Secrets Of The Parthenon
Erected by the ancient Greeks as a temple to Athena, the Parthenon has served as a church, a fortress, an ammunition dump and the model for countless banks, courthouses and museums across the world. It has been shot at, exploded, set on fire, rocked by earthquakes, looted for its magnificent sculptures and subjected to restorations that have been termed "catastrophic." Despite so much abuse and renown as an icon of Western civilization, the question of how the Parthenon was built has remained a mystery. Now, thanks to the Greek government’s multi-million dollar restoration program, scholars are finally uncovering the secrets of its design and construction. With unprecedented access, NOVA presents the inside story of the official restoration, which reaches far beyond the challenges and controversies of conserving one of the worlds best-known buildings. The researchers are confronting some truly monumental riddles: How did the ancient Athenians build their great temple with such incredible precision in just eight years? How did they manage to incorporate subtle, eye-pleasing distortions into the Parthenon’s layout, such that there are almost no straight lines or right angles in the entire monument? And, most baffling of all, how did they accomplish all this without an overall building plan or blueprint, which would be indispensable to a modern architect?
