Saving the Crumbling Parthenon

By Kenneth M. Pierce

Experts plan to treat the ravages of rust, fumes and war

Sing, Goddess, of Architect Manolis Korres, 35, and the Committee for the Preservation of the Acropolis Monuments, scientists from many nations gathered in Athens, casting off fear as before a great battle, to plan restoration of the most beautiful wonder of the ancient world: the marble Parthenon. That hilltop temple of Zeus' daughter, Athena the Virgin (Athena Parthenos), has for 2,400 years brought glory to Phidias, sculptor of its fluted columns, and to farseeing Pericles, and to all the Hellenes.

Who of these men could know, in 438 B.C., that heavy-shielded Romans would arrive in 86 B.C. and, centuries after, set fire raging in the temple's interior, consuming the gold-and-ivory statue of fair Athena, a masterwork of Phidias now lost to the ages; or that in the 15th century, conquering Turks from across the wine-dark sea would build a domed mosque atop the Parthenon?

Who in Pericles' day could have imagined that the Parthenon would explode in 1687, destroying 14 of its exterior columns, when Turkish gunpowder stored inside it was hit by true-eyed artillery men of the Venetian Republic, firing near by from the Hill of the Muses? Or that in the 19th century, the seventh Earl of Elgin would carry down from the hill pediment statues and one maidenly caryatid, all doomed to sail in ships made of wood to a foreign place not loved by thundering Zeus, the British Museum?

Do you weep, Goddess? Mankind weeps with you.

In the past 100 years, the temple's scourges have been more prosaic, though equally serious. From the 1890s to the 1930s, well-meaning architects sought to strengthen the battered Parthenon, which originally consisted of some 12,500 white marble stones hewn from Mount Pentelicus, ten miles to the north. The restorers added new iron clamps and rods to hold the marble stones in position. But in doing so, they ignored the wisdom of the Parthenon's original designers, the sculptor Phidias and Architects Ictinus and Callicrates. During the installation of the temple's original iron reinforcing rods, the ancient builders used a form of rust-proofing that has been effective for two millenniums: they wrapped the rods tightly in a sheath of pliable lead, which gave them room to expand and contract, and kept away rust-producing moisture. Unfortunately, later restorers did not seal their irons. So the new rods installed near the turn of this century have already rusted. Worse, as the bare iron expands and contracts with changes in temperature, it cracks the old stones.

More recently, the Parthenon has suffered from an eye-stinging yellow smog that envelops Athens for most of the year. Called the nefos (literally, cloud), it is composed mainly of sulfur dioxide, a waste product given off when petroleum is burned in autos, factories and residential furnaces. As rain and dew mix with the SO2, they form a weak sulfuric acid that turns marble into crumbling plaster.

To save the temple, the Greek government called upon Architect Korres, a native of Athens and a specialist in ancient monuments, who since 1977 has participated in the restoration of the nearby Erechtheum. That project is nearly completed; the scaffolding of the Erechtheum is scheduled for removal in 1984. At this temple engineers also encountered irons rusting within marble. After tearing down the Erechtheum's walls, they replaced the rods with rustproof titanium, a strong, lightweight metal commonly used in airplane engines and earth-orbiting craft.

Five caryatids of the Erechtheum, which support carvings that acid rains have obliterated, were replaced temporarily with plaster likenesses. The original caryatids have been taken to the Acropolis Museum, where they will be placed in a glass chamber filled with nitrogen, a gas that acts as a preservative.

Restoration of the Parthenon will prove a more difficult task: the 24,000-sq.-ft. building is more devastated and considerably larger than the 3,000-sq.-ft. Erechtheum. Thousands of the Parthenon's stones have toppled to the ground. After being carefully numbered and, in some cases, fitted to new pieces of Pentelic marble, the stones will be raised and stacked into position on the temple's walls. Enough old stones exist to rebuild much of the wall of the Parthenon's rectangular interior chamber, or cella.

To move the marble stones, some of which weigh as much as twelve tons, Korres plans to use a French-built arch crane with dangling giant forceps. When work begins (perhaps as soon as December), the crane's silhouette will stretch skyward from the Acropolis, dwarfing the monuments. Its first task: setting straight a carved column at the temple's southeast corner, which has tilted precariously since a 1981 earthquake moved its base by more than one inch. When the crane is idle, its upper portions will fold down, out of sight of the residents and visitors in the city below.

After hearing Korres' proposal earlier this month, the international gathering of historians, engineers and scientists gave high marks to his plan, although some seismologists urged that more study be given to earthquake protection. As Engineer N.N. Ambraseys of the University of London observed, "I have heard that an earthquake is an act of God. But what is today an act of God might tomorrow be an act of criminal neglect." Athenian Engineer Costas Zambas argued against structural changes, saying, "We must respect the Parthenon's construction as it was made in the first place, even if by modern calculations this would make it vulnerable. Its resistance has been proved."

The restoration, Architect Korres insisted, should not try to return the temple to mint condition. As he put it, "Acts of vandalism and the decline of the original architectural system all form part of the history of the building. We are obliged to accept that the perfect lines and surfaces have been lost forever and that the monument has a new character--that of a ruin."

So spoke Korres, spiritual descendant of Phidias, and so ended the council in Athens, most properly as it seemed to all, for it is best to go slowly in matters so weighty. That way one guards against error and shows respect for the past, the future and the protector of men, gray-eyed Athena. --By Kenneth M. Pierce. Reported by Mirka Gondicas/Athens

With reporting by Mirka Gondicas/Athens This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.