[FairOpinion]

Its austere white is on every postcard, but the Athens Parthenon, seen here illuminated at night 17 January 2006, was originally daubed with red, blue and green, the Greek archaeologist supervising conservation work on the 2,400-year-old temple said.(AFP/File/Aris Messinis) Email Photo Print Photo

[FairOpinion]

GGG ping

[Squantos]

Went up there real early one morning to get the sunrise in some pictures and noted there were a bunch of workers spreading marble chips near the walks and paths.....

When asked why , they said everyone wanted a souvenir from the site so the workers collect the marble chips from a quarry a few miles away and "salt" the site for the thieving tourists......:o)

[Savage Beast]

On a tour of the Acropolis, my Greek guide (who was excellent and delightful) lamented, with considerable malediction, the relocation of the Parthenon Marbles to Britain by Lord Elgin. I made her even madder by wishing that Elgin had gotten the Victory of Samothrace and the Venus di Milo out of Greece before they got their arms blown off.

[snarks_when_bored]

On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time
John Keats

My spirit is too weak; mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep,
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring round the heart an indescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time—with a billowy main,
A sun, a shadow of a magnitude.

[NCC-1701]

The original in Athens



Here is Nashville's carbon copy of the Parthenon.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks FairOpinion. Yeah, ye olde sculptures were the ancient analogue to the modern lawn dwarf.

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[wildbill]

Would be a shame if true: The Greeks didn't really realize that white was the classic look.