Parthenon
When I went to Athens and saw the Parthenon, I wondered why they didn't restore the Parthenon to it's original state, sort of how Notre Dame is being restored after the fire.
Well, I just found that the Parthenon has been recreated in a couple of places, one of which is Nashville, TN! It's an exact reproduction of the original in Athens.
There's a second one that may not be exact but is close, located in Donaustauf, Germany, called the Walhalla. In German, the W is pronounced like a V, so it would be pronounced as Valhalla, the place where warriors go upon death.
If I get to Nashville, I'll definitely go to the Parthenon there to see what the Athen Parthenon looked like in antiquity.
0
Comments
Parts of it are in the museum that displays stolen antiquities from all over the world - aka, the British Museum.
BKMD, Nothing ot do with me 😀. I’ve been to the one in Tennessee. Seen similar ruins in other parts of Europe.
We saw the German version on our Budapest/Amsterdam cruise. We didn't get to go up to it. We did get to tour the Liberation Hall monument high above the Danube but only because our ship was stuck for a couple of days due to a Main lock being taken out of service by a Viking ship. The TDs were trying to keep us busy so we got a morning cruise of the Danube Gorge, tour of a baroque abbey and the monument. That afternoon we headed back towards Vienna to better position the ship for a ship swap. I ought to thank Viking - we actually got to see more on our cruise than planned and a $1000 credit.
Believe it or not, the Parthenon in Athens is heavily restored. In 1687, the Venetians lobbed a mortar shell into it. The Turks had been using it as a powder magazine (!) and the whole thing blew up spectacularly. It remained a pile of rubble for many years, during which Lord Elgin (then ambassador to the Ottoman Empire) made off with the "marbles" (allegedly with the permission of the Ottoman Turks, but certainly to the ongoing chagrin of the Greeks). It was later rebuilt over many years, but a portion of what you see today was replaced with new stone.
Some of the friezes (metopes) are in the new Acropolis museum nearby, but in no condition to reattach to the structure. As I understand it most of the work being done now is to reverse modifications made (to convert it to a Byzantine church, a Catholic church, and a mosque, etc.) and to repair damage that occurred in later years due to weather, geophysical forces, fix improper repairs, and stabilize it so it will last another millennia or so.
Just down the hill at the edge of the old agora is the Temple of Hephaestus which is actually in better condition than the Parthenon.
This is my favorite, Agrigento, Sicily. Maybe I don’t need to visit Greece.