The Day the Parthenon on the Acropolis Was Destroyed

In 1687 the Parthenon of the Acropolis successful Athens was blown up and partially destroyed by the Venetians. Credit: c. 1895 – c. 1915. Rijksmuseum / Public Domain

On September 26, 1687, the Parthenon of Acropolis successful Athens faced a terrible stroke and was partially destroyed by Francesco Morosini, the person of the Venetian army, who, arsenic portion of the Morean War, led an expedition to onslaught the Ottomans successful Athens.

The fifteen-year “Great Turkish War,” an effort to reason the enlargement of the Ottoman Empire into Europe, was composed of smaller conflicts, including the Morean War, betwixt Venice and the Ottomans. During the war, Captain-General Francesco Morosini was fixed orders to prehend Athens and the Acropolis from the Turks.

Despite the earlier demolition of the Propylaea, the Ottoman Turks fortified the Acropolis and utilized the Parthenon arsenic a gunpowder magazine, perchance successful the content that Morosini would respect the humanities monument and wouldn’t attack.

However, connected Friday, September 26, 1687 astatine 7 p.m., a Venetian mortar round, fired from Philopappos Hill, blew up the magazine. The detonation led to the detonation of the building’s cardinal information and caused the cella’s walls to crumble into rubble. Many of the columns besides toppled, causing the architraves, triglyphs, and metopes to travel tumbling down.

About 3 100 radical were killed successful the explosion, which showered marble fragments implicit adjacent Turkish defenders and sparked fires that destroyed galore homes.

Subsequently, Morosini jumped astatine the accidental to loot sculptures from the ruins, which resulted successful adjacent further damage. Sculptures of Poseidon and Athena’s horses fell to the crushed and broke into pieces arsenic Morosini’s soldiers tried to detach them from the building’s westbound pediment.

Parthenon of Acropolis could person been destroyed entirely

In 1688, the Venetians abandoned Athens to debar a confrontation with a ample unit the Turks had assembled astatine Chalcis. At that time, the Venetians had considered blowing up the remains of the Parthenon on with the remainder of the Acropolis to guarantee that it would not beryllium militarily utilized arsenic fortification by the Turks, but that thought was luckily not pursued.

Once the Turks had recaptured the Acropolis, they utilized immoderate of the rubble produced by this detonation to erect a smaller mosque wrong the ammunition of the ruined Parthenon. For the adjacent period and a half, parts of the remaining operation were looted for gathering worldly and particularly invaluable objects.

The Parthenon of Acropolis successful Athens

The Parthenon, 1 of the astir iconic structures successful the past of Western civilization, is a former temple connected the Athenian Acropolis successful Greece, which was dedicated to the goddess Athena during the 5th period BC.

It stands successful splendor connected Acropolis Hill arsenic it has for 2,500 years. Experts judge that the ingenuity of the Parthenon’s operation has allowed it to miraculously past the ravages of time, nature, and mankind.

The Greek statesman Pericles commissioned the Parthenon, which became the largest Doric-style temple of its day, to beryllium designed by the famed Greek architects Ictinus and Callicrates and the sculptor Phidias.

For decades, engineers, architects, and scientists person wondered precisely however this ingenious operation has successfully stood the trial of clip to proceed to operation majestically implicit the Greek capital.

This architectural and engineering wonder, with its height, width, and extent defining the precise conception of cleanable proportion, has kept its secrets for galore centuries since its completion successful the twelvemonth 438 BC—that is, until engineers and architects precocious revealed the Parthenon‘s plan and operation secrets.