also damaged. Much of the architrave, triglyphs, and metopes were ruined. To make matters worse, when the city fell, Morosini tried to have the statues of the west pediment removed, but failed with more damage. The building was left in disrepair for centuries. From 1801-1803, Lord Elgin of England had most of the statues in the pediment removed and transported to his homeland. They are now in the British Museum. The statue of Athena had been removed in the 5th Century by the Byzantines. It was brought to Constantinople. It was probably destroyed in the Crusaders’ siege of the city. It was not until 1975 that the Greek government began restoring the temple but it will never be like it was in the Age of Pericles. Next time you see a picture of the beautiful tourist attraction, imagine what it would look like if not for actions by humans.
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/parthenon-blown
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenon
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