[music playing] NARRATOR: For over 2,500 years,
foreign conquerors, treasure hunters, and violent
earthquakes tried, but failed, to completely ravage Athens of
its mystical monuments perched on a spiritual citadel
called the Acropolis. It was here in fifth
century BC Athens where the seeds of modern
civilization took root. Sexual and artistic
freedom flourished. It was the birthplace of
democracy, science, philosophy, and theater, yet these monuments
were also sacred sites steeped in cultic worship
and secret rituals, where the smell of blood
and smoke consumed the air. It was said that Greece is a
spring that will never run dry, yet it is the quest to unlock
the mysteries of Athens' magnificent monuments
that continues to fire the thirst of man. Risen to glory in the fifth
century BC, the city of Athens exploded with artistic
and cultural excellence. In less than 50 years, the most
brilliant minds known to man created a monumental mecca
that alludes us to this day. Why were these monuments built? And what secrets lie
buried under this bastion of silent stones? After years of
barbarian warfare, what has become of the
monuments that were once built for a divine dynasty? Have they sunk into
ash and rubble? And what remains of the
celestial columns that are now shadows of a paradise lost? [music playing] The origins of Athens' temples
are lost in myth and legend. In prehistoric times, the
earliest records from 1000 BC reveal that Attica, the
Mediterranean area now known as Greece, was once divided
into many city-states, Athens being the most powerful. The Acropolis, which
means high city, serves as a refuge
against enemy attacks. The early Athenians believed
that the Greek goddess Athena, protector of life, and
Poseidon, god of the sea, competed to rule over Athens. In the contest, Athena
created the olive tree. Poseidon, on the other hand,
struck his trident down on the limestone
rock on the Acropolis and produced a
spring of salt water, yet it was Athena's luscious
olive tree that would become the essence of their economy. No one in ancient Greece doubted
Athena's supernatural powers. As a result, the creator
of the olive tree was proclaimed the divine
guardian of Athens. ACTOR AS SOPHOCLES: The
olive, fertile and self-sown, the terror of our enemies that
no hand tames or tears away. Sophocles. NARRATOR: Since primitive
times, the ancient Greeks had always respected
their gods and goddesses. Early on, they
built small shrines throughout the Mediterranean
in honor of them. In 566 BC, the Athenians began
building a larger sanctuary on the Acropolis to worship
Athena and their other deities. Political disturbances, however,
interrupted the construction of the limestone temples. In 480 BC, King Darius of
Persia declared war on Attica. Other city-states
quickly look to Athens and its powerful
military for help. [music playing] The Athenians fought Persians
on the shores of Marathon and at the Battle of Salamis. After 10 years of
Persian barbarity, the Athenians triumphed,
but their sanctuary on top of the
Acropolis was in ruins, scaffolding smoldered
to ashes, the marble crumbles to the ground. The Persian wars devastated
the Athenian spirit. Yet, amidst this sorrow,
a miracle occurred. The ancient Greek
historian, Herodotus, wrote that the warring Persians
had burned the sacred olive tree that Athena had
planted on the Acropolis, but within two days, a
new shoot sprang forth, a sign that their patron goddess
was still protecting the city. The Athenians looked at this
as an omen of future success. After their victory
over Persia, they began rebuilding
their devastated city. Since they now had the
largest standing army and navy in the Greek world, Athens
persuaded other cities to join a military alliance
called the Delian League. With the Delian League, Athens
became the guardian of Greece. City-states began paying
the treasury of Athens for protection against
future enemy attacks. With large sums of gold
pouring into Athens, one Athenian statesman
was determined to rebuild the Acropolis
to its fullest splendor. His name was Pericles. Although an aristocrat
himself, Pericles was an engaging orator
who compelled the rich, poor, and enslaved. This tart-tongued statesman
masterminded the organization of a democratic empire. Pericles spun a
feeling of optimism and the spirit of an
era that would forever be known as the golden age. ACTOR AS PERICLES: Our city
is an education to Greece. Pericles, 449 BC. NARRATOR: For over 30
years, this golden age shimmered brightly over Athens. In 449 BC, Pericles
commissioned the building of four civic temples
on the Acropolis that would be dedicated
to the deities. Of the four, the Parthenon
would become the most important monument of Western
civilization. Pericles hired the finest
architects, artists, and sculptors. It took over 10 years to
transform massive slabs of limestone into a
Mediterranean masterpiece. But how was Pericles'
remarkable dream accomplished? Building the Parthenon
on the Acropolis became an enormous feat which
tested the brute strength of man against the
forces of nature. With muscle and might, large
gangs of workers, many of whom were slaves, dragged slabs
of precious limestone from quarries miles away
using only ropes and oxen. The Pentelic marble was
then placed on carts, where teams of horses hauled the
material up the steep hill to the Acropolis. [music playing] Once the structure
was completed, the renowned sculptor
Phidias adorned the exterior and interior of the Parthenon
with hand-carved sculptures and friezes. They depicted the supreme
gods of Mount Olympus, battles between the
Greeks and Amazons, and Lapiths fighting centaurs. Phidias was idolized
throughout Greece. His most awesome achievement
was a 40-foot gold and ivory sculpture of the goddess
Athena, with a six foot statue of the Nike of victory which
stood in the palm of her hand. In order to protect the
gold and ivory sculpture from tempted thieves,
the statue of Athena was built in parts so it could
be periodically dismantled and the gold could
be weighed, just to make sure the
patrons of the temple hadn't been chiseling away
at its costly structure. If the gold came up short, it
was said the whole city would suffer the wrath of Athena. One can, to this
day, have a sense of being a part of those
files of columns like soldiers at attention or Greek
citizens standing, and when the great doors were
swung open, they could see, perhaps a little dimly, the
huge ivory and gold statue of the goddess inside. But while they were
getting to the Parthenon, they passed another
huge statue of her between the gateway, the
Propylaea, and the Parthenon, a huge statue standing statue
of Athena in battle array. You couldn't get away from
her, in your thoughts, in the word itself, in
our presence in Athens. NARRATOR: Regarding
the statue of Athena, the ancient writer Plutarch
wrote that the great statesman Pericles brought the most
delightful adornment to Athens and to the rest of mankind,
which testified that her power and splendor was
not idle fiction. It's the buildings themselves,
there's something there, intangible, hard to describe,
hard for any of us to describe, but that has to be
experienced in person, the contrast of the
sunlight, the blue sky, the rough Acropolis stone,
and then the finely-honed perfection of the workmanship
and the proportions that one sees and their significance
today as icons of the past. NARRATOR: While the
exterior of the Parthenon glistened against the
Mediterranean sky, the interior also shimmered
with a wealth of treasures. The included silver coins, gold
vessels, and red clay pottery. The Parthenon held a treasure
trove for its patron goddess, Athena, but what
mysteries loomed inside this marbled wonder? ng] ACTOR AS HOMER: Lord
Nestor began the sacrifice, holding the bowls of
holy water and barley. Thrasymedes struck the ox a
mighty blow, his ax severed the tendons of its neck. The watching women cried out. Dark blood poured out,
and life left the carcass. Homer, the "Odyssey." NARRATOR: The ancient Athenians
perform sacred rituals for their gods to keep
the evil spirits at bay. On the Acropolis, such
sacrificial ceremonies occurred every four years, when
Athens put on a grand birthday party called the Panathenaia
Festival in honor of their patron goddess, Athena. Up until the fifth century
BC, the land of Attica, the region now known as Greece,
was covered with small shrines and cult centers dedicated
to their gods who was said to live on the top
of a snowy peak called Mount Olympus. The Panathenaia Festival was the
first attempt in ancient Athens to create a national cult
for all of its citizens to celebrate. [music playing] The festival included
a grand procession with young cavalrymen on
their horses clattering up to the Parthenon with
marshals in between them. Young maidens followed
them carrying garlands and a sacred cloth for
the goddess Athena. The cult statue of
Athena was dressed up, was give a new robe, and
I suspect that it was also given earrings and jewelry. So it got a new-- a
whole new apparatus. And the appearance
of a cult statue must have been seen as a
kind of epiphany of Athena for the common people. NARRATOR: The festival was
peppered with wine, women, and song. Athletic and singing
contests were performed in honor of the gods. The winners usually receives the
large jar of olive oil, which was almost as precious as gold. Ancient epigraphs reveal
that the statue of Athena presided over a ceremony
where bulls and sheep were sacrificed. On some festival days,
over 100 100 animals would be slaughtered as
offerings to the patron goddess. NANNO MARINATOS: The Acropolis
was-- was filled with-- with cult, so to say,
with cult monuments. What happened is that you
had these temples surrounding an open space, and
in this open space, the sacrifices took
place, because you have to have a bit of a public
space for the people to gather, for the populace to gather. And the main rituals
that happened here during the festivals were, first
of all, sacrifices of animals. That is the common thing. NARRATOR: Questions persist of
where the sacrifices actually took place. Many archeologists believe that
they must have been performed outside the temple due to the
carnage and amount of blood that must have been spilled. The archeological
evidence on the Acropolis itself is very hazy. Of course, we have a place
between the temples where we think the
sacrifices took place, but no altar has been found. NARRATOR: The ancient
Athenians were very superstitious about
appeasing their gods. On these festival days, and
even on non-festival days, any citizen could go
to a certain temple and take part in
a sacrifice to ask a particular deity for a favor. Greek peasants would typically
ask for economic aid or better luck with the harvest
of their crops. Women would frequently
ask the gods for aid in childbirth and
raising healthy babies. [music playing] Were animals the only
things Athenians sacrificed as offerings to the gods? Answers to this question might
be hidden on a frieze that wrapped around the interior
facade of the Parthenon. For centuries, historians
believed this sculpted panel depicted the birthday
party to Athena, but new theory suggests that
this freeze may symbolize the myth of a brutal sacrifice
of three virgin women to the gods to save Athens
from the warring Persians. JOHN CAMP II: Human
sacrifice in ancient Greece was definitely carried out
into the historical period. It seems to have been used only
in times of dire necessity, when there was a plague, a
famine, or a military problem, and you need to
propitiate the gods to end this terrible misfortune. NARRATOR: Human sacrifice
had been discontinued by the golden age,
although the controversy whether the Parthenon frieze
suggests the sacrifice of three women continues. Through the ancient Roman
travel writer Pausanias, historians do agree that
cult worship flourished, particularly inside
the Erechteion, considered the most sacred
temple on the Acropolis. Outside the Erechteion,
an oil lamp perpetually burned and day and night. Inside the temple were
shrines and cultic worship to many gods. The ancient Roman
writer Pausanias observed that in front
of the temple's entrance was an altar to the god Zeus. There, nothing was
sacrificed that breathed, and no wine could be served. However, the ancient Greeks
did office sweet cakes to their imposing god. MARGARET MILES:
The Erechteion was the last of the major buildings
built on the Acropolis. Properly speaking, we really
should be calling it the Temple of Athena Polias, because it
housed the most important image of Athena on the Acropolis. This was a very
ancient wooden image that may have even
fallen from the sky, according to one ancient author. NARRATOR: The Erechteion
was considered a jewel of architecture. On the north side of a temple as
the alluring porch of maidens, six magical sculptures
of beautiful women who serve as columns holding
up the sacred temple. Much speculation has
surrounded these women. Who were they? One ancient Roman architect
said they symbolized maidens captured in a battle
in the fifth century. Other archeologists believe
they are the daughters of King Cecrops, who is believed to be
buried underneath the temple. It is often assumed
that it was there at the southwest corner and
at the porch of the maidens that the maidens themselves
perhaps represent the daughters of King Cecrops,
but no burial was recovered in any
of the excavations in the last century. NARRATOR: The
Erechteion was shrouded with unworldly spirits,
but what secrets loom inside the
third monument that was built on the sacred hill? The Temple of Athena Nike is
located near the entrance way leading up to the Acropolis. Built after the completion
of the Parthenon and 432 BC, this magical temple is smallest
and the most delicate monument on the site. Excavation of
ancient inventories revealed this shrine also housed
a statue of the goddess Athena, as well as serving as a treasury
that resembled a modern day bank. The citizens of Athens brought
their money and valuables to the temple for safekeeping. But the Athenians thought it
only proper to pay interest to the goddess for the privilege
of keeping their money there, and no one dared steal anything
from under the watchful eye of Athena. The monuments in Athens where
not only masterpieces of art, but also political, and
sometimes, sexual expressions of the society
which created them. While Athens, Greece was
building its own marble kingdom during the fifth century
BC, other countries around the globe were making
their own mark in history. In India, a visionary called
The Enlightened One founded the Buddhist empire, which
quickly spread across Asia. Its followers were
taught the way to Nirvana was to achieve wisdom and
renounce negative thoughts. In the Holy Land,
the Wall of Jerusalem was known to have been
erected by Nehemiah and Ezra. It was during this time,
too, that the Torah became the moral book of
the Jewish state. And in Italy, the imposing
Etruscan empire was slowly caving in to the powers of
a new sovereign authority, the Romans, who one day,
would also rule Athens. [music playing] The creative spirit
on the Acropolis was contagious, gushing down
into the heart of the city of Athens called the agora. During the glorious
golden age, the agora was a place bursting with
inspiring minds in search of human excellence. Buried in this garden of
rubble are the seeds of Western civilization, hundreds of
monuments which symbolized the daily life of a powerful
and creative society. I think Athens had
a sense of optimism at this time, a sense of
power and possibility, a sense of an optimistic
future that helped to fuel the creativity
in the visual arts and in the literary arts. NARRATOR: Athens was the
birthplace of literature expressed in the works
of the playwrights Aeschylus, Sophocles,
and Euripides. It produced the first
philosophers, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. And it was the home of
the founder of medicine, Hippocrates. But why did the foundations
of Western civilization begin in Athens? STEPHEN MILLER: The very
words that come to us today, the word politics comes
from the Greek word polis, and democracy and anarchy
and tyranny and oligarchy are all Greek words, and so is
drama and tragedy and comedy, and so is athletics. The stadium is a Greek word. The theater is a Greek word. All of these forms, whether
they be architectural forms, whether they be literary
forms, whether they be political forms,
came together during that golden age. NARRATOR: After 2,000 years
since its construction, teams of archeologists
have brought to the surface the origins of Western
thought and society. Since 1931, over 100 ancient
buildings and nearly 200,000 antiquities have been dug up
from under the modern city. Today, in the agora,
archeologists are continually in search of ancient Athens. JOHN CAMP II: Athens
is essentially a massive archeological site,
but the modern city sits directly on top of all of
the rest of the ancient city, and if one can tear out 500
buildings, 1,000 buildings, one could expose dozens more
ancient buildings which now lie some 15 to 20 feet below
the modern street levels. They're there waiting
to be discovered. The agora was the center
of town in all respects. It's like the mall in
Washington, huge, big, open space with the buildings you
need to run the government grouped around it. NARRATOR: It was
here in the agora that archeologists first
discovered the beginnings of democracy as
we know it today. Inspired by the democratic
spirit of their leader, Pericles, the ancient Athenians
wrote their own constitution. ACTOR AS PERICLES:
Our constitution is called a democracy
because power is in the hands not of a minority, but
of the whole people. Pericles, 431 BC. NARRATOR: Although slavery was
entrenched in their society, most Athenians believed their
democratic government worked. Below are the remains of the
first house of representatives building where 500
Athenian senators once voted on legislation. And it was here where the first
jury system was conceived. JOHN CAMP II: Instead
of nine men and women, it was a jury of
201, or 501, or 1,501 Athenian citizens who
happened to be sitting on the jury that day who
would make, essentially, the constitutional decision. They would have jurors'
tickets and they would be assigned by lot. Couldn't tell until
the court actually began sitting who was going
to be a juror that day, so it was very hard to
bribe an Athenian jury. NARRATOR: Archeologists have
uncovered the stone ballot box and dozens of
bronze ballots that were used by jurors to
vote to either sentence or set free a defendant. Most cases were heard indoors,
but in the case of murder, the trial was held outside,
because the Athenians were superstitious. A potential murderer could
pollute the sacred halls of justice. [music playing] Ancient Greeks were
not only concerned with political
correctness, but they also believed in enjoying
life to its fullest. Athenians credit
their god, Dionysus. His orgies of wine and dance
evolved into the beginnings of theater as we know it today. Near the agora are the remains
of the theater dedicated to Dionysus. It was here the ancient
tragedies and comedies were lavishly performed
to rousing applause. WOMAN: Come and dance,
all you who hear us. Come and worship die Dionysus. Crown your head with sacred
vine leaves, raise on high the sacred pine torch. Come and dance,
your god is here. "The Bacchae" by Euripides. NARRATOR: Here, in the
agora, archeologist John Camp is reading an ancient
inscription record of the winning poets and
producers in comedy and tragedy in a theatrical
contest of 400 BC. JOHN CAMP II: In Athens, we can
see the Academy Awards being awarded in 390 BC. This took place in the
Theater of Dionysus, which was south of the Acropolis. Very early theater probably
took the form of dances in honor of the god, and
then gradually, actors were added to the
performance to tell a story or a particular myth. By the fifth century
BC, these plays were being produced over
a period of four days and in the form of
contests with prizes for the various participants. NARRATOR: Physical and
artistic expression was performed both
publicly and privately. Ancient buildings
and pottery dug up in the agora have provided
insight into the Athenian zest for life. WILLIAM MACDONALD:
They had plenty of fun. Immense drinking banquets
are a central part of life. There were no spirits, of
course, nothing distilled. So it's all wine, either
watered or not watered. All those ladies and
gentlemen having various kinds of sexual adventures
and conquests was a whole class of-- prostitutes is really
not quite fair, but shall we say, free and
easy foxes that were available. And nobody minded this at
all, and they were very free about sexual illusion. It wasn't like Victorian times. NARRATOR: Fifth century Athens
seemed to symbolize the essence of tolerance, yet the Athenian's
tempers eventually ran short with Socrates, the
founder of philosophy, whose restless intellect
constantly challenged the ebb and flow of society. In 399 BC, the brilliant
orator was accused of questioning the
existence of gods and corrupting the minds
of young males in the city. In the agora, a stone has been
excavated where some believe Socrates stood to
swear of his innocence. ACTOR AS SOCRATES:
Athenians, I am not going to argue for my
own sake, but for yours. If you kill me, you will not
easily find a successor to me who, if I may, I'm
sort of a gadfly given to the state by God. Socrates. NARRATOR: The jury
thought otherwise. The founder of philosophy
was condemned to death. Socrates was forced to drink
a poisonous potion of hemlock. To many, his death symbolized
the end of the golden age, and after decades of
peace, the Athenians found themselves embroiled
again in a bloody war. ACTOR AS SOPHOCLES: For every
nation that lives peaceably, there will be many others
to grow hard and push their arrogance to extremes. The gods attend to
these things slowly, but they attend to those who
put off God and turn to madness. Sophocles, 431 BC. NARRATOR: The end of the
glorious fifth century BC also marked the end of
Athenian supremacy. In 403 BC, after 27
years of warfare, Athens was conquered by its
former allies, the Spartans. Democracy had fallen. The Athenian spirit was waning. If the defeat in the
Peloponnesian War wasn't enough, a devastating
plague had swept through Athens taking thousands of lives,
including their great leader, Pericles. With the death of
Pericles, many wondered what was to become
of Athens' monuments. For centuries, into the
hands of many conquerors. Some respected Athens' sacred
monuments, such as Alexander the Great of Macedonia,
but then came the Romans, who not only
conquered, but plundered. When the Romans first came into
contact with the Greek world, they did so militarily. Their warriors made off with
a great deal of Greek art as plunder and booty for
their military success. But at the same time, they
were extraordinarily respectful of Greek education
and Greek culture. Even the taking off
of this material represented a desire
to participate in Greek civilization. NARRATOR: As time went on, this
bond between Athens and Rome became very strong. Much of Greek civilization
survived through the medium of the Roman Empire. During the Byzantine
Empire of 435 AD, foreign attitudes towards the
monuments began to change. A Christian basilica was built
in the center of the Parthenon. Cultic worship in the
temples was outlawed. The 40-foot statue
of Athena had already been melted down to harvest
its precious gold and ivory. Nothing remains of
the original statue. There exists only
miniature marble replicas of the supreme goddess. Destruction on the
Acropolis was gradual, until the Turkish
invasion of 1456, when the monuments suffered
their greatest devastation. The church destroyed the
Temple of Athena Nike and used its marble for
building material, fortifying the Propylaea, or entrance way. Inside the Parthenon,
a mosque was built, replacing the church. And there, too,
inside the Parthenon, the Turkish military stored
their powder magazine. WILLIAM MACDONALD:
So by the time the Turks got to Athens and
Greece, it was a brutal-- brutally impoverished,
underpopulated country. Wasn't anything the
Athenians could do then. There was nothing there
left of their past. By then, many of the
monuments simply had decayed. You know, if you don't
maintain a building, it falls down eventually. NARRATOR: During this time,
foreign visitors to Athens tried to keep the image
of the worn monuments alive by making detailed
drawings of them. But then, on an evening
of September of 1687, the unspeakable happened. Warring Venetians
bombed the Parthenon, hitting the powder magazine. The most splendid
temple known to man came crashing down on two sides. The Acropolis became a
bedlam a broken marble. Many of Phidias' finely sculpted
friezes shattered into pieces. Athens' monumental
achievement was in shambles. People no longer looked
at the ruinous temples as works of art. Athenians hauled away wagon
loads of broken marble to use to build their homes. JOHN PAPADOPOULOUS: Say you
wanted to build your own house. There was a building. All you needed to do was just
dismantle it and take the stone away. And in many ways, what
survives is some of the blocks that people did not want to use. For example, columns and some
of the more decorated elements of a building sometimes survive
better than the square blocks because the square blocks are
more useful in later buildings. NARRATOR: Foreign visitors
pocketed sculpted fragments from the Parthenon as
souvenirs of its past glory. Treasure hunters
from all over Europe came to pillage the
monuments for profit, maliciously slashing
off the valuable heads from Greek sculptures. MAN: When coming down to the
citadel of the Acropolis, I took a piece of marble
from the Parthenon, and since then, I have
always taken something from the monuments. This is probably
our greatest loss, that it is these sculptures,
these reliefs that have been either stolen or destroyed
by barbarians, including Christians who thought that
they should destroy these pagan images, or simply being looted
by later European countries. NARRATOR: Of all the plunderers
who ventured to Athens, none were more controversial
than Lord Elgin of Scotland. Elgin was an 18th
century Scottish nobleman who was appointed
ambassador to Istanbul and the sultan of
the Ottoman Empire. Elgin became obsessed
with purchasing antiquity. While on a visit to
Athens, he set his sights on the temples of the Acropolis. In 1802, Lord Elgin
received permission from the Turkish authority, who
was then in charge of Athens, to remove the sacred
sculpture from the Parthenon. The citizens of Athens were
outraged by Elgin's attempt to ravage the Acropolis of its
masterpieces, but at the time, there was strong competition
among Western Europeans, particularly the
French and British, for collecting remnants
of Greek sculpture and Greek architecture. Lord Elgin was said to have had
mixed emotions about pillaging the monuments, but
at the same time, he was very eager to bring
parts of Athens' past back to England. With saws and chisels,
Lord Elgin's men stripped the Parthenon
of much of its treasures. They took 12 statues, 56 panels
from its infamous frieze, and 15 metopes. Many of these marbles
smashed to pieces when lowered to the ground. Elgin then set his sights
on the sacred Erechteion and removed one of its columns
maidens and replaced it with a plain marble column. The Athenians were outraged. Had Elgin gone too far? While sailing back to England
with his harvest of plunder, Elgin's vessel was shipwrecked. Several marbles sunk to the
ocean floor, never to be found. Some Athenians believed that
Poseidon, god of the sea, took revenge on Elgin,
although Lord Elgin was later able to retrieve much of
his sunken treasure trove. ACTOR AS LORD ELGIN: By
collecting these remains of antiquity for the
benefit of my country, and by saving them from
future destruction, I was not impelled by the
search for personal gain. Lord Elgin, 1816. NARRATOR: Back in England,
the marbles from the Acropolis were proudly displayed in the
British Museum, where they remain today. Yet the controversy surrounding
Elgin and the marbles continues. Was he a protector or plunderer
of Athens' sacred monuments? WILLIAM MACDONALD: Well,
he was a person who believed in what he was doing. We call him a plunderer
today, and from our point of view today, it's justified. But I don't believe that he
thought of himself that way at all. He was a man mad
for the classics. NARRATOR: Today,
the Greek government is petitioning to have the
infamous Elgin marbles returned to a new museum being
built in Athens, however, the British government has
refused to return them. MARGARET MILES: Should the Elgin
marbles be returned to Athens? Many people would say yes,
that these sculptures belong with the original building. It's a complicated
ethical question, and one that deserves serious
consideration and debate. My feeling is that the
Greeks today in Athens are well able to take care of
the marbles in a proper way, and my feeling is that the
marbles should be returned to Athens. WILLIAM MACDONALD: There are
two sides to the question. It's very hard to
take a side of it. But I know that if I were
a teacher in the University of Athens, I would
passionately want them back. You know, born Greek and brought
up on the Greek heritage, one understands that. NARRATOR: It took centuries
for the country of Greece to reclaim its independence. Now, how is the city of Athens
attempting to reclaim its past? l] Every marble is labeled, no
stone has been left unturned. These are the archeologists
and architects who work on the Acropolis. They're a massive
team determined to piece back together the
monumental mysteries of Athens' past while fighting the
modern day forces of erosion and pollution. The first excavations
began on the Acropolis in 1837 with the founding of
the Archeological Society. Between 1885 and
1891, archeologists from all over the world
began unearthing treasures that revealed the brilliance
of the Acropolis temples. Early discoveries were the 12
statues of maidens called korai found near the Erechteion,
which had not been seen in 2 and 1/2 millennia. At one time, hundreds
of these sculptures were scattered amongst
the temples as presents to the goddess Athena. Almost all the original marbles
from the Temple of Athena Nike, which was destroyed during
the Turkish invasion, were collected and used to
entirely reconstruct the temple to its former splendor. The sacred Erechteion has also
been completely rebuilt stone by stone. Yet, without the existence
of drafting plans, notes, or photographs, how
are these archeologists and architects
able to reconstruct these ancient temples? Always, there are problems
which come up during the works. NARRATOR: Dr. Tasos
Tanoulas is an architect who has made unlocking the
secrets of the Acropolis a lifelong endeavor. He has been responsible
for locating and numbering most of the marbles
on the Acropolis. By studying these broken
pieces, as well as unearthing the foundations of
these ancient temples, Dr. Tanoulas and his colleagues
are trying to solve the world's greatest jigsaw puzzle. When the exact position on
the building is identified, is found, we give another
number which shows exactly which place of the monument
this block was originally. [non-english speech] It is like a puzzle. I mean, it goes only in one
place, not in many places. So this is something
good, but of course, we understand that it needs a lot
of experience and, how to say, a familiarity with the
object, the material, the ecological material
of the building. NARRATOR: Restoration work on
the Parthenon is far from over, yet will restoring these
limestone temples enable archeologists to make new
discoveries about Athens' past? This whole
concept that we have of looking at a building
like the Parthenon, with its glimmering
white Pentelic, marble is very much a modern concept. We know, for example, with
buildings like the Parthenon, were also painted in bright
colors, reds and blues and blacks. It allows us to look at the
past in a totally different way. There are numerous
buildings in Athens that we know of that we
have not yet uncovered. One could start with the
town hall at the Prytaneion where the eternal
flame was kept. We've never found that. That's one of the
pleasures of excavation is you never know what you're
going to find absolutely, and you stand always to
learn a great deal more about Greek history
or Greek civilization, but you can't predict
it until you start. NARRATOR: Today, the
ancient monuments of Athens are only a shell of
their former glory, many stripped of their
sculpture, roofs, and very foundations. The ancient
sacrifices and rituals that took place in and
around these shrines are lost in the pages
of history books. Although much has been either
forgotten or destroyed, why do these crumbling monuments
still fascinate modern day visitors to Athens? MARGARET MILES: I
think that even today, looking at these remains, which
are so partial, and even rather sad, we still sense that-- the sense of aspiration
and achievement and aesthetic
perfection that is there intrinsically in the buildings. So I would say that it's
the buildings themselves that are the principal
lure for visitors today. NARRATOR: Athens still remains
a fertile bastion for those in search of an ancient past
through its monuments that have survived the test of time. ACTOR AS PERICLES: Future
ages will wonder at us, as the present age
wonders at us now. Pericles. [music playing]
