25/09/2021
The Parthenon is dedicated to the goddess Athena whom the people of Athens considered to be their patron. Remarkably, this structure, completed in 432 BC, has survived the years even while becoming a Christian church in the 6th century AD, an Ottoman mosque in the 1400s, and then was extensively damaged by an explosion during the Great Turkish War in 1687.
In 1832, Greece became an independent country. However, just 30 years earlier, the British obtained a “questionable” edict from the ruling Ottoman Sultan to study the structure and its antiquities. Subsequently, a great many of the original objects we removed and now reside in the British Museum in London. As our guide demonstrated to us, even today, this is a great matter of dispute between the Greeks and the Brits. The Greeks want their antiquities back. The Brits say, “nope.”