The Edinburgh Parthenon

Wednesday 26 April 2006. I'm in Edinburgh to do some training at Edinburgh University. There were many such visits to Edinburgh, sometimes to train university staff and sometimes to train staff from local colleges, these latter events being arranged by the local JISC Regional Support Centre.

On this occasion I climbed the hill from the eastern end of Princes Street up to the Parthenon. Not quite with the same weight of time behind it as the one in Athens, or even with the same purpose in mind, it never-the-less is an imposing sight from below. There was, perhaps, a brief thought along the lines of "where's the rest of it?", but hey... The tower on the right is Nelson's Monument. It supports a naval semaphore. A string of these were built within sight of each other originating at the Admiralty in London and in emergencies a message could be sent to the far end of the country by waving the arms of the semaphore. Given how many days it would have taken to travel by ship or overland in those days of wooden fighting ships, the semaphore could be used to gain intelligence of enemy shipping movements. Or a dispatch rider could send, "Expect me on Thursday - have the kettle on..."

In the case of this particular tower, it would be clearly visible by telescope from any Naval shipping moored in the Firth of Forth below me to the north. Together the Paqrthenon and Nelson's Monument make up the National Monument of Scotland, a memorial to the Napoleonic Wars.

A telescopic view from the same spot brings the Firth of Forth a bit closer. The Royal Yacht Britannia is moored there and open to visitors since its retirement as a conveyance for the Queen.

Edinburgh is somewhat hilly. In fact it is bewilderingly laid out with fairly steep roads suddenly crossing deep ravines. One such is Low Calton, over which this archway was built to take the Great London Road across the fifty foot (15m) deep ravine. It was opened during the visit of Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, later King Leopold I, the first king of the Belgians and the uncle of Prince Albert, the consort to Queen Victoria.

One of the buildings of the Edinburgh University.

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A Weekend in London

From Shrewsbury I drove into central London where we would spend the weekend. Fran was already in the hotel, having struggled with late trains due to the horrendous weather that was spreading over Scotland and the Lake District.

Gill and Eddie had been down to Disneyland Paris for a couple of days and we met them at St Pancras station off the Eurostar train.

On Saturday we spent the morning in the British Museum.

I was keen to see the Elgin Marbles, having been to see the Parthenon in Athens earlier in the year. The row of sculptures here come from one of the great triangular pediments.

You can see here a copy of the horse's head in situ - it was coming out of the sea, pulling a chariot that is still beneath the waves. The next figure is Dionysus and to reconstruct any further figures the Greeks are shaping stone to reconstruct the pediment itself.

Lord Elgin had permission from the Turkish Ottomans to remove sculptures and he took around half of them. It has been much criticised since and the Greeks want them back and certainly the Parthenon would look much better with the sculptures in place. Set against this however is the fact that, at the time, it was reported that any marble that fell from the Parthenon, ancient sculpture or not, was being burned to produce lime for fresh building work. So if he had not taken the sculptures we can assume that some at least would not exist today.

Then we had a look at the Egyptian galleries with their mummified figures and sarcophagi. It's a bit spooky really. These are real dead people. Britain doesn't do death well - we are not allowed to look on death. When it happens in public the police immediately seal off areas, close roads, erect screens and keep us away. Even if it's a poor Celtic serf whose bones have been dug up after 1600 years.

And lastly, the magnificent bronze ceremonial Roman helmet, found at Ribchester in Lancashire where the Romans had a cavalry fort, Bremetennacum Veteranorum.

After lunch Eddie went off to watch Blackpool play Reading and we, inevitably, hit the West End shops. We met up again and enjoyed an excellent meal at The Mermaid's Tail on Leicester Square. And then somehow I pulled the muscle in the back of my leg as we were heading back to the hotel and by the time we got there I was in agony. Fran also had a massive bruise by the time we got there because as we walked (or hobbled in my case) through Russell Square Gardens I trod on a fallen branch, the other end of which whipped up and dug into her ankle.

But we soldiered on gamely and walked down to Covent Garden on Sunday morning where Eddie and I had a look round the London Transport Museum whilst the ladies indulged in yet more shopping!

The Athens Acropolis

Wednesday, 26 August 2009. We sail into Piraeus and head for the breakfast restaurant extremely early - our coach to Athens and the Acropolis sets off at 7:30am!!!

Mind you, it was worth it as we were only the second coach to arrive at the Acropolis. The photo shows the Propylaea - gateway to the Acropolis. We had climbed up roughly 200 steps and several ramps to get here and we were feeling thankful it wasn't in the midday heat!

The Parthenon. Already the crowds were starting to gather and we ducked out of the lengthy explanations from the guide in order to grab photos whilst there was a chance of finding room to move about. The Parthenon is a temple of the Greek goddess Athena whom the people of Athens considered their protector. It was built in the 5th century BC and is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece.

Freshly dressed stone lying waiting to be used in the restoration of the Parthenon. In the 6th century AD, the Parthenon was converted into a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary. After the Ottoman Turk conquest, it was converted into a mosque in the early 1460s, and it had a minaret built in it.

The Erechtheum, seen across the ruins of the fallen Temple to Athena. The temple as seen today was built between 421 and 407 BC. Its architect may have been Mnesicles, and it derived its name from a shrine dedicated to the legendary Greek hero Erichthonius. It may have been built in honour of the legendary King Erechtheus, who is said to have been buried nearby.

It has the famous "Porch of the Maidens", with six female figures supporting the porch roof. The figures are the caryatids and carry the weight of the porch and its roof on their necks.

The temple itself was dedicated to Athena Polias and Poseidon Erechtheus. Apparently there was a sacred snake of the temple, which lived in the foundations somewhere. The Athenians believed that its well-being was linked with the safety of the city. Consequently the pampered reptile was fed honey-cakes by the priestesses of Athena Polias and if it ever refused to eat the cakes this was seen as a disastrous omen.

Back to the Parthenon. On 26 September 1687 an Ottoman Turk ammunition dump inside the building was ignited by Venetian bombardment. The resulting explosion severely damaged the Parthenon and its sculptures. In 1806, the Earl of Elgin removed some of the sculptures, with Ottoman Turk permission. These sculptures, are the Elgin Marbles or the Parthenon Marbles and reside in the British Museum in London.

The Theatre of Dionysus at the foot of the hill of the Acropolis was dedicated to the god of wine and fertility. Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes have all appeared here - but not for a number of years...

The Acropolis makes a wonderful viewpoint over the city of Athens. This hill is the one that Cliff Richard sang "The Next Time" on in the film Summer Holiday.

I suspect Athens has grown a bit since the Acropolis was built!

In the distance are the remains of the Temple of Olympian Zeus. It took 650 years to build by which time Athens was under the rule of the Romans through Emperor Hadrian.

The Odeon of Herodes Atticus is a stone theatre structure located on the south slope of the Acropolis. It was built in 161 AD by Herodes Atticus in remembrance of his wife, Aspasia Annia Regilla. It had a wooden roof, and was used as a venue for music concerts with a capacity of 5,000.

By the time we had seen all these sights the Acropolis was heaving with people to the extent that we had to push our way through people, particularly at the Propylaea and steps down from the gateway. Given that the steps are fairly steep and with no hand rails this made us a little wary to say the least!

We came to the bottom near the Odeon of Herodes Atticus which is seen from ground level here. The Parthenon peeps over the top of the Acropolis hill.

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